Relevance theory and citations

Abstract

Relevance theory (RT) holds that the relevance of communications is determined by their cognitive effects and the effort needed to process them. The evidence is usually drawn from dialogues between speakers and hearers. Self-communing scholars and scientists afford a new source of real-world evidence as they cite various works over time. Authors cite works with the intention of strengthening their claims in context – a cognitive effect for them as well as for readers – and the works they choose to cite most frequently are found through least-effort behavior. Indicators of least effort include heavy reliance on self-citation, re-citation of a limited number of acquaintances and orienting figures known through reading, and the use of closely related vocabulary across texts. Such practices produce the power-law distributions of citations and terms that are ubiquitous in bibliometrics. These distributions accord well with the claimed universality of RT's Cognitive Principle on maximization of relevance. Authors maximize the relevance of citations for themselves, then optimize those citations for readers under the Communicative Principle. Examples are drawn from a set of course readings, the citation records of three authors, and word-association data. Major tenets of RT have considerable power in explaining various findings from citation research.