Relevance in Sitcom Discourse: The Viewer’s Perspective

The present paper draws upon Sperber and Wilson’s ([1986] 1995) Relevance Theory to undertake a pragmatic analysis of situation comedy (sitcom) discourse. More specifically, special attention is paid to the cognitive interpretative paths the viewer needs to take in order to find a dialogue or monologue humorous. The analysis is premised upon the participation framework, which accounts for the bi-partite division of communication in fictional discourse: the character’s (fictional) layer and the recipient’s layer, the latter being in the centre of attention.