Communication, Argumentation and Relevance

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to argue that a theory of argumentation can be incorporated into a theory of communication (i.e. Relevance Theory). Whereas argumentation is the process of justifying something in an organized or a logical way, which is composed of one or more claims and shows one or more grounds for maintaining them, communication is sharing communicators’ intentions. A speaker’s conveying of his intention to hearer is to create an effect in the hearer’s mind. Two pragmatic theories, Relevance Theory (henceforth RT) and argumentation theory (henceforth AT) are involved in this approach, which is based on the position that communication is always accompanied with argumentation. However, RT has been more focused on explaining how the utterance is interpreted by the hearer, not how argumentation is performed. For this reason, this approach presented here argues for the needs to extend the scope of RT’s application. This integrated approach within a single principle of relevance ultimately contributes to pursuing a more economic and coherent explanation of argumentation.