A Relevance-theoretic Study To Speech Act Of Commissives

Abstract

The current research deals with Pragmatic theory or "Relevance Theory" with reference to its relation with speech acts especially commissive verbs . This research is an attempt to clarify the term "Relevance Theory" and what it means. To understand how relevance theory  works,  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  account  the role of context in distinguishing  between  the  speaker's  intention  and  hearer's  interpretation. Consequently,  Relevance theory is based on a definition of relevance and two principles of relevance: a Cognitive principle(that human cognition is geared to the maximization of relevance), and a Communicative principle(that utterances create expectations of optimal relevance). This study tries to explain the motivation for these principles and illustrate their application to variety of speech act commissives and pragmatic problems in these verbs. This paper is divided into four sections.