A Comparison Of The Cooperative Principle And Relevance Theory

Pragmatics is the study of the relationship between linguistic symbols and their users. It is a relatively new discipline that has developed rapidly in the last thirty years. Pragmatics takes human factors into its consideration and therefore provides a dynamic approach to the study of linguistic phenomena.The study of conversation, among the concerns of pragmatic study, is not only the most typical and representative one, but the hottest one as well, which draws more and more attention of linguists. People turn their attention to conversation because it is the basic behavior of human verbal communication, from which many pragmatic problems can be reflected. The study of conversation can be regarded as studying theverbal communication in the real situation.The most representative one of those who make their contributions to the study of conversation is Grice. He proposes the famous Cooperative Principle, which is proved to be one of the most influential theories in the development of pragmatics. The Cooperative Principle, though very influential, is problematical in some ways and requires supplementing and developing.Relevance Theory is a theory developed by Sperber and Wilson on the basis of criticizing the Cooperative Principle. It is a new approach to pragmatics and verbal communication, which attempts to answer not only philosophical questions about the riature of communication, but also psychological questions about how the interpretation process unfolds in the hearer's mind. In Relevance Theory, pragmatic interpretation is substantially seen as a psychological matter governed by the cognitive principle and communicative principle. Thus it has been considered the fundamentals of cognitive pragmatics with its explanatory power, although it is still at an early stage of development. Controversial as some aspects of the theory are, it does not diminish the significance of Relevance Theory as a whole, it has proved to be a very powerful theory that can account for a wide range of linguistic and cognitive problems.The Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory, though both are theories about verbal communication, have significant distinctions in many aspects. Making a comparison between them will help promote the development of these theories of verbal communication and also the development of pragmatics as a whole.The dissertation consists of five major parts. The first part serves as an introduction to the main approaches to the study of conversation. The second and third parts outline the main thesis of the Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory. The fourth part makes a systematic comparison between the CP and RT with reference to the following aspects: 1) the theoretical sources; 2) the theoretical models; 3) the inferential models; 4) the definitions of "meaning"; 5) the definitions of "context"; and 6) the approaches to the interpretation of metaphor. And comments will be made on the differences between them following the comparison of each aspect. And finally come the conclusion of the comparison and some comments on the prospect of the study of verbal communication.