Compare and Contrast Grice's and Relevance Theory's Treatment of Non Literal Language

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Grice's and Relevance Theory's Treatment of Non Literal Language

Introduction

There has been a great deal of discussion of late regarding the concept of human communication. Communication can occur literally and this literal language may give some non-literal meaning by performing speech acts that evokes subtle aberrations from the utterance. Non-literal use of language has become one main concern, which offers some significant discussions. Grice holds the view that the speaker flouts the system of the conversational maxims (Grice's cooperative principles) when attempting to use the non-literal language such as, hyperbole and metaphor.

In contrast, relevance theorists refute what Grice has accounted for and claim that the interpretation of this kind of meaning is aroused naturally as a result of the interpretation procedure of the Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 2004). Both arguments will be thoroughly discussed throughout the present essay. This essay will include a brief account of the use of the non-literal language. It will then compare the two arguments, and highlight the significant aspects of each of the two models. It will be claimed that Relevance Theory is more scientific and allows room for further research in the field.

Non-Literal Language

It can be seen that the interest of investigating the effects of the non-literal language upon hearers and the way this figurative language, as it were, works in the mind, goes a back a long way to the Romans and Greeks era (Carston, 2012). Figures of speech “tropes”, including irony, metonymy, hyperbole and metaphor, and how they can be applied to make a speech more attractive, and effective to its addressees were the basic concern of the study at that time. The emphasis in this idea was on theses tropes and their unusual nature, the assumption being that this figurative meaning conveys the content, which is addressed by a literal paraphrase. Describing a marriage as 'golden cage', and referring to a man as a 'lion' are simply lively ways of expressing a literal counterpart. For example, 'brave person' for 'lion', and 'unhappy relationship' for 'bloody battleground' (Carston 2012).

Romantics, conversely, have vigorously criticized this view and have insisted that the figurative language is frequent and normal, and the effects of the non-literal uses are not captured by a literal paraphrase (Sperber and Wilson 1990). Nevertheless, the classical thought resurfaced in modern pragmatics, in the inferential communication model popularized by Paul Grice (1967).

Grice's Theory

The center of the Grice's clam is that a basic feature of human communication is the recognition and expression of intention (Sperber &Wilson 2004). Grice has developed this claim by proposing the inferential communication theory as an alternative to the code model view. He also claims that spontaneously utterance generates expectations, which lead the receptionist towards the speaker's meaning. He described these expectations as a cooperative principle of Maxims (Carston 2012). With regard to the non-literal language use, Grice treats the cases (metonymy, metaphor, understatement, hyperbole, irony, etc.) as instances where a communicator utters something ...