Relevance Theory

The paper adopts and modifies Austin’s (1962) notion of perlocutionary effects and argues for recognizing the significance of such effects in communication. I draw a parallel between persuasion, which has received much attention in RT and is believed to be intrinsically linked to comprehension, and other effects, such as amusement or taking offence. I hypothesise that the latter occur not merely as consequences of interpretations consisting in an explicature and a set of implicatures, but that t