ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we describe relevance theory (RT), a psychological approach that considers the levels of pragmatic language processing necessary to interpret both language itself and the communication situation of a speech event. RT has argued for an inherent inferential ability that functions to create a cognitive condition of relevance for our interactions. Pragmatic processing has been somewhat overlooked in the area of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience but it is an important factor in the context of clinical therapy. In this work, we consider the development of pragmatic abilities, and focus on right hemisphere damage, traumatic brain injury, and autism to discuss this topic. RT emerged from cognitive theory and has been used in experimental pragmatics; we argue it is a theoretical framework that helps researchers to explore language impairment in both children and adults.
