Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Preliminary remarks 1
1.2 Rationale of the present study 1
1.3 Objectives and methodology 2
1.4 Outline of the book 3
Chapter 2 A Review of Previous Literature on Relevance Theory2.1 Rudiments of relevance theory 4
2.1.1 Relevance theory and human communication 4
2.1.2 Dynamic context 6
2.1.3 Mutual manifestness and inference 7
2.1.4 Relevance:a balance between effect and effort 10
2.2 Recent applications of RT to discourse analysis 13
2.2.1 Daniel Dor's approach to newspaper headlines 13
2.2.2 Francisco Yus Ramos'study of humor 14
2.2.3 Deirdre Wilson and Tim Wharton's research in relevance and prosody 17
2.2.4 David Keeble's interpretation of Carlyle's essay 19
2.3 Summary 21
Chapter 3 A Tentative Relevance-Theoretic Framework for Dramatic Textual Analysis 21
3.1 Linguistic level 23
3.1.1 Vocal features 23
3.1.2 Syntactic features 27
3.1.3 Semantic representation 31
3.1.4 Textual features 34
3.2 Visual level 35
3.3 Supralinguistic level 37
3.3.1 Encyclopedic knowledge 37
3.3.2 Context and inference 39
3.4 Optimal and dynamic relevance 45
3.5 Summary 47
Chapter 4 Application of the Framework to the Interpretation of The Birthday Party 47
4.1 Synopsis of the play 50
4.2 Vocal features 52
4.2.1 Pause 52
4.2.2 Tone feature 57
4.2.3 Vocal sounds 59
4.3 Syntactic feature:repetition 62
4.4 Visual features 66
4.4.1 Stanley's glasses 66
4.4.2 The characters'physical movements 68
4.5 Textual cues 70
4.6 Summary 75
Chapter 5 Application Two:Interpretation of The Homecoming 75
5.1 Synopsis of the play 76
5.2 Vocal features 78
5.2.1 Pause 78
5.2.2 Tone feature 85
5.3 Syntactic feature:repetition 87
5.4 Visual feature 94
5.5 Semantic feature:irrelevant responses 95
5.6 Textual cues 97
5.6.1 Textual cues and reasoning along the line of story 97
5.6.2 Textual cues and pronominal reference assignment 101
5.7 Summary 105
Chapter 6 Conclusion 108
6.1 Summary of the major findings 108
6.2 Theoretical and practical implications of the present study 110
6.3 Limitations of the present study and suggestions for further research 111
Bibliography 114