Relevance-Theoretical Account of Pragmatic Enrichment in Translation

Abstract

The fully propositional meaning of an utterance can not be achieved without some pragmatic enrichment of the linguistically encoded semantic meanings. Successful interpretation is actually a contextual-oriented inferential work as specified by the Relevance Theory. Pragmatic enrichment is triggered by the search of optimal relevance in constructing an interpretation of an utterance. It is important to follow a path of least effort in the interpretation process and stop when the expectation of relevance is satisfied.