| Relevance Theory (RT for short) studies discourse and oral communication from thepoint of cognitive psychology, which points out that communication is the process ofostensive-inferential communication. Relevance is the core composition of RT. It isdetermined by contextual effect involved in utterance and processing effort. There is directproportion between contextual effect and relevance, and in other equal conditions, the greaterthe contextual effect, the stronger the relevance; processing effort and relevance are ininverse ratio and in other equal conditions, the least the processing effort, the stronger therelevance.Lexical pragmatics studies the specific meaning of word in specific context. Accordingto different contexts, the process of lexical pragmatic enrichment has two directions: lexicalnarrowing and lexical broadening. From the point of view of RT, lexical narrowing andbroadening are the same process, that is to say, the process of looking for the optimalrelevance. Literal meaning of word serves as a clue to activate the relevant relevanceassumption in specific context. When the hearer finds out the satisfactory optimal relevancevia the mutual adjustment of context assumption, encyclopedia knowledge and cognitiveeffect, the lexical pragmatic enrichment ends.As a way of propagating and transmitting information, the role of news headlines cannotbe underestimated. As “eyes” of any pieces of news, news headlines are the essence of thewhole news, which summarizes the basic content of news and guides readers to look for whatinterests them. i.e., news headlines can be seen as the bridge between news and readers.Therefore, news headlines have been paid more and more attention. News headlinesostensively clarify the main content, draw readers attention and lead them to read this news.While the task for readers is to infer news headlines communicative intention with the helpof news information so as to interpret the news headlines successfully. So whether readerscan master the whole contents by means of reading news headlines or not is the key point ofthis thesis. Lexicon is the basic element of news headlines. However, the meanings of lexiconin communication are not fixed but dynamic, i.e., different meanings in different contexts.With the combination of RT and lexical pragmatics, this thesis regards the meanings of lexicon in different contexts as the process of searching optimal relevance. The process oflexical pragmatic enrichment won t stop till the most appropriate meaning of lexicon, oroptimal relevance is found. |
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