Conversational Relevance, From The Interview Language

How human beings communicate with language has always been the focus of study in different fields, thus there exist various of theories concerning models and concepts of communication. Relevance Theory put forward by Dan Sperber & Deirdre Wilson focuses on the principle of human communication, i.e. Principle of Relevance, which studies communication, especially verbal communication from the perspective of cognition, cognitive theory becoming the focused study of pragmatics.Firstly the paper introduces background of Relevance theory. Secondly, code model of communication and inferential model put forward by Grice are discussed, on which the communication theory of Relevance Theory is emphasized. Moreover, the basic concepts of Relevance Theory are discussed, including its definition, principles, cognitive environment, and ostensive-inferential model, etc. Interview languages are then taken as examples to analyze relevance of conversation. This paper concludes that under the guidance of cognitive theory, Relevance Theory is powerful in reasonable explanation and successful practice.