Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory and its applicability to advertising discourse: Evidence from British press advertisements

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the applicability of Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory to advertising discourse. A brief presentation of the principles of the mentioned theory will be followed by an application of this theoretical framework to account for some of the most outstanding characteristics of the discourse of advertising. Thus, the extralinguistic and linguistic devices most recurrently employed in advertisements reveal themselves as useful means to (a) attract and maintain the reader's - or potential purchaser's - attention, (b) fix in this way the advertisement in his/her memory, (c) associate the product with desirable qualities, and (d) produce additional contextual effects.