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8 *~lfflii'¥:~[Special Lecture]

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor
in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics 1

Deirdre Wilson
Department of Linguistics, UCL and CSMN, Oslo

Both cognitive linguists and relevance theorists are developing original approaches to metaphor. Both. shed new light on old debates and suggest fruitful directions for research. Although there has so far
been little interaction between the two approaches, Raymond Gibbs and Markus Tendahl (2006, 2008)
have recently begun to compare them and consider how they might be combined. This paper isintended as a contribution to that debate. After outlining some parallels and differences between the
two approaches, I will discuss how they might fit together to give a fuller picture of the role of metaphor in language and thought.
Keywords:

1.

Relevance theory, conceptual metaphor, domain mapping, inference, context

Introduction

In the last twenty-five years, traditional approaches to metaphor (in classical rhetoric or Gricean pragmatics, for instance) have been increasingly questioned on both theoretical and experimental grounds. Where traditional approaches treat metaphor as adeparture from a maxim, norm or convention of literal truthfulness, there is a growing
consensus that the Romantic critics of classical rhetoric were right to see metaphor as
entirely normal, natural and pervasive in language. Where traditional approaches treat
metaphor as a purely decorative device with little or no cognitive significance, it isincreasingly recognised that most metaphors cannot be paraphrased in literal terms
without loss to the meaning. Relevance theorists and cognitive linguists, who have both
explicitly distanced themselves from traditional approaches to metaphor, are part of thisgrowing consensus.
However, relevance theorists and cognitive linguists see metaphor as entirely nor-

1 I would like to thank President Masa-aki Yamanashi, Secretary-General Isao Higashimori and theofficers and members of the Pragmatics Society of Japan for wonderful hospitality during my visit to
the 11th Conference in Matsuyama. I am also very grateful to Yuji Nishiyama, Tomoko Matsui,Michiko Takeuchi, Seiji Uchida, Larry Schourup, Robyn Carston, Dan Sperber, Ray Gibbs, Beate
Hampe, Seana Coulson, Hans-Joerg Schmid and Cornelia Muller for valuable discussion and comments on the ideas presented here.

42

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

43

mal and natural for rather different reasons. Cognitive linguists have argued that metaphor is pervasive in language because it is pervasive in thought. 2 As Lakoff andJohnson (1980: 153) put it, "Metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action andonly derivatively a matter of language." On this approach, linguistic metaphors aretreated as surface reflections of underlying conceptual mappings between different cognitive domains (e.g. the domains of love affairs and journeys, theories and buildings,
arguments and fights), and have their roots in cognition rather than communication.
Relevance theorists, on the other hand, have argued that metaphor arises naturally in
linguistic communication, as language is loosely used in an attempt to convey complex
thoughts which may be vague, but need not themselves be metaphorical. On thisapproach, there is a continuum of cases between literal talk, loose talk, hyperbole andmetaphor, none of which is necessarily a surface reflection of any pre-existing conceptual mapping. As Sperber and Wilson (2008: 84) put it, "We see metaphors as simply arange of cases at one end of a continuum that includes literal, loose and hyperbolic
interpretations. In our view, metaphorical interpretations are arrived at in exactly thesame way as these other interpretations. There is no mechanism specific to metaphor,no interesting generalisation that applies only to them."
Until recently, relevance theorists and cognitive linguists have been more concerned with developing and applying their own approaches than comparing them withthose of others. A notable exception has been Raymond Gibbs, whose pioneeringexperimental work draws on elements of both cognitive linguistics and relevance theory,and has had an important influence on both. In two recent papers, Gibbs and Markus
Tendahl (2006, 2008) suggest that, despite some fundamental differences, relevance theory and cognitive linguistics may be seen as providing complementary rather than contradictory approaches to metaphor, and have begun to consider how they might be combined:
Many metaphor scholars ... see these alternative theories as being radically different. After all, cognitive linguistics and relevance theory adhere to very different goals and methodological assumptions . . . These different goals and working
assumptions are so great, in fact, that few metaphor scholars have tried to systematically compare these two theories to understand how and why they differ.
Yet there is also a small underground movement, as we have personally noted atvarious metaphor conferences, to begin thinking about ways that cognitive linguistics and relevance theory perspectives on metaphor may be complementary.
These discussions arise as metaphor scholars . . . struggle with the deficiencies of

For cognitive linguistics approaches to metaphor, see Lakoff and Johnson (1987, 2003), Grady(1997), Gibbs (1998), Fauconnier and Turner (2002, 2008), Ruiz de Mendoza and Perez Hernandez(2003), Hampe (2005) and MUller (2008); see also McGlone (2001).
2

44each theory and begin to understand that both perspectives have something very
important to contribute toward a comprehensive, cognitive theory of metaphor.
(Tendahl and Gibbs 2008: 1824)
In this paper, I would like to take up Gibbs and Tendahl's challenge and suggest someways in which the two approaches to metaphor might combine.
One way of reconciling the apparently incompatible views of relevance theorists
and cognitive linguists about the origin of metaphors would be to look for evidence thatsome metaphors arise in language use and others in thought. As Gibbs and Tendahl
point out, relevance theorists and cognitive linguists tend to focus on metaphors of rather different types. Whereas relevance theorists offer many analyses of standard examples such as (la)-(lc), which are familiar from classical rhetoric, cognitive linguists
have been more concerned with examples such as (2a)-(2c), which they see as reflecting conceptual mappings across cognitive domains:
(1)

(2)

a.
b.
c.
a.
b.
c.

Robert is a computer.
Susan is a wild rose.
Sally is an angel.
Bill's marriage is on the rocks.
He destroyed my defences.
Your theory is falling apart.

(LOVE IS A JOURNEY)(ARGUMENTS ARE FIGHTS)(THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS)

For anyone attempting a unified account of metaphor, the challenge would be to show
how both types of example can be analysed in the same way. In fact, relevance theorists have consistently argued that terms such as 'metaphor' and 'irony' pick out a variety of loosely related phenomena which do not necessarily all work in the same way: inother words, they have consistently argued that metaphor and irony are not natural
kinds. There is thus a genuine question about whether the examples in (1) and (2)exploit the same cognitive and communicative mechanisms, and if so, whether they fit
better with the relevance theory or the cognitive linguistics approach.
A further way of exploring the possible interrelations between the relevance theory
and cognitive linguistic treatments of metaphor would be to look at the central role ofconcepts in both approaches. According to relevance theory, hearers understand linguistic metaphors by using linguistic and contextual clues to create new 'ad hoc' (occasionspecific) concepts, which are typically not identical to any of the concepts linguisticallyencoded by the metaphorically-used word or phrase, although they inherit some of theirinferential properties from those concepts. It might then be reasonable to assume thatthe repeated use of linguistic metaphors linking items from distinct cognitive domains
might set up patterns of conceptual activation similar to those that cognitive linguists
see as characteristic of conceptual metaphor. To take just one illustration, many cultures have a set of flower metaphors (e.g. daisy, lily, violet, rose) which are typicallyapplied to women. From a cognitive linguistics perspective, these linguistic metaphors

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

45

might be seen as surface reflections of an underlying conceptual metaphor WOMEN ARE
FLOWERS, based on systematic correspondences between the domains of women andflowers. From a relevance theory perspective, these linguistic metaphors would be seenas originating in creative uses of language for opportunistic communicative purposes,
which, if repeated often enough, might result in the setting up of systematic correspondences between the domains of women and flowers. Here again, there is a genuine question about whether, and to what extent, conceptual cross-domain mappings originate inlanguage use, and are therefore to be explained at least partly in pragmatic terms.
My aim in this paper is to argue that relevance theory offers a genuine alternative
to cognitive linguistic approaches to metaphor, and can complement these approaches inat least two ways: first, by showing how some metaphors can arise as creative loose
uses of language, and second, by showing how the idea that linguistic metaphors create
new 'ad hoc' concepts has interesting implications for the cognitive linguistics treatmentof metaphor. I hope the resulting picture will provide a basis for future discussion andstimulate further research on the possible interrelations between the two approaches.

2.

Metaphor and lexical pragmatics - How word meanings are modified in use

The aim of a pragmatic account of metaphor is to explain how hearers recognise
the intended meaning of a metaphorical utterance in context. According to relevancetheory, linguistic metaphors originate as loose uses of language, in which a word orphrase is used to communicate a novel 'ad hoc' concept which is broader (more general) than the encoded lexical meaning. In the metaphor Robert is a computer, forinstance, the sentence uttered is (3a), and the encoded lexical meaning of the word computer is the concept COMPUTER, which denotes a certain type of machine used forprocessing information:(3) a.
b.

Sentence uttered: Robert is a computer
Lexical meaning of computer: coMPUTER (i.e. a type of machine)

What the speaker communicates by use of the word computer in (3a), however, is not
the lexical meaning COMPUTER but an 'ad hoc' concept with a broader denotation, whichis constructed in the course of interpreting (3a), and which applies not only to actual
computers but also to people who share some of the encyclopaedic properties of computers (for instance, they process information accurately, lack common sense, intuition,
human feelings, and so on). Thus, what might be communicated by uttering (3a) on aparticular occasion could be represented as in (4), where COMPUTER* is a broader, 'adhoc' concept whose denotation includes both computers and some humans:
(4)

a.
b.

Speaker's explicit meaning: Robert is a COMPUTER*
Implicatures: Robert lacks feelings, processes information well (etc.)

Relevance theory's treatment of metaphor is part of a more general approach to46

lexical pragmatics which is based on the following assumptions. First, the lexical
meaning of a word is merely a clue to the speaker's meaning, and the concept communicated by use of a word typically differs from the lexical meaning. Second, metaphor
is just one of many ways in which lexical meanings can be modified in use. The concept communicated by use of a word may be narrower (more specific) or broader(more general) than the lexical meaning (or it may be narrower in some respects andbroader in others, as is often the case in metaphor). Third, there is a continuum ofcases of broadening, ranging from strictly literal use, through various shades of approximation to hyperbole and metaphor, with no sharp cut-off point between them. Fourth,
all these cases are interpreted in the same way: there are no special pragmatic principles
or mechanisms that apply only to metaphors. And fifth, contrary to what is generally
assumed in Gricean pragmatics and philosophy of language, the concept communicatedby use of a word contributes to what the speaker is taken to have asserted (i.e. thetruth-conditional content of the utterance), and not only to what is implicated (Wilson
and Carston 2007; Sperber and Wilson 2008). Since metaphorical uses of language just like strictly literal uses - contribute to truth-conditional content and fall within thescope of logical connectives, they cannot be dismissed as marginal to the concerns of
linguistics proper. 3
The case of lexical narrowing can be illustrated using an example from Fauconnier
and Turner (2002: 27). As Fauconnier and Turner point out, the phrase red pencil issemantically very vague: the concept RED PENCIL applies to any pencil that stands insome relation to the colour red, e.g. pencils which are painted red, pencils that write inred, pencils smeared with lipstick, pencils used to record the activities of a team dressedin red, and so on. Still, when a teacher marking an essay says "I need a red pencil",
she will certainly have some specific sub-type of red pencil in mind, and in order tounderstand her, the hearer must infer what particular type of red pencil this is. In otherwords, the teacher must be understood as asking not simply for a RED PENCIL, but for a
RED PENCIL*, where RED PENCIL* denotes the particular sub-type of pencil she has inmind. The interpretation of virtually any utterance involves some such form of lexicalnarrowing, and one of the goals of lexical pragmatics is to explain how it is achieved.
Similarly, the interpretation of virtually any utterance involves some form of lexical broadening, in which the concept communicated by use of a word is more generalthan the lexical meaning. The broadening can be almost imperceptible, as in the following cases of approximation:

3 For recent relevance-theoretic treatments of metaphor, see e.g. Carston (2002), Higashimori(2002), Wilson and Sperber (2002), Vega Moreno (2007), Wilson and Carston (2007, 2008), Sperberand Wilson (2008).

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

(5)

a.
b.

47

The play starts at 7.00.
Jane's hair is straight.

The speaker of (Sa) would generally be understood as communicating that the playstarts, not at 7.00 on the dot, but at approximately 7.00 (i.e. 7.00*), and the speaker of(5b) would generally be understood as communicating that Jane's hair is, not straight inthe strict geometric sense, but merely straight in an approximate sense appropriate tohuman hair (i.e. STRAIGHT*). The interpretation of virtually any utterance involves similar types of approximation, where a term with a strict meaning is loosely applied towhat Lasersohn (1999) calls a 'penumbra' of cases which fall just outside the linguistically-specified denotation.
According to relevance theory, approximation shades off imperceptibly into hyperbole. Consider the utterances in (6):
(6)

a.
b.

The lecture hall was empty.
The water is freezing.

Let's suppose that empty in (6a) is narrowed to mean 'empty of people' (as opposed,say, to 'empty of furniture'). Then the utterance would traditionally count as an
approximation if the speaker is taken to mean that there were only a very few people
present. In this case, use of the word empty would be understood as intended to convey
a concept EMPTY*, meaning 'close enough to EMPTY for the differences to be inconsequential'. By contrast, the same utterance would traditionally count as a hyperbole if
the speaker is taken to mean that, although many people were present, there were more
empty seats than might have been expected or desired. In this case, use of the word
empty would be understood as intended to convey a broader concept EMPTY**, meaning'closer to EMPTY than expected or desired'. Here, it is easy to see there is a whole continuum of intermediate cases, with no sharp cut-off point between approximation andhyperbole. For relevance theorists, this is not a matter for concern, since they claimthat the distinction between approximation and hyperbole has no theoretical significance: an utterance does not have to be recognised as an approximation or hyperbole tobe understood, no special interpretive mechanisms are needed in either case, and bothare understood in the same way. However, for theories which draw a sharp distinction
between literal and figurative uses of language, or which treat approximation and hyperbole as involving different interpretive mechanisms, the fact that there is no clear cutoff point between them should be a serious matter for concern. Similar points apply to(6b), where there is a continuum of cases between the use of freezing to mean 'actually
FREEZING', 'almost FREEZING' and 'closer to FREEZING than expected or desired'.
Although metaphor has received a great deal of attention in cognitive linguistics,
and in philosophy and psychology more generally, hyperbole has received much lessattention. According to relevance theory, there is no clear dividing line between hyperbole and metaphor, and an adequate account of metaphor should therefore apply to

48

hyperbole in the same way. To illustrate, consider the utterances in (7):
(7)

a.
b.
c.

John is a giant.
John is as tall as the Eif.fel Tower.
John is incredibly tall.

One possible way of distinguishing hyperbole from metaphor would be to treat hyperbole as involving an increase in quantity along a single dimension (e.g. height), while
metaphor would involve a qualitative change (so that the speaker would be understoodas attributing to John properties not directly linked to height). According to this criterion, (7a) would count as a hyperbole if taken to mean that John is very tall for a human,
and as a metaphor if taken to mean that John stands out for other reasons than simply
his height. However, again there is a gradient between the two types of case, withincreases in quantity along a single dimension ultimately leading to a qualitativechange. For instance, all three utterances in (7) activate thoughts of John's height as
being not merely human but superhuman, and these carry implications for other properties than simply his height. Thus, hyperbole shades off imperceptibly into metaphor,and is not reducible to an ornamental device with little or no cognitive significance.
From a cognitive linguistics perspective, if metaphor is analysed in terms of crossdomain mapping, it follows that hyperbole must be analysed in a similar way. But
while hyperboles such as (7a) or (7b) might conceivably be analysed in terms of suchmappings (e.g. between the domains of people and superhumans, or people and buildings), others, such as (7c), have no obvious analysis in conceptual metaphor terms.
The relevance theory approach to lexical pragmatics suggests that it should be possible to find a single utterance which can be intended and understood literally, loosely,
hyperbolically or metaphorically on different occasions. Here is an illustration:(8)

The audience slept through the lecture.

In certain circumstances, an utterance of (8) might be intended and understood as making the very strong claim that the audience was literally asleep throughout the lecture.
In other circumstances, it might be intended and understood as making the slightly
weaker claim that the audience was, if not literally asleep, at least on the point of falling asleep during the lecture: in traditional terms, it would then count as an approximation. In different circumstances, (8) might be intended and understood as claiming, still
more weakly, that the audience was, if not asleep or on the point of sleep, at least in aphysical state of drowsiness during the lecture: in traditional terms, it would then countas a hyperbole. Finally, in many circumstance, (8) might be intended and understood asmaking a weaker claim still: that the audience, if not literally asleep, on the point of
sleep or even feeling physically drowsy, was at least extremely bored and unresponsive
during the lecture: in traditional terms, it would then count as a metaphor. This example illustrates two central features of relevance theory's approach to lexical pragmatics:
that there is a continuum of cases between literal use, approximation, hyperbole andParallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

49

metaphor, and that the choice between different possible interpretations is heavily context dependent.
The flexibility and context-dependence of lexical-pragmatic interpretation presents achallenge for both relevance theory and cognitive linguistics. The goal of pragmatics is
to explain how hearers infer the speaker's intended meaning from clues provided by theutterance and the context. But if utterance interpretation typically involves the narrowing or broadening of lexical meaning, as relevance theory claims, how do hearers everrecognise the speaker's intended meaning? What factors trigger the narrowing or broadening process? What determines the direction it takes, and when it stops? Similarly, if
utterance interpretation typically involves the use of conceptual metaphors, blending,domain mapping, and so on, as cognitive linguistics claims, how do hearers ever recognise the speaker's intended meaning? What factors trigger the mapping/blending process? What determines the direction it takes, and when it stops? Here, relevance theory
has a concrete proposal to make, which may be of interest to cognitive linguists
attempting to answer parallel questions about how linguistic metaphors are used andunderstood. In the next section, I will briefly outline the basic features of the relevancetheory approach and illustrate its application to metaphorical examples such as those in(1) and (2) above.

3.

Relevance theory and metaphor interpretation

The goal of lexical pragmatics is to explain how lexical meanings are adjusted in
the course of communication. The explanation suggested by relevance theory is that
lexical meanings are adjusted in order to satisfy expectations of relevance. In a nutshell, the theory claims that utterances raise expectations of relevance not raised byother stimuli, and that hearers are entitled to treat the encoded linguistic meaning as aclue to the speaker's meaning, and to follow a path of least effort in adjusting thisencoded meaning to a point where it yields an overall interpretation that satisfies those
expectations.
In more technical terms, relevance is defined as a property of inputs to cognitive
processes (whether external stimuli, which can be perceived and attended to, or internal
representations, which can be stored, recalled, or used as premises in inference). An
input is relevant to an individual when it connects with available contextual assumptions to yield positive cognitive effects (for instance, true contextual implications, warranted strengthenings or revisions of existing assumptions). For present purposes, themost important type of cognitive effect is a contextual implication: an implication
deducible from input and available contextual assumptions together, but from neither
input nor contextual assumptions alone. Other things being equal, the more implications derived, and the smaller the mental effort required (to represent the input, accessan appropriate set of contextual assumptions and derive these implications), the greater

50

the relevance of the input to the individual at that time. 4
Relevance theory is based on two general claims about the role of relevance incognition and communication:
Cognitive Principle of Relevance:
Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximisation of relevance.
Communicative Principle of Relevance:
Every act of overt intentional communication conveys a presumption of its own
optimal relevance.
The Cognitive Principle of Relevance yields a variety of predictions about human cognitive processes. It predicts that the human cognitive system has evolved in such a waythat our perceptual mechanisms tend spontaneously to pick out potentially relevant
stimuli, our memory retrieval mechanisms tend spontaneously to activate potentially relevant assumptions, and our inferential mechanisms tend spontaneously to process themin the most productive way. This principle has essential implications for human communication. In order to communicate, the communicator needs her audience's attention.
If attention tends to go automatically to what seems most relevant at the time, then the
success of communication depends on the audience taking the utterance to be relevant
enough to be worthy of attention. Wanting her communication to succeed, the communicator, by the very act of communicating, indicates that she wants the audience to see
her utterance as relevant, and this is what the Communicative Principle of Relevancestates.
According to relevance theory, the presumption of optimal relevance conveyed byevery utterance is precise enough to ground a specific comprehension heuristic thathearers can use in interpreting the speaker's meaning:
Presumption of optimal relevancea. The utterance is relevant enough to be worth processing.
b. It is the most relevant one compatible with the communicator's abilities andpreferences.
Relevance-guided comprehension heuristic
a. Follow a path of least effort in constructing an interpretation of the utterance(e.g. in resolving ambiguities and referential indeterminacies, adjusting lexical meaning, supplying contextual assumptions, deriving implications, etc.).
b. Stop when your expectations of relevance are satisfied.
A hearer using this heuristic during online comprehension should proceed in the follow-

4 For fuller exposition of relevance theory, and comparison with alternative approaches, see Sperberand Wilson (1995), Carston (2002) and Wilson and Sperber (2004).

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

51

ing way. The aim is to find an overall interpretation that satisfies the presumption of
optimal relevance. To achieve this aim, he must enrich the decoded sentence meaningat the explicit level, and complement it at the implicit level by supplying contextual
assumptions which will combine with it to yield enough implications to make the utterance relevant in the expected way. What route should he follow in disambiguating,assigning reference, adjusting lexical meaning, constructing a context, deriving conclusions, etc.? According to the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic, he should
follow a path of least effort in looking for implications, and stop at the first overall
interpretation that yields enough implications to satisfy his expectations of relevance.
This is the key to relevance-theoretic pragmatics.
As noted above, the goal of lexical pragmatics is to explain what triggers pragmatic adjustment processes such as lexical narrowing and broadening, what direction theytake, and when they stop. Relevance theory suggests the following answers to thesequestions. First, lexical adjustments are triggered by the search for an interpretationthat yields enough implications to satisfy the expectations of relevance raised by theutterance. Second, they follow a path of least effort, starting with the most accessible
contextual assumptions, the most accessible narrowings or broadenings, the most accessible implications. Third, they involve mutually adjusting tentative hypotheses about
contextual assumptions, explicit content (including adjusted 'ad hoc' concepts) and
implications so that the resulting overall interpretation satisfies the expectations of relevance raised by the utterance. And finally, the adjustment process stops when the
expectations of relevance raised by the utterance are satisfied (or abandoned). I will
shortly illustrate how this is done.
As noted above, an important ingredient of this account is the idea that lexical
comprehension typically involves the construction of an 'ad hoc' concept, or occasionspecific sense, which may be broader or narrower than the encoded lexical meaning.
Use of the term 'ad hoc concept' in this connection is often traced to the psychologist
Lawrence Barsalou (1987, 1993), whose work on categorisation showed that prototypical narrowing (i.e. the interpretation of a general term as picking out the subset of prototypical category members) was much more flexible and context-dependent than had
previously been assumed. In later work by the psycholinguist Sam Glucksberg and colleagues (1997, 2001), and by relevance theorists (e.g. Carston 2002; Wilson and Sperber2002), it was suggested that the outcome of the ad hoc concept construction process
could also be a broadening of the encoded lexical meaning. This opened up the possibility of a unified account on which lexical narrowing and broadening (or a combinationof the two) are the outcomes of a single interpretive process which fine-tunes the interpretation of almost every word.
A second important ingredient of this approach to lexical pragmatics is the assumption that lexical concepts (e.g. COMPUTER, GIANT) provide access to an ordered array ofencyclopaedic information about items falling under the concept. This encyclopaedic
information is not seen as part of the semantic content of the concept, but as providing a

52reservoir of potential contextual assumptions which, when added to the context, cancontribute to relevance by yielding contextual implications. A given encyclopaedic
assumption will be more or less accessible on different occasions, and will yield different potential implications depending on what else is present in the utterance and thediscourse context. It will therefore make different contributions to relevance on boththe processing effort and cognitive effects sides. Thus, a speaker who intends her utterance to be understood in a certain way should make sure that the appropriate encyclopaedic assumptions are accessible enough to be selected, added to the context and used
to derive the intended implications by a hearer using the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic.
To illustrate how this account might apply in a case of lexical narrowing, consider
how the utterance in (9) might be understood by a hearer using the relevance-theoretic
comprehension heuristic:(9)

Teacher, carrying a pile of essays: I need a red pencil.

As noted above, the concept RED PENCIL is semantically vague: its denotation includes
any pencil that stands in some relation to the colour red, and it will provide access to ahuge array of encyclopaedic information about such pencils and their uses. Still,according to relevance theory, the utterance of (9) creates a presumption of relevancewhich entitles the addressee to follow a path of least effort in constructing an overall
interpretation on which the utterance yields enough implications to make it relevant in
the expected way. According to spreading activation models of memory, the mostaccessible assumptions in the encyclopaedic entry for RED PENCIL at any given point willbe those simultaneously activated by several features of the utterance and the discourse
context. With (9), the fact that the speaker needs a RED PENCIL should activate encyclopaedic information about the uses to which RED PENCILS can be put. The fact that the
speaker is a teacher will add an extra layer of activation to information about the usesof RED PENCILS by teachers, and this will include the information that teachers use pencils that write in red when marking essays. The fact that the teacher is carrying a pileof essays will add a further layer of activation to this same encyclopaedic assumptionthat teachers use pencils that write in red when marking essays, which should therefore
be the most accessible assumption in the encyclopaedic entry for RED PENCIL during theinterpretation of the utterance in (9). By assuming that the phrase red pencil was
intended to convey not the very general encoded concept RED PENCIL but the narrower
concept RED PENCIL* (ie. 'pencil used to write in red'), the hearer can thus arrive at an
overall interpretation which satisfies his expectation of relevance by implying that theteacher wants him to help her find a RED PENCIL*. According to the relevance-theoretic
comprehension heuristic, he is justified in making this assumption, because it is theleast effort-demanding way of finding an overall interpretation that yields enough implications to make the utterance relevant in the expected way.
To illustrate how the same account might apply in a case of lexical broadening,Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

53

consider how the utterance in (8) above (repeated below for convenience) might beunderstood by a hearer using the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic:(8)

The audience slept through the lecture.

On a Gricean account, (8) should have four distinct interpretations: as a literal assertion,
an approximation, a hyperbole or a metaphor. Of these, the hearer should test the literalinterpretation first, and consider a figurative interpretation only if the literal interpretation blatantly violates the maxim of truthfulness. However, the fact that there is bothexperimental and introspective evidence against the Gricean account when construed as amodel of utterance comprehension (e.g. Gibbs 1994; Glucksberg 2001; Wilson andSperber 2002) justifies the search for an alternative analysis of (8). According to relevance theory, there is no presumption that literal interpretations are the first to be tested.
The encoded concept SLEEP is merely a point of access to an ordered array of encyclopaedic assumptions from which the hearer is expected to choose in constructing an
overall interpretation that satisfies his expectations of relevance. Here, the encyclopaedic entry for SLEEP might give access to the following type of assumptions:

Encyclopaedic entry for SLEEP:
a. become mentally disengaged
b. lose interest in one's surroundingsc. become motionless and unresponsived. gradually lose consciousness
e. undergo physical changes (snoring, slowed heart-rate, deep breathing, etc.)
In different discourse contexts, different members of this set will be more or less accessible, and depending on which of them are chosen, the result will be a relatively narrower or broader interpretation of the word slept. Here, a literal interpretation will
result only if assumption (e) is added to the context. However, since it is extremelyrare for the audience actually to lose consciousness at a lecture, this assumption isunlikely to be strongly activated in that particular discourse context. By contrast, themention of an audience at a lecture is quite likely to activate assumptions such as (a)(c), having to do with loss of interest, unresponsiveness and mental disengagement.
These assumptions, if added to the context, would contribute to relevance by providing
access not only to information about the state of the audience but also to further implications about the quality of the lecture or of the lecturer. The resulting interpretation(which would be traditionally classified as hyperbolic or metaphorical) would be likely
to satisfy the expectations of relevance raised by the utterance. Only if this interpretation fails to satisfy those expectations would the hearer be justified in accessing further
contextual assumptions and moving towards a more literal interpretation.
One consequence of this approach to lexical pragmatics is its prediction that, typically, a loose interpretation, based on a few highly accessible encyclopaedic properties,
will satisfy the hearer's expectation of relevance without a more literal interpretation

54

ever being considered. To illustrate this point further, consider a recent attested example in which the word giant was metaphorically used. When the novelist John Updike
died in January 2009, many obituaries contained comments such as the following:(10)

Updike was a giant.

The question is, how should this utterance be understood? The encyclopaedic entry for
GIANT might provide access to information of the following sort: that giants haveextraordinary height, imposing presence, powers beyond those of ordinary humans,
stand out from the crowd, and so on. What is interesting about this example is that,even though the word giant is very often used hyperbolically to mean 'unusually tall'(as in (7a) above), the utterance of (10) in this particular discourse context would intuitively not be taken to implicate that Updike was very tall. This is so even though
giants are stereotypically associated with unusual height, and, moreover, despite the factthat Updike himself happened to be unusually tall. The relevance-theoretic accountsheds some light on how this utterance is understood. In the first place, the expectations of relevance raised by an obituary of a public figure would lead the audience tolook for implications having more to do with lifetime achievements than with physicalproperties. In this case, processing (10) in the context of easily accessible encyclopaedic information about Updike's status as a novelist should yield enough implications tosatisfy the audience's expectations of relevance without information about his physicalstature being considered at all. As a result, an obituarist who did want to draw attention to Updike's height as well as his achievements as a novelist would have to rephrase(10) in such a way as to encourage them to look for further implications. One way of
doing this would be as in (11 ):(11)Updike was a giant, in every sense of the word.

This reformulation calls for extra processing effort, and according to the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic, it should thus encourage a search for extra implications.
An alternative strategy used by several of Updike's obituarists was to describe him not
simply as a giant, but as a literary giant, or a giant of American literature, again callingfor more processing effort but creating more precise expectations of relevance which
exclude the possibility of considering Updike's physical stature at all.
Returning now to the examples in (l) and (2), I will briefly illustrate how thisapproach might apply in a case of each type. Consider, first, how the metaphor Robert
is a computer might be understood in the following two exchanges:
(12)
(13)

a.
b.
a.
b.

Peter: Is Robert a good accountant?
Mary: Robert is a computer.
Peter: How good a friend is Robert?
Mary: Robert is a computer.

In each case, the encoded sense of computer activates some encyclopaedic features of

Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

55

computers that they may share with some humans. Like the best accountants, computers can process large amounts of numerical information and never make mistakes, andso on. Unlike good friends, computers lack emotions, intuitions, common sense, concern for others, and so on. In each case, in interpreting Mary's utterance, Peter constructs an ad hoc concept COMPUTER* which is indicated, though not encoded, by theword computer, such that Robert's falling under this concept has implications thatanswer the question in (12a) or (13a). Notice that Mary need not have a very precise
idea of the implications that Peter will derive, as long as her utterance encourages him
to derive the kind of implications that answer his question in the intended way. So the
Romantics were right to argue that the figurative meaning of a linguistic metaphor cannot be properly paraphrased. However, this is not because the meaning consists ofsome non-truth-conditional set of associations or 'connotations', as the Romantics
believed, but because it involves an 'ad hoc' concept which is characterised by its inferential role rather than by a definition, and, moreover, because this inferential role - to amuch greater extent than in the case of mere approximations - is left to the hearer toelaborate. In relevance-theoretic terms, metaphorical communication is relatively weakcommunication (on the notion of weak communication, see Wilson and Sperber 2004;
Sperber and Wilson 2008).
Finally, consider how the metaphorical utterance in (2a) above (repeated below for
convenience) might be analysed on this approach:(2)a.

Bill's marriage is on the rocks.

Let's suppose that this metaphor is being encountered for the first time by someone
whose encyclopaedic information about marriage contains no conceptual metaphors of
the type MARRIAGES ARE JOURNEYS. In this discourse context, the hearer would be entitled
to expect (2a) to achieve relevance by carrying implications about the state of Bill'smarriage, and the most highly activated assumptions in his encyclopaedic entry for theconcept ON THE ROCKS would be those that apply not only to voyages but also to (some)marriages. For instance, both voyages and marriages have a shorter or longer duration,and may end in more or less desirable or unexpected ways. Both voyages and marriages have participants who may experience various degrees of fear or distress and needvarious forms of help or comfort if they end in undesirable or unexpected ways. Given
this, it should be possible to construct an ad hoc concept ON THE ROCKS*, which is indicated, though not encoded, by the phrase on the rocks, and which is such that the claimthat Bill's marriage falls under this concept carries implications about the state of his
marriage that make the utterance relevant in the expected way. Similar implications
would be carried by a wide range of linguistic metaphors unconnected with the conceptual metaphor MARRIAGES ARE JOURNEYS. For instance, descriptions of Bill's marriage as
down the drain, down the plug hole, out the window, up in flames, on its last legs, on its
deathbed, and so on, would achieve relevance in broadly similar ways (but with subtle
differences in the types of implications they activate, which would make the choice

56

between them more than a purely arbitrary affair).
This analysis shows how the linguistic meaning of the phrase on the rocks might
be spontaneously adjusted in constructing an interpretation that is relevant in the expected way, even by someone with no previous experience of metaphorical uses linking
love affairs to journeys. But of course, many of the examples used in both relevancetheory and cognitive linguistics contain metaphorical expressions whose interpretation ismore or less a matter of routine. Moreover, cognitive linguists have made valuable
contributions to our understanding of how linguistic metaphors often cluster around acentral theme, so that a marriage may be described, for instance not only as on therocks, but in other terms related to voyages: e.g. in the doldrums, stormy, tempestuous
or becalmed. I will end this section by considering how the repeated use of linguistic
metaphors may lead to the setting up of systematic conceptual correspondences of thetype that cognitive linguists have so fruitfully studied.
According to relevance theory, the lexical meaning of virtually every word in an
utterance is contextually adjusted in order to satisfy expectations of relevance. The
adjustment process may be a spontaneous, one-off affair, involving the construction of
an 'ad hoc' concept which is used once and then forgotten; or it may be regularly andfrequently followed, by a few people or a group, until, over time, the resulting 'ad hoc'
concept may stabilise in a community and give rise to an extra lexicalised sense(Sperber and Wilson 1998; Vega Moreno 2007; Wilson and Carston 2007). As Vega
Moreno (2007) shows, routinisation affects the amount of processing effort needed tounderstand an utterance: the more a word is broadened or narrowed in a particular way,
the less effort it will cost to follow the same route in the future, and hence the more
likely it is to be followed by hearers using the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic.
Repeated encounters with linguistic metaphors linking two conceptual domains(e.g. the domains of marriage and voyages, or women and flowers) may lead to the setting up of systematic cross-domain correspondences of the type familiar from cognitive
linguists, so that thoughts of marriage may automatically activate aspects of our encyclopaedic information about journeys, and thoughts of women may automatically activate aspects of our encyclopaedic knowledge of flowers, just as cognitive linguists predict. These cross-domain correspondences would in turn facilitate the production andinterpretation of new linguistic metaphors based on the same conceptual activation patterns, resulting in thematically-related clusters of linguistic metaphors, just as cognitive
linguists predict. On relevance theory's account, these patterns of activation would ultimately derive from the repeated use of linguistic metaphors, and thus arise for communicative rather than purely cognitive reasons.

4.

Broader implications
As Gibbs and Tendahl (2008: 1824) point out, relevance theory and cognitive lin-Parallels and Differences in the Treatment of Metaphor in Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics

57

guistics differ in some of their goals and working assumptions. These differences haveoften obscured the broader parallels in their approaches to metaphor, and to lexical
meaning in general. Having drawn attention to some of these parallels and. argued thatin many respects the two approaches are complementary rather than contradictory, I willend by outlining some of the differences between them and considering how they might
be resolved.
As noted above, a central difference is that cognitive linguists see linguistic metaphors as depending on pre-existing cross-domain mappings, whereas relevance theory
suggests that cross-domain conceptual mappings may result from repeated use of linguistic metaphors, but are not essential to either the production or the interpretation of
metaphors. More generally, relevance theorists see metaphors as arising primarily in
linguistic communication, whereas cognitive linguists see them as arising primarily inthought. I have suggested that the two approaches could be reconciled by finding evidence that some cross-domain mappings arise in language and others in thought.
However, these differences in the treatment of metaphor can be traced to a more
fundamental difference in the relative priority that the two approaches assign to thestudy of communication (as opposed to cognition). Both relevance theory and cognitive
linguistics reject the Conduit metaphor (i.e. the code model of communication) as inadequate, and both advocate an inferential approach to communication. But while cognitive linguists tend to assume that understanding utterances is simply a matter of applying general-purpose cognitive and linguistic abilities to the communicative domain, relevance theorists have argued that understanding utterances involves special-purpose
inferential procedures that apply only in the communicative domain. According to relevance theory, utterance comprehension involves not merely drawing common-sense
inferences, but drawing inferences about the communicator's meaning, which is a complex mental state consisting of both an informative and a communication intention.
Inferring this meaning therefore crucially involves an ability to 'mindread' (i.e. to infer
the mental states of others on the basis of their behaviour), and there is a growing bodyof evidence that 'mindreading' is a special-purpose inferential ability with its own specific patterns of development and breakdown. 5 In fact, relevance theorists have goneeven further, and argued that the ability to infer communicators' meanings involves
more specialised inferential procedures attuned to regularities that exist only in the communicative domain (Sperber and Wilson 2002). 6 These regularities include the fact
described in the Communicative Principle of Relevance, that utterances (and other acts

See Astington et al. (1988), Wellman, Cross and Watson (2001), Sodian (2004), Matsui et al.
(2006, in press).
6 Further evidence that communication is a special-purpose ability is provided in Southgate, vanMaanen and Csibra (2007) Liszkowski, Carpenter and Tomasello (2008), Southgate, Chevallier andCsibra (in press), Wilson (forthcoming).
5

58

of overt communication) raise expectations of relevance not raised by ordinary actions,and underpin the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic, a special-purpose inferential procedure which yields valid results only when applied to overt communicativeacts. These differences in the treatment of overt communication in relevance theory
and cognitive linguistics could be resolved by further developmental or neuropsychological evidence.
It is worth pointing out that while waiting for this issue to be resolved, cognitive
linguistics still stands to benefit from relevance theory in two important ways. In thefirst place, cognitive linguists face a major challenge in explaining how hearers not only
understand most metaphorical utterances, but typically understand them in the way the
speaker intended. A pragmatic approach such as relevance theory, which fits well withmany of the assumptions of cognitive linguistics, suggests a natural way of explaining
how the inferences hearers draw in communicative situations might be suitably constrained. In the second place, although cognitive linguists and relevance theorists haveboth emphasised the importance of inference in metaphor interpretation, cognitive linguists face a major challenge in explaining how the inferences that hearers draw in thecourse of utterance comprehension are properly warranted. Lakoff and Johnson (2003:
246) see the key to their approach to conceptual metaphor as lying in the fact that "wesystematically use inference patterns from one conceptual domain to reason aboutanother." But as both conceptual metaphor theorists and blending theorists recognise,
not all the inferential patterns from one conceptual domain are valid when carried overto the other. What is needed is some way of distinguishing mere conceptual associations or co-activations from valid inferences. Here again, relevance theory suggests a
possible way out. What makes it valid to draw a particular inference in interpreting agiven utterance is that, unless this inference were valid, the utterance would not yieldenough implications to be relevant in the expected way. Thus, a speaker who formulates her utterance in such a way as to encourage her hearer to derive a certain inference is largely responsible for its validity. Thus, here again, a pragmatic account of
metaphor of the type proposed by relevance theory might have worthwhile implications
for cognitive linguistics.

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