Postscript from the 1995 edition of “Relevance: communication & cognition”

Abstract

This text reviews the principle of relevance as defined in the1986 edition of “Relevance: communication & cognition”, as well as some notions related to it. From this review results a systematization of two principles: the first, cognitive, postulates that human communication tends to be geared towards the maximization of relevance; the second, communicative, kept as in the original work, establishes that each ostensive communicative act communicates an assumption of its own optimal relevance. In addition, the authors discuss developments and perspectives of the Relevance Theory.