Perlocutionary effects and relevance theory

Abstract

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 they may also have some impact on the inferential path and ultimately on the outcome of the comprehension process. To support this view, I refer to selected psychological findings on the inseparability of cognition and affect in stimuli processing.

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