This book seeks to explain how discourse types influence the addressee's understanding of the communicator's intention. Examining global coherence-based accounts as well as proposals based on Gricean pragmatics, it argues that the key to a solution lies in the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance proposed by Sperber & Wilson.

Genre, Relevance and Global Coherence seeks to explain how discourse types or genre may influence the addressee's inferential processes in identifying the communicator's intention. There are two main areas where such an influence is often felt: the interpretation of tense and aspect markers is often said to differ in various text types, and the communication of implicatures is said to differ in various talk-exchange types. The first type of genre effects is usually approached by global coherence-based accounts whereas the second by proposals based on Gricean pragmatics. This study examines both types of accounts, arguing that the key to a solution lies in the interplay of the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance proposed by Sperber and Wilson. It unravels intricate relations between cognitive mechanisms, communicative principles and expectations of relevance in complex ostensive stimuli such as texts.

Gripping stories, whether modern or ancient, always include heroes and villains. The Synoptic Gospels, chock full of villains (religious leaders and others) in pursuit of an emerging hero (Jesus), are no different. Drawing first-century Jews into their familiar past and beckoning modern readers to join in its appreciation, these writers employ a literary tactic that intensifies this conflict; they depict these characters as Old Testament heroes and villains. To enter this fascinating, intertextual character portrayal, this book, in building on eighty years of lament studies, advances our understanding of the Synoptists's literary and rhetorical use of the Psalmic Lament in relation to other Old Testament motifs to characterize Jesus and his opponents. Other contributions made along the way, including insights into the Synoptists's literary appropriation of Isaiah's Servant, are all geared toward helping us better understand how Matthew, Mark, and Luke characterize their hero and villains.

How hearers arrive at intended meaning, which elements encode processing instructions in certain languages, how procedural meaning and prosody interact, how diverse types of utterances are interpreted, how epistemic vigilance mechanisms work, which linguistic elements assist those mechanisms, how a critical attitude to information and informers develops when a second language is learnt, or why some perlocutionary effects originate are some of the varied issues that have intrigued pragmatists, and relevance theorists in particular, and continue to fuel research. In this collection readers will discover new proposals based on the cognitive framework put forward by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson three decades ago. Their gripping, insightful and stimulating discussions, combined in some cases with meticulous and in-depth analyses, show the directions relevance theory has recently followed. Moreover, this collection also unveils fruitful and promising interactions with areas like morphology, prosody, language typology, interlanguage pragmatics, machine translation, or rhetoric and argumentation, and avenues for future research.

In order to reconcile the discrepancies between ancient and modern cosmology, confessional scholars from every viewpoint on the interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis agree that God accommodated language to finite human understanding. But in the history of interpretation, no consensus has emerged regarding what accommodation entails at the linguistic level. More precise consideration of how the ancient cognitive environment functions in the informative intention of the divine and human authors is necessary. Not only does relevance theory validate interpretative options that are inherently most probable within the primary communication situation, but the application of relevance theory can also help disentangle the complexities of dual authorship inherent in any model of accommodation. The results also make a salutary contribution to the theological reading of Scripture.

The present volume covers a variety of topics which are at the centre of interest in pragmatic research: understanding and believing, reference, politeness, communication problems, stylistics, metaphor, and humour. Next to innovative theoretical proposals, there are interesting analyses and discussions.

Showcases recent research by leading scholars working within the relevance-theoretic pragmatics framework.