Relevance theory and media discourse: A verbal-visual model of communication

Abstract

In 1986 Sperber and Wilson's Relevance theory emerged in pragmatic analyses as an ambitious attempt to provide a thorough explanation of how addressees pick up one single interpretation (based on nondemonstrative inference) that is consistent with the addresser's intention. In the application of this theory to media discourse, some problems arise associated with the correct attribution of the addresser's (author or character) communicative intention. One reason can be found in the lack of physical, face-to-face co-presence of both ends of media communication: author and spectator. The aim of the present article is to propose a Model for verbal-visual media discourse extracted from Sperber and Wilson's ideas which comprises the interpretive possibilities of media communication in sixteen categories with four basic qualifying parameters: addressee, verbal or nonverbal discourse, intentionality, and the outcome of the addressee's interpretation. The article ends with an exemplification of some categories of this Model using English comics as one of the verbal-visual discourses that can be analysed under the perspective of this Model.