Relevance Theory and the Effect of Literature on Beliefs

Abstract

To what extent does literature affect our beliefs about the real world? Relevance theory offers new ways of exploring that old question. That is partly because relevance theory embraces the whole communications circuit: it tracks the communication of meaning from author via text to reader, rather than focusing on just one of those phases. It can also describe how unintended meaning can be inferred by readers. The question of the effect of literature upon beliefs is explored through one case study (Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and through various notions drawn from relevance theory: cognitive environments; contextual assumptions; implicatures; internal and external relevance; epistemic vigilance. It is argued that the evanescence or durability of any effects that literature may have upon readers’ beliefs can be investigated by combining those relevance-theoretic notions with ones drawn from certain other cognitive or literary-critical approaches: immersion; kinesis; perceptual simulation; tagging.