Description: This edited volume is the first extensive exploration of the value for literary studies of the model of communication known as relevance theory which stresses the importance of context and inference in the interpretation of communicative acts.
Review Quotes: "...the important contribution this volume makes to the understanding of relevance theory and its relation to literary interpretation. It shows explicitly what relevance theory shares with other cognitive approaches and how it differs. In respecting the power of literary language as ostensive performance, it invites rather than imposes interpretative strategies that inform the best of literary criticism." -- Margaret H. Freeman, Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts, Modern Language Review