People like Talbot and Fairclough are basically interested in the roles
that communication plays in society and in particular in how it sustains
or challenges various ideas or attitudes. They have no interest in the
cognitive processes which make any kind of communication possible, and
they can't understand how anyone else could be. They are a bit like some
soccer fans who can't understand how anyone could possibly be interested
in anything else.
Bob Borsley
On Sun, 21 May 2000, Dan Sperber wrote:
> Amazon.com (the US site) carries the following "customer's review"
> of _Relevance_ together with the lowest possible rating. Oh well...
>
>
> A problematic understanding of relevance April 28, 2000
> Reviewer: birger hjørland (see more about me) from Denmark
> The understanding of the concept of relevance in this book confused me. I
> was therefore happy when I read the important article by Talbot (1997),
> which contains a discussion of the approach suggested by Sperber & Wilson
> (1995). Talbot writes, that the drawback of the model suggested by Sperber
> & Wilson is that it is an asocial model, a model lacking any social
> element. "Relevance presents an internationalist view of action. In it,
> people are depicted as individuals who confront unique problems in
> communication. In the real world, however, people are social beings who are
> working within preexisting conventions. This latter view of the language
> user and the nature of communication is practiced in studies of discourse
> analysis, especially in certain later developments (e.g., Fairclough,
> 1989). In Sperber and Wilson's model, differences between people are
> depicted solely as differences between individuals' cognitive environments.
> These differences are assumed to stem from variations in physical
> environment and cognitive ability between people. Considerations of culture
> and society are notably absent in the characterization of individuals'
> cognitive environments. In Relevance, the authors work with a
> "commonsensical" view of all individuals sharing essentially the same
> epistemological organization of the real world. . . The consequences of
> such disregard are serious . . ." (Talbot, 1997, p.446).
> In my own view a theory about relevance must essentially be an
> epistemological theory. In a given domain, there exists differents
> theories, metatheories, "paradigms" etc., which in a very strong way
> implies what is relevant. In psychology, for example, there is a big
> difference between what is regarded relevant by a behaviorist and by a
> psychoanalyst. You cannot study relevance neglecting the different
> "theories" from which human beings interact with the world. For a longer
> discussion see my paper "Relevance research: the missing perspective(s).
> "non-relevance" and "epistemological relevance" in Journal of the American
> Society for Information Science, 2000, vol. 51, no. 2, pp.209-211.
> Talbot, M. M. (1997). Relevance. IN: Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of
> Language. Ed. By P. V. Lamarque & R. E. Asher. (Pp. 445-447). New York:
> Pergamon.
>
> -----------------------------
> Dan Sperber
> CREA - Ecole Polytechnique
> 1 rue Descartes
> 75005 Paris, France
>
> email: sperber@poly.polytechnique.fr
> web page: http://www.dan.sperber.com
> -----------------------------
>
I am now a member of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the
University of Essex (http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/), and am in
Essex most of the time. However, it is convenient at present to go on
using my Bangor e-mail address.
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