Relevance Theory: Design the Inferential Path, Not Just the Sentence

Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 365

Design the route to the meaning

Sperber and Wilson explain comprehension as a search for sufficiently rewarding interpretation, making accessible context and processing effort part of communication design

Premise

Word-for-word understanding does not guarantee intended meaning. Listeners still assign reference, fill omitted material, resolve ambiguity, choose context, infer implications, and recognize indirectness. Relevance Theory explains that work as ostensive-inferential communication: a communicator supplies evidence of an informative intention, and the audience infers a meaning from language plus contextual assumptions.

For executives, communication design cannot stop at semantic completeness. It must anticipate which context becomes accessible first, what makes the message worth processing, and how much inferential work precedes the intended interpretation.

What the model is: Relevance Theory in Knowledge →