Relevance Relations in Discourse: A Study with Special Reference to Sissala

Using data from Sissala, a previously unanalyzed language, this book shows that the analysis of text and discourse is best approached from a cognitive rather than a strictly linguistic point of view. In two introductory chapters, Regina Blass argues that Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory, a general account of communication and cognition, sheds more light on conversational data than do alternative linguistic approaches based on such notions as cohesion, coherence, and topic. In subsequent chapters, she discusses the Sissala equivalents of words such as "indeed," "so," "after all," and "also," and compares them with their English, French, and German counterparts. This book offers convincing evidence that although cultural backgrounds may vary considerably, the principles involved in utterance interpretation are universally the same.