Page 468 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory
environment. They define a cognitive environment as follows:
A cognitive environment is merely a set of assumptions which the individual is capable of mentally representing. (1986:46)
Differences in the cognitive environments of two peo- ple are simply differences in individual possession of facts, experience, and ability; people's stocks of assumptions vary according to their physical environ- ments and cognitive abilities. On the basis of a com- plex of assumptions, H can infer the relevance of S's ostension. Sperber and Wilson argue that this capacity to infer relevance is the fundamental human infor- mation-processing activity. (They compare this human capacity to various nonhuman information- processing abilities, one of which is the instinctive ability of a frog to track insects.)
The authors account for variations in the strength of assumptions in terms of the degree to which they are made 'manifest' to an individual. An assumption actually 'entertained' by an individual is knowledge of which s/he has a mental representation. Other assumptions are only potential; these are possible assumptions, which an individual may (but need not) have mental representations of, which are hence potentially part of his/her manifest knowledge. An individual's cognitive environment is all his/her mani- fest knowledge: 'An individual's total cognitive environment is the set of all the facts that he can perceive or infer: all the facts that are manifest to him' (1986:39). The most strongly manifest (i.e., 'most readily assumable') assumptions are those derived directly from perceptual sources, and those with long processing histories. The weakest are assumptions that can only be derived with effort: potentially com- putable implications from entries in memory store, or deductions that can be made from other assumptions.
5. TheIdentificationofImplications
In RT,the principle of relevance governs the recovery of implicatures; a speaker's expectations about how to be maximally relevant are the means by which implicatures can be worked out. The authors' explor- ation of implicature offers two useful innovations: a distinction between implicated premises and impli- cated conclusions, and an alternative to an untenably clearcut divide between determinate and inde- terminate implicatures. Only the second of these inno- vations results from the elevation of the maxim of relevance to the status of an overriding principle.
6. AnAsocialModel
In Relevance, human beings are viewed as information processors with an inbuilt capacity to infer relevance.
This single capacity is assumed to be the key to human communication and cognition. Around this assump- tion, the authors build a model which they claim offers a unified theory of cognition, to serve as the foun- dation for an approach to the study of human com- munication. A drawback of the model, however, is its lack of any social element.
6.1 Individuals and Cognitive Environments
Relevance theory hinges on S's intention to inform and H's corresponding recognition of this intention. This recognition requires H to infer a connection between some action performed by S and S's intention in carrying it out; in other words, H constructs a Ideological explanation for S's action. Teleology alone, however, is not enough for a theory of social action. Relevance presents an intentionalist view of action. In it, people are depicted as individuals who confront unique problems in communication. In the real world, however, people are social beings who are working within preexisting conventions. This latter view of the language-user and the nature of com- munication is practiced in studies of discourse analy- sis, especially in certain later developments (e.g., Fairclough 1989).
In Sperber and Wilson's model, differences between people are depicted solely as differences between indi- viduals' cognitive environments. These differences are assumed to stem from variations in physical environ- ment and cognitive ability between people. Con- siderations of culture and society are notably absent in the characterization of individuals' cognitive environments. In Relevance, the authors work with a 'commonsensical' view of all individuals sharing essentially the same epistemological organization of the real world. This is not to say that Sperber and Wilson are claiming that the assumptions making up people's cognitive environments are necessarily facts; they insist that they are presenting a cognitive approach rather than an epistemological one. In this insistence, they are stressing that they are not con- cerned with the truth or falsity of assumptions. But even a cognitive approach must rest on some con- ception of epistemology; if this conception is not explicitly focused on, it will nevertheless be present but in an unreflective form.
The consequences of such disregard are serious. For if language analysts are to construct a ideological explanation for someone's action, they need to make assumptions about that person's knowledge struc- tures. The analysts assume the actor's assumptions. Similarly, the hearer in Sperber and Wilson's model needs to make assumptions about the speaker's knowledge structures. The authors claim that H can infer (and therefore assume) S's assumptions on the basis of knowledge of S's cognitive environment. But they do not attend to how H might know (or make
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