Relevance Rhetoric Narrative

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Relevance, Rhetoric, NarrativeAuthor(s): Michael KearnsSource: Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Summer, 2001), pp. 73-92Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886043

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Michael Kearns

RELEVANCE, RHETORIC, NARRATIVEAbstract.Relevance is a universalfutnction of communication by whichhumans innately attempt to balance processing effort with the cognitiveeffectof an utterance. Relevancetheory nfonns the cognitive and rhetoricaldimensionsof readinga narrativeby (a) defining heconditionsunderwhicha text will initially be takenas a narrative(emphasizingcontextselection,display, and tellability) and (b) delimiting the unmarkedcases of the ur-comenetions.for eadingnarrative(naturalizationand progression . Theseur-conventions and the Cognitive and Communicative Principles ofRelevancealso groundclaims about the roleplayed by narrative n humans'searchfor rationalityand moral identity.

SCENARIO NEbored financial consultantwith a two-hourlayoverin the DFW

airportnotices a coverlessbooknext to herin a lounge area. Be-ing cautious, she doesn't at first pick it up, but she's able to read thefirstpage:-Something's a little strange,that'swhatyou notice, that she's notawomanlike all the others. Shelooks fairlyyoung,twenty-five, maybea little more, petite face, a little catlike, small turned-upnose. The

shape of her face, it's . . . more roundish than oval, broad forehead,pronouncedcheeks too butthen they come down to a point, like withcats.-What about her eyes?-Clear, prettysurethey're green,half-closed to focus better on thedrawing. She looks at hersubject: heblackpantherat the zoo, which

was quiet at first, stretchedout in its cage. But when the girl made anoise with her easel andchair,the pantherspottedher andbegan pac-ing back and forthin its cage, andto growl at the girl,who up to thenwas still havingtrouble with shading n the drawing.-Couldn't the animalsmell her before that?-No, there's a big slab of meatin the cage ... (Puig 3)SCENARIOTwoAn earth-sciencemajor,enrolled in WeirdNovels strictlybecause sheneeds anotherupper-levelelective credit to graduate, opens the first bookassignedfor the course, titled Kiss of the Spider Woman,andbegins readingthe same material.73 RSQ:RhetoricSociety QuarterlyVolume31, Number 3 Summer2001


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74 RHETORIC SOCIETY QUARTERLY

Bothreaders, f they continue,will haveapproximatelyhe sameexperi-ence, which we term readinga narrative. Both readers encounter, in thefirst sentence,an invocationof 'tellability -there'ssomething strangeaboutthis woman that makes her worth telling about. Both readers also quicklyencounterpast-tense verbs, indicatingthat one of the speakersis telling astory. Thequestion-and-answertructure uggeststwo charactersn conver-sation, which is a common way for narratives o begin. However,the expe-riencesof these two readerswill also differin importantways. The consult-ant will probablygo througha longer periodof uncertaintyandwill spendmore time re-readingin orderto figure out what sort of experience thesewords are offering her. Why these differences, and why is it fairly safe topredictthatboth readerswill at least take the textas narrative?How muchofthe beginningdifferences andthe final similaritycanbe attributedo featuresof the text, how much to the context, and how much to what each of thesereadersbringsto the experience? Accordingto ManfredJahn, readingcom-bines top-down(frame-determined) ndbottom-up(data-determined) og-nitive strategies ; [t]heframetells us what the data s [sic], and thedatatellsus whetherwe can continue using the frame (464, 448). The process ofreadingcan be understoodas an interplaybetween the Primacypreferencerule: Retain a framefor as long as possible, and the Recencypreferencerule: Allow a replacement rame to reinterpretpreviousdata (457). Theserules, however,can't predictwhen each of these readerswill decide to takethe text as a narrative-when each will firstadopt henarrative-readingrameand what conditionsthe readingexperiencemustfulfill in orderfor a readerto retain that frame. Hypothetically,both readersare free to do whateverthey want with this text, but several features in the text (past tense verbs,conversation,cohesive ties) as well as the basic fact that the text has beenprintedand bound n book formguidebothreaders o the narrative eadingscript,whichis basedon two ur-conventions:naturalization ndprogression.This guidanceis grounded n the Principlesof Relevance, as I suggestedinRhetorical Narratology, but there I stopped well short of explaining howthese Principlesactuallyinform the cognitive andrhetorical dimensions ofreadinga narrative, hatis, how theyinfluenceframe selection and retention.Filling in this gap is my purposehere, in order to bring relevance theorymoreprominently nto the discussion of this specific type of rhetorical nter-action-narrative-and to suggest that it be extended to other types as well.I will be arguingthat narrative hetoric(withina text) and the reader'sexperience of that rhetoric(narrativity)both exemplify and depend on thePrinciplesof Relevance. Narrative s a type of communication;as such,it isamoreorless controlledmodificationbythe communicator f the audience'smentallandscape-or 'cognitiveenvironment'as we call it-achieved in anintentional andovertway (SperberandWilson, Rhetoricand Relevance


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KEARNS/RELEVANCE, RHETORIC, NARRATIVE 75

144). Relevance theory makes a claim about how the mind functions -that the mind is preset for maximal relevance (Pilkington, TheLiteraryReading Process 118)andassumesintentionality n theenvironmentsharedby readerand text (Campbell 150). Thus relevance theory can be seen ascontributing o thetheoreticalbase of rhetoric,conceived as purposefulcom-munication.I focus on reading rather han on other means of experiencing narrative,althoughI believe thatmy argumentholds for all formats,and on fictionalnarratives,although again I believe thatthe ur-conventionshold for factualnarrativesas well. (Anotherur-convention,heteroglossia, holds only for fic-tional narratives,as I explain in Rhetorical Narratology.) These limitationsnotwithstanding,my work facilitates the refinement of some of the claimsaboutthe fundamental oleplayed by narrativen humanexperienceandaboutthe applicabilityof rhetoricalprinciplesto this role. I discuss these claims inmy final section, afterdeveloping a relevance-theoryconceptof narrativeasdisplay and after describingin detail the ur-conventions. This analysis ofnarrativeappropriatelyalls under the domain of rhetoricrather han of lin-guistics precisely because I'm working with principles of relevance. Fol-lowing Geoffrey Leach,Nils Erik Enkvist explains that rhetoric s governedby principles,in contrastto grammar,which is (or at least tries to be) rule-governed ( Textand Discourse Linguistics 13). My analysis of the pro-cesses by which a text is takento be a narrativeemphasizesthatthere arenoguaranteesn the interactionbetweena text and areaderexcept that the readerwill seek a context that maximizes cognitive effect and minimizes process-ing effort. Finding such a context is a probabilisticaffairrather han a pre-cisely calibratedoutcome of the applicationof rules.NARRATIVEAS DISPLAY:A RELEVANCE-THEORYERSPECTIVE

The theory of relevance is based on the assumption by all parties in anycommunication that the communication is relevant to the immediate situa-tion. Drawing on psycholinguistics as well as on critiques of John Searle,Paul Grice, and other speech-act philosophers, Sperber and Wilson arguethat relevance is an innate and universal function by which humans at-tempt to maximize the cognitive effect of an utterance while minimizing theeffortrequired o process the utterance. This argumentrelies on the osten-sive-inferential model of communication, n which ostensive behavior sthat which makesmanifestan intentionto makesomethingmanifest (Rel-evance 49). Once the receiver of an utterance determines that the utteranceincludes an ostensive behavior,the receiver can use the strategyof inferenceto determinewhatadditional ntention the utterance s conveying. A helpfulexamplecomes from Paul Churchland.One can introducethe term horseto someone else by pointingto an actual horse andsaying That s a horse.


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This showing plus saying is an ostensivedefinition, n which the speakerexpectsthe hearerto notice therelevant featuresof the situationpresented,and to be able to reapplythe termwhen a new situation also contains them(Churchland51). The key elementsin this example are the verbalformulaThis is an X, the gesture of pointing, and the mutualunderstandingbe-tween speakerand hearerthatanact of definingis happening.Such an act would be much less likely to succeed withoutthe pointing,which establishes an immediate situationalcontext that directs the hearer onotice salient featuresof some X. The complete verbal formula, however,need not be present,as any parentof a toddler knows: pointing and sayinghorse suffices. The act of defining by pointingand saying is flexible andnot susceptibleof precisedescription.There has to be an ostensivebehavior,and this behaviorprobablymust include a verbalsignal as well as a body-languagesignalor acontextualeventthathastheeffect of focusingthehearer'sattentionin a particularway. The act will probablysucceed if the hearerdeems it relevant to the context andif it contains both a verbalsignal andagesturethattogether canbe understoodby the heareras meaning This s anX. However, nothing can guaranteea felicitous act of definition. If thehearerbelongs to a culture n whichtheactof pointingandsayingsomething

means eatthis rather han add his to yourrepertoireof verbalsigns, theact will fail.ForSperberand Wilson, relevance is the most basic element shared bythe communicatorand the recipient;without it, people could not make theinferences that are necessitated by even the most trivial interchanges. Toadapta frequently mentioned example, if I ask my wife Wouldyou likesome coffee? andshe replies Coffee would keepme awake, I infer yes,no, or maybe based on context(is it morningorevening, are we athomeor on a roadtrip),my knowledge of herbeveragepreferences,and so forth.I'm able almost instantaneously o sortthrough hese factorsbecause I takeherresponse as maximallyrelevantto my query,within the immediate con-text of thatquery. Each of us operateswith the assumptionthat the other'slinguistic behavior s intentional,anassumption hat s necessaryfor the com-municationof themessage(Blakemore, Relevance 5). A central actaboutlanguage is that the linguistic propertiesof an utteranceseriously under-determine ts interpretation:t will include referentialexpressionswith unde-terminedreferents; t may containambiguousor vague expressions;it maybe elliptical;and ts intended llocutionary orcemaynot be fully determined.Moreover,there are aspects of interpretationor which no linguistic clue isgiven at all (Blakemore,SemanticConstraints62). My interpretation f mywife's utterance xemplifiessuch a linguisticallycluelessinterpretation, hichcould not be successful (except by chance) were it not for relevance. Simi-larly, the consultant's likely decision to take the found text as a narrative


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can't be explained simply on the basis of its linguistic properties. The past-tense verbs and cohesive ties in the speech of the first speaker strongly sug-gest thathe is telling a story,butto assume thatthe dialogue itself embodiesanotherstory requiresthe readerto make an inferential eap;the dialogue isunder-determined s a narrative.As a general concept, relevance would only be suggestive. SperberandWilson'sapproachgainsits explanatorypowerfrom their formulationof twoprinciples describing its operation. The CommunicativePrinciple, which isshared by all participantsn the communication, s that Everyact of osten-sive communicationcommunicatesthe presumptionof its own optimal rel-evance (SperberandWilson, Relevance 158). The Cognitive Principle isexpressedin these two assumptionsthat the addressee will make:

(a) The ostensive stimulus is relevantenoughfor it to be worththeaddressee'swhile to processit.(b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevantone compatiblewiththe communicator'sabilities andpreferences.(SperberandWilson,Relevance270)Thus,relevancelinkscognition and communicationby establishingas aloose parameter he drive to maximize cognitive effect while minimizingprocessing effort, appropriate ffect being establishedby the context.According to Sperberand Wilson, relevance does a betterjob of ex-plaininghow humansareactuallyable to communicatethan do the conver-sationalmaxims that Paul Grice derives from what he termsthe Coopera-tive Principle,in his seminal study Logic and Conversation(1967). Theyshow thatrelevanceis moreexplicit andassumesless sharedpurpose, n thatcommunicatorsonly need to sharethepurposeof achieving uptake: hatis,

to have the communicator's nformative intention recognised by the audi-ence (Relevance 161). They also insist that relevance is intuitive, unlikeGrice'smaxims: whereas communicatorsneed to learnGrice'sprinciples inorder o communicateadequately, hey need no more know theprincipleofrelevanceto communicate han they need to know the principles of geneticsto reproduce 162). (Additional validation of relevance theory comes fromthe currentassociationalandparallel-distributed-processingmodels of cog-nition-see Williams.) Campbell explains that the recipientof a messagearrives at inferences by a context-determinedassessmentof the probabilityof each (146, 149-50); this is not to say that the recipient consciously calcu-lates the probabilitiesbutthat the human mind is designed automatically owork this way. The consultant takes that coverless book as a narrativebe-cause it seems to promiseadherence o the ur-conventions.Early n her read-ing experience she can't be sure that her expectationof progressionwill be


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met, but she infers thatthis will happenbecause the two speakersseem to beengagedin a dialogue with a temporal low and with some tensions and enig-mas. In our experience, most such dialogues (at least in printed form) aregoing somewhere. Andshe caneffortlesslynaturalize he dialogue. (Detailsaboutthe ur-conventions ollow in the next section.)Theconsultant's nferenceaboutdevelopmentexemplifies the basic driveto maximize the relevance of an utterance,a drive which leads a listenertochoose the context(s) that will achieve this end: contexts are chosen, notgiven (Pilkington, Poetic Effects:A RelevanceTheory Perspective 54; seealso Pilkington, Introduction 59-60). Itis theinterplaybetweenthis driveandthe correspondingdrive to minimizeprocessingeffort that accounts forthe success of rhetorical strategies whose perception and interpretation e-quireeffort. The relevance of anutterance or a listener s its cognitive effecton the listener; an utterance hat requiresconsiderableeffort to process willbe experiencedas relevantif the effect is large. Any knowledgeablereaderwho sets out to read a lyric poem by Emily Dickinson expects to invest moreeffort than is requiredto read a typical newspaperarticle. But given thatexpectation,the Principlesof Relevance apply. They apply equally to thecase of specialist reading-the studentin the WeirdNovels course, forinstance. The text doesn't establish its own context; she constructs t on thebasis of the course description,the syllabus,the firstday's lecture,and otherpertinentmaterials,so she needs to invest muchless effortin actually begin-ning to readthan does the consultant.Like somecontemporaryhetoricians ndall speech-act heorists,Sperberand Wilson focus on languagein use; they do not see textual characteristicsas intrinsicallydefinitive of genre types. Speech-act theory,concernednotonly with locution (what is said) but with allocution very roughly,what ismeant) andperlocution (the effect of an utteranceon its audience), consis-tently asks What s this language being used for? Forthe type of text andexperiencewe term narrative, hat use begins with display. John Searle,perhapsthe most influentialspeech-act theorist,treatsmeaningas primarilydeterminedby the use to which an utterance s put, its illocutionary point.Searle identifies five categoriesof use: assertives (statingor hypothesizingthat somethingis the case), directives (orderingor inviting someone to dosomething),commissives(promisingorguaranteeing omething),expressives(expressinga psychological statein the contextof some proposition, e.g. Ithankyou ), and declarations(bringingaboutthe conditionthey name, e.g.

Ipronounceyou guilty spoken by a judge) (12-19). However, Searle saysnothing about language being used to call attention o itself or to the speaker.This is the use thatJames Kinneavy identifies as literature -not literatureas a kind of text but as one of the four aims of discourse (39); the otheraims are reference, persuasion, and expression (39-40). I propose that the


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aims of what Kinneavy terms expression and literature re so similarthat both can be combined into the single category of use, display, whichdemonstrates the leading characteristicof ostension, calling attention toeither the text or the text's produceror both. (While text and producer dostand as discrete categories, distinguishing between the two is not alwayspossible, nor is it reallynecessary-display is still theuse.) Display actuallycomes fairlyclose to Searle's directive ategory,although it doesn't fit theexamples he gives: a display is inviting an audience to notice its purpose todisplay itself or its maker.As a type of use, display is a necessary but not a sufficient condition fora text to be taken as narrative; hedisplaymust also be associatedwith a stateof affairs understood by the audience as intended by the speaker o betellable. This is the crucialpointmadeby MaryLouise Pratt,who consid-ers language from the perspectiveof the socially constitutedactions it per-forms. According to Pratt,display texts, in contrastto informingasser-tions, assert statesof affairs that are held to be unusual, contrary o expec-tations, or otherwise problematic;nformingassertionsmay do so, but theydo not have to, and it is not their point to do so (136). The verbrather hanthe nounsense of displayis importanthere: an audienceattributes o either atext or the speakerbehindthe textthe act of assertingthat a state of affairsistellable.News and footnotes can be contrastivelyused to refine the notion ofdisplay. By convention,a news event s unusualorproblematic.A newstext is the reportof this event. But the function served by a news textdependson the extralinguisticcontext. Most people take newspaperarticlesas informative,whereas the segments of 60 Minutes seem intended to betaken,andaretaken,as calling in additionfor interpretationandevaluation.These are two different uses: assertive(to inform) and display (to call forinterpretation revaluation,orboth). The news pages of a newspaperwillbe read as assertives(statingthatsomethingis the case), whereas a 60 Min-utes segment will be viewed as intendingto elicit, from the audience, anassignmentof meaningand value.Similarly, that form of text we term the footnote, which in an aca-demic contextusuallyexists only to inform,in a differentsettingcan be seenas display. In Kiss of the Spider Woman, he only way most of my studentscan make sense of the obtrusive and obtuse footnotes is by assuming thatPuig intends the informationthey presentto be taken as irrelevant; he rel-evance of the footnotes is actuallytheir irrelevance. As display elements, inthis context, these footnote texts can be takenas makingthe point that aca-demic explanationsof human behaviormiss the point. The ostensive stimu-lus in this case consists of the presenceof footnotes in a context where theyusually have no place, and of the resultingclash between the purposes of


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assertion and display. Puig's act of placing suchfootnotesin a narrativeis anostension;readersbehavingrationallywill assume thatPuighad aratio-nal purpose in using them, so a reader's question becomes How can I takethese footnotesin order o preservemy sense of rationalpurposeandoptimalrelevance in this communicationof which I am a part? One plausible an-swer is to take them as intendingnot to be taken at all, hence to ceasereading them-as some of my students do. This actionon the partof mystudentsprobablyhas thematicrelevance,since the novel thematizessexualand textual politics; students'evaluationandrejectionof the footnotes be-comes a political act of which Puig himself mighthave approved.In the terms used by Sperber and Wilson, the display text conveys anostension that makes manifest an intention to display. For a text to betaken as narrative, his display must be interpretedas having an additionalpurpose,to invite, as Prattputs it, an nterpretation f theproblematicevent,an assignmentof meaning andvalue supportedby the consensus of speakerand audience (136). This mutualunderstandings sociallyconstituted ; ttakesplace within a contextthat has been selected to privilegenarrativeandthus establishes the relevance of a text deemed to be narrative. In ordertotake Kiss of theSpiderWoman s narrative,boththe studentand the consult-

ant must come to the conclusion thatthis text is calling attentionto itself inorderalso to call attention o an unusualstate of affairs. Havingreachedthisconclusion, bothreaderswill then expect the text to adhere o theur-conven-tions of naturalization ndprogression,as I show in the next section.Pratt's emphasison interpretationdoes not mean that an audiencemustunderstandhe interpretationntendedby the speaker,only that the audiencewill take such an intention as present. The understanding omes about be-causeeitherspeakerandaudienceor text andaudiencesharean extralinguisticinstitution -for instance, the literature ection of a bookstore-and be-cause theCognitiveand CommunicativePrinciplesare n force. Somethinga little strange,that'swhatyou notice -for bothValentin(the listener)andthe reader, his statementof Molina's strongly signals tellability. The state-ment by A. R.-G. thatprefacesIn the Labyrinth unctionsthe same way,althoughenigmatically: Thereader s thereforerequested o see in [thisnar-rative] only theobjects, actions, words, and events which are described,with-out attempting o give them either moreor less meaning thanin his own life,or his own death 140). But even without that statement, he novel's open-ing sentence conveys a sense of a state of affairs that the voice deems inter-esting: Iam aloneherenow, under cover (141, emphasisadded).NATURALIZATION AND PROGRESSION

Display, then,is a category of illocutionaryact;as manifested n writtentexts, this act will be located withinwhat Searleterms extralinguistic nsti-


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tutions (18) such as a bookstore,a course, the featuressection of a newspa-per, a Beastie Boys concert. The display act will be termed successful if theact's recipientaccepts the locution, the text, as a display; that is, displaybecomes partof the context selected by the recipient in order to maximizecognitive effect, a maximizingthat leads to the kinds of activities describedby Pratt:contemplating,evaluating,and responding. All narrativebelongsto that kind of language use termed display. To this necessary contextualcondition must be addedanother,thatof tellability: the narrative ext is ofinterest because it representsan unusualor problematicstate of affairs.Thisinterpretive ontext established, he readerwill then expect theread-ing experience to fulfill the ur-conventionsof narrative. In 1981 Susan S.Lanser noted the single ur-conventionof naturalization ut also recom-mended thatmore work be doneon theconventionsthat govern the sendingand receiving of display texts (287). In Rhetorical Narratology I addedauthorialreading and progression but now deem the former unneces-sary,as I will explain shortly. (See RhetoricalNarratologvy,Chapter2.)These ur-conventions define what an audience will expect having de-cided to approacha text as a narrative-not featuresthatcan be objectivelyprovento exist within the text butconditions thatwill exist in the interactionamongreader,ext,andcontextandthatareusuallystimulated ndreinforcedbytextualfeatures. Foreach convention,anunmarked nd a markedcase can bedescribed, he formerbeing what is conventionally xpectedandthe latterre-quiringan audienceto shift theroutineboundarybetween automaticversusattentional rocessing Beaugrande8). BecausetheCognitiveandCommuni-cative Principlesof Relevanceare always n force,theaudiencewill attempt omaximizecognitive uptakeand minimizeprocessingeffort,but the acceptablelevel of effort hangesdepending ntheselected ontextanddepending nwhetherthe audience experiences either ur-conventionas marked. In RhetoricalNarratology asserted hatmarkings importantn understandingherhetoricaleffect of variousaspectsof narrativeechnique,an assertion hatI now arguemust begrounded n thePrinciples f Relevance.Thatwhichis markeds beingprocessedwith conscious attentionandmust be experiencedas justifying,withgreater ognitiveeffect, this additionalcognitive effort.I originallybelieved that authorial eadingconstituteda separateur-con-dition, but if I'm now correctthat the Principlesof Relevance establish thepreconditionsor narrative ndnarrativity,henI feel compelledto availmyselfof Occam's Razor andpareaway authorialreadingfrom the list. Accordingto Peter Rabinowitz, to read authorially s to seek for authorialintention,understoodas social convention ratherhanas whatthe actual authormightbe known or presumedto have intended; t is to accept theauthor'sinvita-tion to read a particular ocially constitutedway thatis sharedby the authorandhis or herreaders 22). To readauthorially s to expect that the text is


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tellable-that it is being offeredas worth the reader'seffort-and to take thedisplay quality as intended. But these reading strategiesarefundamentallyexpressions of the Communicative and Cognitive Principlesof Relevance,which by asserting hat communicative ntent s assumed n any communi-cation remove the necessity for any additionalreferenceto an authoras au-thorizing that ntent. I will still occasionallyuse the term authorial eadingbut will do so only to indicateone of the rhetoricaleffects of narrative-thereader's inferencethat a particular lement of the text or aspectof the read-ing experience was planned.I originallydescribed a marked ase for authorialreading:the readerexperiencesthe author,not thenarrating oice, as requiring oo muchcogni-tive effortor as offeringtoo little cognitive payback. Forexample, the nar-rated events might not seem tellable, or the authormightseem to lack con-trol over genreorusage conventions,so thatreaderswould be unableto inferthe presenceof a coherent ntention. I arguedthat readers nterpretmarkingto mean that they shouldbe engaging in some sort of interpretiveworkthatthe author really intended,that they should locate a context to justify thiscognitive effort. By the CommunicativePrinciple,if they can't so engage,the text has falsely communicated thepresumptionof its own optimalrel-evance, which means thattheauthor has failed. I now regard his interpre-tive appealto an author(or to some type of authorizing unction, after themannerof Foucaultin his essay What Is an Author? )as unnecessary. Inorder for the narrative-readingrame to be activated, the Principles of Rel-evance must alreadybe met. If the combination of text, reader,andcontextresults in the reader eeling that the text is communicating thepresumptionof its own optimal relevance, hat thereading experienceis worthpursuing,and that a communicator as createdwhatever n or around he text servesas the ostensive stimulus -if all of these conditionsarepresent,the readercan then engage in whatevertype of reading activity she or he feels is mostlikely to maximize cognitive uptakeand minimize processingeffort. A readermay indeed decide to read authorially(as described above), but this isn't anecessary outcome. The consultant can concentratestrictlyon the experi-ence that she's havingwith herfoundtext, organizing hatexperienceso thatit pays conceptualdividends,withoutworryinganymoreabout ntention hanshe does with her initial determination hat the text representssomebody'sostensive production.Although the Principlesof Relevance obviate the need for the ur-con-vention of authorialreading,the other two ur-conventionsremainnecessary.Naturalization,as defined by Lanser, is the convention that the text willpermitthe creation of a coherent and human,if hypothetical, world (113).Lanser's use of the termbuilds on JonathanCuller's well-known definition:a recuperating f the strange,the formal, the fictional into something


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KEARNS/RELEVANCE,HETORIC,ARRATIVE 83

which can speakto us (134). My use of the term continues this evolutionby incorporating wo points made by MonikaFludernik: he links naturaliza-tion to the frame conception of storytelling n which all stories have narra-tors, and she argues that partof the experience of narrative ncludes humanimmundation or embodiment (47, 311, 341). However,I believe that natu-ralizationcan be best understood f placed within the standardnarratologicalconception of the narrated nd the narrating also frequentlyreferred oas story and discourse -see Chatman). This seems to be whereFludernik's several uses are headed, although she doesn't make an explicitconnection. For the ur-conventionof naturalizationo hold, the qualitiesofcoherence and humannessnoted by Lanser must applynot only to the storyworld (the narrated)but to the realm within which the discourse takes place(the narrating).Theunmarked ase of naturalizations defined by the reader'sexperience:if the reader automaticallyexperiences coherence and human-ness in both of these realms, the readerwon't notice the presence of this ur-convention. The codes evoked by the narrativewill be very close to thosewith which the reader ives or will be familiar to the reader as conventionalfor the work's genre;the readerwill not be broughtconsciously to attend tothese codes; the narratingwill be sufficiently conventional that the readerwon't question whether narrating s actually taking place in the mannerrep-resentedby the text.The codes are those that structure he presentationandreceptionof ac-tion, character,andculture-Roland Barthes'proairetic,semic, and referen-tial. (See S/Z17-20.) Thesecontribute o the situationalcontextwithin whicha readerwill receive a narrative;by the Cognitive Principle of Relevancethey determine hereader'sassessmentof theostensive stimulusbothasworthprocessing andas themostrelevantone compatiblewith thecommunicator'sabilities andpreferences SperberandWilson,Relevance270). Forexample,a character'sdefining traits are expected to remainfairly constant;if theychange,the readerexpectsa plausibleexplanation. Likewise,we expectsomecharacters'morals to be reflected in their countenancesor else to be the in-verse of what the countenances reveal. We don't expect someone with ahooked nose, beady eyes, and graspinghands(CharlesDickens's Fagin) tohave a heartof gold, although f this turnsout to be the case, we can accom-modatethat violation becausewe know that t's partof the display qualityofnarratives o play such tricks. The unmarkedcase requireslittle cognitiveeffort; the most easily accessed context is the appropriateone-taking thetext's world as identical to the world thereaderoccupies andtakingthe nar-ratingas conventionalforthe chosencontext. The student n theWeirdNov-els courseautomatically akes the openingof Kiss of the Spider Woman as anovel because of thatcontext,even thoughthe text reads like a scriptwithoutspeaker tags-at least, she will do so if she accepts that context. As she


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proceeds, whether she is able similarlyto process the text's several viola-tions of its own rules for the narratingwill depend on her own individualflexibility and predilections as a reader;however, because the narrated e-mains consistent,it mightbe safe to predictthat herreading experiencewillnot be overly troubledby those violations.Markingwill require hereader o search oracontext nwhichthemarkedelement is relevantandmustjustifythis extracognitiveeffortin order or thereaderto deem the experience worthwhile. Two main marked ases ofnaturalization an be identified. Thefirst,located within thenarrated, ccurswhen the reader notices that a code is being transgressed: or example, acharacter'snotablefeatureschangein unaccountableways, orcharactersn apainting suddenly become partof the narrative'sworld. The second, withinthe narrating,occurs when the readeris invited to notice that a particularcode is being applied,for instance when a character s made so stereotypicalas to seem overtly constructed,or (as in Kiss of the Spider Woman)when anew type of text (footnotes, tagged transcriptsof dialogue) intrudes. Theseexamples, however,are not meantto suggest thatmarkingmust be triggeredby textual features;it may be linked to such features but is defined by areader's experiences. Furthermore,one readermay feel that the narratedworldis being marked,while anothermay feel that the sametext is markinga convention of narrating. The Principles of Relevance do not provide aformula for exactly describingorpredictinghow a given readerwill interactwith a given text-they areprinciples,not rules.Neither of these cases necessarily disruptsthe process of reading. Aslong as nothingin the readingexperiencecauses a readerto suspectthat theCommunicativePrincipleof Relevance no longer holds, the readerwill beable to accommodate either case in a coherent and human world-one inwhichnarrating cts really akeplaceeventhough he acts themselvesevokea world which violates one or several codes. A paradigmaticexample ofboth cases is In theLabyrinth.This novel's characters nd events are umbledalmost as if the authoris working with discrete pieces that he combines,shuffles, recombines,shufflesagain,and so forth until the end. Linearchro-nology is not to be found here, nor are causal chains, although some indi-vidualpieces canbetakenas connectingcausally. The unnamed oldierseemsa collection of cliches: unshaven, wounded, monosyllabic, doggedly loyal.Also, the narratingvoice seems to change his mind about what to tell andhow to tell it:

[The soldier]notices at this momentthatthe door s ajar:door,hallway,door, vestibule, door,thenfinally a lighted room, and a table with anempty glass with a circle of dark-red iquid still at the bottom, and alame man leaning on his crutch,bending forward n a precariousbal-


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must have conflicts. Instabilitiesare basic to a narrative'stellability, thereason for its display: the state of affairs must be unusual,contrarytoexpectations, or otherwiseproblematic. Obviously, althoughprogression smore in he text than s naturalization,t too is influencedby context. Un-usual and problematic re not transcendentqualitiesbut dependon ex-pectations,which dependon context. A readerwho knows beforebeginningKiss of the Spider Womanhat Molina and Valentin arecellmates in prisonmay immediately determinethat an instability is presenthaving to do withthese two characters,but even a reader acking this knowledge will almostcertainlyhave herinterestpiqued by the enigmasin Molina'sdescriptionofthe girl and hersubject.The lack of instabilitiescan interfere with the processing of a text asnarrative,although f tensionis present, narrativitymay be salvaged. If weread something that we expectto be a narrativebut that simplypresentschar-acters going their dailyrounds,with no conflicts of any sort, we mightceaseto read, because the effort requiredeven to read superficiallypays no divi-dendof effect. Such a text would lack tellability. However,a readerwho isfamiliar with and sympatheticto contemporarywriting's many formal ex-perimentscould take the text as a sophisticatedexampleof what speech-acttheorists ermflouting,aviolationof a convention hatconveys by itsostensionthat the violation is purposeful. If such a reader took the apparentlyunconflicted text thatway,the readermight see the overt lack of instabilitiesas intendedto invoke a tensionbetween an insipid narrativeaudience (will-ing to plod througha sequenceof wholly predictableevents) and an authorialaudiencethat s awareof life's complications.Whenevera narratorxpressesor implies values contrary o those that can be inferredabout the (intended)authorialaudience,theopportunity xists for readers o experiencea tension.Within the worldof the narratedor this predictable ext, the narrating oiceis implicitly speakingto an audience for whom this text satisfies the Prin-ciples of Relevance (in Rabinowitz'sterminology,the narrativeaudience);otherwise there would be no text. Readers are predisposedto search theirinterpretive strategiesand their language experience for a context thatwillmakethe text relevant,but the effort requiredby this search mustalways bejustified by the resultingeffect. Again, the reader versed in contemporaryavant-gardenarrative may experience a tension when the narratingvoiceengages in some verbal act that can be plausibly taken as destroying rel-evance within the worldoccupied by thatvoice while the text as a whole canbe taken as communicatingsomething of thematic value to the actual reader.Lyn Hejinian's experimentalautobiographyMyLife is an excellent ex-ample of a text that flouts most if not all narrativeconventions and yet isexperienced by some readersas narrative. The opening sentencesuggests atemporalstructure: Amomentyellow, just as four yearslater, when my fa-


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ther returnedhome from the war,the momentof greetinghim, as he stood atthe bottomof the stairs,younger,thinner hanwhen he hadleft, was purple-thoughmoments areno longerso colored (7). Occasionallyothersentencessimilarlysuggest a then. This existence of a then and a now constituteswhat some theoristsconsiderthe minimumcriterionfor a narrative see forexamplePrince4). However,no instabilitiesmanifest themselves, althoughone is hintedat by the difference between a time when moments had colorand thepresenttimewhentheydon't. Becausethe ur-conventionof progres-sion must be met, readerswho wantto treat his documentas a narrativemustfind a tension, for instancebetween its minimalist,self-aware narratingandthe dense, often putativelytransparentnarratingof a typical autobiography.Orreadersmay note such textualphenomenaas a gradualmovement from,early in the text, relatively more evocations of a child's life to, later,moreevocations of an adult's life; this can be taken as a progressionthat resultsfrom a tension between conventionalchronology and this indirect sugges-tion of a temporalmovement.Obviously,readingMyLifein this wayrequiresconsiderableeffort. Theconsultantmightbe less likely to read past the first page if it were My Liferather hanKissof theSpiderWomanhat she found. Thetext can be takenasa narrative,one thatis happeningrather hanbeing toldby the voice(s) in thetext-happening almost in spite of the text. The narrating, uch as it is, canbe naturalized:My Life can be looked at as a writtenrecord of Hejinian'sreflections on her life, a recordthat consists of raw materialsthat haven'tbeen edited into conventionalnarrative orm. A readercan also experienceprogression. The tellability of the narrative hen becomes something likethis: Conventionalautobiographicalnarratives ose the reality and imme-diacy of a personreflectingon her life, whereasMy Life's form is morehon-est. The text contains,albeitminimally,one featurethatis typicalof narra-tive (the presenceof then and now ),but the decision to notice this fea-tureandto placeit within a narrative eading rame s thereader's-the readermust choose this context andmust invest considerableeffort to process thetext in this way.CONCLUSIONS: RELEVANCE, RHETORIC, NARRATIVE

SperberandWilson state that the rationalway to go aboutinterpretingan utterance,or any other ostensive stimulus, is to follow a path of leasteffort and stop at the first interpretationhat satisfies one's expectation ofrelevance (Relevance 272). By rational hey mean assumingthat theutterance s intendedto have an effect, andas I've explained, least effortis a relativenot an absolutemeasure. Some kindsof text processingrequiremore effort or a different type of effort than others, and readersknow thiswhen they enter into one of those types. The audience of a narrativewill


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KEARNs/RELEVANCE, RHETORIC, NARRATIVE 89

1. Humansareessentially storytellers.2. The definitive modes of human decision and action are good rea-sons, which vary in form among situations,genre, and media of com-munication.3. The productionand use of good reasonsareruled by mattersof his-tory, culture, andcharacteralong with the specific constraintsof timeandplace of presentation.4. Rationality s grounded n thenatureof personsas narrativebeings,in their inherentawareness of narrativecoherence-whether or not astory hangs together-and narrative idelity-whether or not the sto-ries they experiencering true to the storiestheyknow or believe to betrue.5.The world as we live it is a series of stories that must be chosenamongin orderfor us to live life in a processof continual re-creation.( Narration,Reason,andCommunity 206)

Fishercan be criticized for not defining and using his terms with care.For instance, he defines narration s a conceptual frame that would ac-count for the 'stories' we tell each other-whether such 'stories' are in theform of argumentation,narration,exposition, or esthetic writings and per-spectives (205). But to say that our experiences are structuredby storiesandthatwe are essentially storytellers s not to say thatevery verbal act isan actof narration.Or, again,he refersto a particularplot as respect or thedignityand worth of all people (215), but this use of the term plot gnoresthe ur-conventionof progression,which must resultfrom tensions or insta-bilities. Fisher's definition of narrative oherence as hanging ogether -a definitionthat seems text-based--does not fit well with the threetypes ofcoherence he identifies (structural,material,and characterological),all ofwhich are definedin relation to extratextualelements (207).The ur-conventionsof naturalizationandprogression actually help res-cue Fisher's projectby providingmoreprecisionto the key elements of hisparadigm(good reasons, coherence, andfidelity) and thus lending credibil-ity to his fundamental assertions that humancommunicationin all of itsforms is imbued with mythos-ideas thatcannotbe verified orprovedin anyabsoluteway, that mythoshas cognitive as well as aestheticsignificance,and that humans as rhetorical beings are as much valuing as reasoninganimals (Human Communication 19, 57, Fisher's emphasis). For Fisherand otherswho attempt o synthesizenarrative's ociological, cognitive, andphilosophical inks within a rhetorical ramework,hePrinciplesof Relevanceestablish the conditionsunder which humanbeings experience and seek outnarration, ationality,good reasons, and moralidentity. Following Sperberand Wilson, I arguethat the preconditionfor any of these activities is the


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assumptionof relevance andthatthe first step in any linguistic interaction sto seek a context thatprovidesthe appropriatebalanceof effort andeffect;without this first step, therecan be no principled explorationof identity orcommunity. McGuire is correct that the process is dialectical and thatnotheory can establishprecisely to what result the Principleswill lead in anygiven situation-a universallyacceptable grammar f relevance will prob-ably neverbe designed. But this is not a reason for ignoring their constitu-tive function.Fisher's second and thirdpresuppositions,regarding the role, produc-tion, and use of good reasons, don't explain how it is thathumans know tolook for orexpect good reasonsin the first place or how the value of a reasonis assessed. Ruled by mattersof history,culture, andcharacteralong withthe specific constraintsof time andplace of presentation and vary n formamong situations, genre, and media of communication -these descriptionsapplyto an individualpersonmakinga decision, but as soon as communica-tion amongpeople becomes partof the process, which must happenaccord-ing to all of these theorists, relevanceautomaticallyentersthe picture. Twopeople will know withoutverbalizingit thatthey're seeking a good reasonfor an action;they know this notjust because good reasons are the defini-tive modes as Fishersays butbecausein the particular ommunicationsitu-ation the search for a good reason s relevant. Thus,I would qualifyFisher'sfourth presupposition by saying that rationality is grounded in the nature ofpersons as relevance-seeking beings.Why humans arethis way-why we engage in display acts within situ-ational contexts that signal Let me tell you a story -remains a mystery.(Forevolutionary speculations,see Kearns, ReadingNovels, and Abbott).Whateverthe cause, the Cognitive and CommunicativePrinciplesof Rel-evance will result in a text being initially taken as a narrativeas long as itexists in a situational context allowing people mutually to understand thatthe communicator's behavior is oriented toward telling a story; given thiscontext, the unmarkedcases of the ur-conventionsconstitute the necessaryandsufficient conditionsforanaudience o continue to takethetext as narra-tive. These unmarkedcases are not essentially establishedby textual fea-tures butby the rhetorical nteractionbetween text and audience. The sameis truefor any type of text or context:argument,exposition, confession, andso forth: hePrinciplesof Relevancewill establishtheconditionsunderwhichthe text will be processed.'

Department of Humanities and Fine ArtsThe University of Texas of the Permian Basin


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NotesI Thanks to James Phelan, Peter Rabinowitz, and anonymousreviewers forRhetoricSociety Quarterly or helpfulcomments on earlierversions of this article.Works CitedAbbott,H. Porter. TheEvolutionaryOrigins of the StoriedMind:Modelingthe Pre-historyof NarrativeConsciousnessand tsDiscontents. Narrative 8 (2000):247-56.Barthes,Roland. S/Z. Transl.RichardMiller. New York:Hill andWang, 1974.Beaugrande,Robert de. Schemas for LiteraryCommunication. In LiteraryDis-course: Aspects of Cognitive and Social Psychological Approaches. Ed.

Laszlo Hhlasz. Berlinand New York:Walterde Gruyter,1987. 49-99.Blakemore,Diane. Relevance,PoeticEffects andSocialGoals:A Reply toCulpepper.Languageand Literature3 (1994): 49-59.. SemanticConstraintson Relevance. Oxford and New York:Blackwell, 1987.Campbell,J. L. AnApplied RelevanceTheoryof the MakingandUnderstandingofRhetoricalArguments. Languageand Communication12 (1992): 145-55.Chatman,Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure n Fiction and Film.IthacaandLondon:Cornell UniversityPress, 1978.Churchland,PaulM. Matterand Consciousness:A Contemporaryntroduction o thePhilosophyof Mind. Cambridge,MassachusettsandLondon,England:TheMITPress, 1984.Culler,Jonathan. StructuralistPoetics: Structuralism,Linguistics and the StudyofLiterature. Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1975.Culpepper,Jonathan. WhyRelevance Theory Does not Explain 'The Relevance ofReformulations. 'Language and Literature3 (1994): 43-48.Enkvist, Nils Erik. Text andDiscourse Linguistics, Rhetoric,and Stylistics. Dis-course andLiterature.Ed. TeunA. vanDijk. AmsterdamandPhiladelphia:Benjamins, 1985.Fisher,WalterR. HumanCommunication s Narration:Toward Philosophy of Rea-son, Value, ndAction. Columbia,SouthCarolina:Universityof SouthCaro-lina Press, 1987.. Narration,Reason, andCommunity. Writing he Social Text:Poetics and Poli-tics in Social Science Discourse. Ed. RichardHarveyBrown. New York:De Gruyter,1992. 199-217.Fludernik, Monika. Towardsa Natural Narratology. London and New York:Routledge, 1996.Foucault,Michel. What s anAuthor? 1969. Trans.DonaldF. BouchardandSherrySimon. ContemporaryLiteraryCriticism:Literaryand Cultural Studies.2nd edition. Ed. RobertCon Davis and Ronald Schleifer. New Yorkand

London:Longman, 1989. 263-75.Grice,Paul. Studies n the Wayof Words.CambridgeandLondon:HarvardUniversityPress, 1989.Hejinian,Lyn. My Life. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1987.Jahn,Manfred. Frames,Preferences,and the Reading of Third-PersonNarratives:Towarda CognitiveNarratology. Poetics Today18 (1997): 441-68.


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Kearns, Michael. ReadingNovels: Towarda Cognitive Rhetoric. RhetoricSocietyQuarterly26 (1996): 17-30.

. RhetoricalNarratology. Lincoln: Universityof NebraskaPress, 1999.Hauerwas,Stanley and L. GregoryJones. Introduction:WhyNarrative? Wh Nar-rative:Readings in Narrative Theology. Ed. Stanley Hauerwasand L. Gre-gory Jones. GrandRapids, Michigan:Eerdmans,1989. 1-18.Kinneavy,JamesL. A Theoryof Discourse: TheAims of Discourse. New York andLondon: Norton, 1971.

Lanser,Susan Sniader. TheNarrativeAct: Pointof View n Prose Fiction. Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1981.MacIntyre,Alasdair. TheVirtues,the Unity of a HumanLife, andthe Concept of a

Tradition. WhyNarrative: Readings in NarrativeTheology. Ed. StanleyHauerwasandL. GregoryJones. GrandRapids,Michigan:Eerdmans,1989.89-110.McGuire, Michael. The Rhetoric of Narrative:A HermeneuticCritical Theory.NarrativeThought nd NarrativeLanguage. Ed. BruceK.BrittonandA. D.Pellegrini. Hillsdale:LawrenceErlbaum, 1990. 219-36.

Phelan,James. ReadingPeople, Reading Plots: Charactei;Progression,and the In-terpretationof Narrative. Chicago andLondon:The Universityof ChicagoPress, 1989.Pilkington, Adrian. The LiteraryReading Process:A Relevance Theory Perspec-tive. Empirical Studies of Literature:Proceedings of the Second IGEL-Conference,Amsterdam, 989. Ed.Elrud bsch,Dick Schram,GerardSteen.AmsterdamandAtlanta,Georgia:Rodopi, 1991. 117-123.PoeticEffects:A RelevanceTheoryPerspective. LiteraryPragmatics.Ed.RogerD. Sell. Londonand New York:Routledge,1991. 44-61.Pratt,MaryLouise. Toward SpeechActTheoryof LiteraryDiscourse. BloomingtonandLondon:IndianaUniversity Press, 1977.Prince, Gerald. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin, NewYork,Amsterdam:Mouton,1982.Puig, Manuel. Kiss of the Spider Woman.Transl.Thomas Colchie. New York:Vin-tage, 1991.Rabinowitz,Peter. Before Reading:Narrative Conventionsand the Politics of Inter-pretation. IthacaandLondon:CornellUniversityPress, 1987.Robbe-Grillet,Alain. In the Labyrinth.Transl.RichardHoward. New York:GrovePress, 1960.Searle, John. Expressionand Meaning:Studiesin the Theoryof Speech Acts. Cam-bridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1979.Sperber,Dan and DierdreWilson. Relevance: Communication nd Cognition. Ox-ford, EnglandandCambridge,Mass.:Blackwell, 1995.

. RhetoricandRelevance. TheEndsof Rhetoric. Ed.John Bender and David E.Wellbery. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 1990. 140-55.Williams, James D. Rule-GovernedApproachesto Language and Composition.WrittenCommunication10 (1993): 542-68.

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Relevance Rhetoric Narrative

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