Searching for Relevance: Pragmatics and Affective Science (PAS)

Leverhulme Trust RPG 2025/198

Contemporary theories of pragmatics have yielded powerful insights into communication. Yet a central explanatory gap remains: many affective aspects of utterance interpretation still lack a satisfactory account. This project takes this explanatory gap as its central concern. It is built around an ongoing collaboration with colleagues from the Swiss Centre of Affective Sciences (CISA) and, using innovative interdisciplinary methods developed by linguists and affective scientists seeks to develop an interdisciplinary theory of utterance interpretation that integrates affect as a core component.

The project identifies two influential theories – Relevance Theory, a cognitively oriented theory of pragmatics, and Appraisal Theory – a psychologically oriented approach to the study of affect – and argue that by merging aspects of each theory we can provide an account of the affective dimension that is currently missing. In so doing, we aim to develop a lasting, sustainable collaboration between researchers in both disciplines, promoting an innovative research agenda with genuinely interdisciplinary implications.

While they diverge on what precisely is meant by the term, both theories have a notion of ‘relevance’ at their core. It is this notion that provides the common ground between the two disciplines that the project seeks to explore. Our aim is to identify the single notion of relevance that will bring relevance theory and appraisal theory together, thus uniting the study of pragmatics and the study of affect.

PI: Dr. Tim Wharton

CoI: Dr. Mengyang Qiu

Managing organisation: University of Brighton

Emotional communication is fundamental to human interaction, and plays a key role in the way humans connect with each another. However, precisely what emotions communicate and how they do so remains little understood. This ambitious research project that aims to change that.

Upcoming Events

Workshop

Sound Affects: Voice, language and emotion

On Monday 27th April 2026, we are organising a one-day international workshop, on Campus Biotech, Geneva, together with colleagues from CISA. We invite keynote speakers working on all aspects of voice, language and emotion to explore the various ways that human (and, perhaps, non-human) vocal expression shapes affect and emotion.

It is envisaged that selected papers will be collected and published as an edited volume.

More info.

Graduate Seminar

Emotion and meaning in communication: Insights from linguistic pragmatics

Following the Workshop, this 3.5-hour seminar will take place on Tuesday 28th April 2026 and introduce doctoral researchers to key questions at the intersection of emotion, meaning, and communication. It develops a shared conceptual vocabulary by examining how emotional information participates in interpretation beyond purely semantic or propositional accounts. Through theoretical discussion and interactive activities, participants can explore how conceptual, procedural, and prosodic cues shape communicative inference.

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