A Study on the Relevance Theory from the Perspective of Ostensive-inference Communication

The “Theory of Relevance” has revised Grice's Conversational Implicature from the viewpoint of Cognitive Science. It points out that language communication refers to a mode of cognitive inference, therefore, it is a new approach to the study of pragmatics. By comparing the relevance theory to Grice's implicature theory, the paper mainly demonstrates some contents and concepts of the relevance theory and its ostensive-inference mode. Through practice, it proves to be powerful in the understanding and cognition of language. And it also contributes greatly to the study of the cognitive science, linguistics, linguistic philosophy and so on.