The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

Sperber and Wilson programmatically claim: “We will try to show that this line of
reasoning is invalid. It is true that a language is a code which pairs phonetic and semantic
sentences. However, there is a gap between the semantic representations of sentences and the
thoughts actually communicated by utterances. The gap is filled, not by more coding, but by
inference” (Sperber & Wilson 1986: 16). Relevance theory is therefore an alternative to these
two models and appears to be a more psychologically plausible synthesis. Instead of simple
coding or simple inference, Sperber and Wilson stipulate that a linguistic coding consistent
with a number of different interpretations takes place. The proper interpretation is then found
with the aid of inference (Sperber & Wilson 1986: 27; Wilson 1999: 719). The theory is
limited to what Sperber and Wilson calls “ostensive communication” (158) or “ostensive
inferential communication” (50-54). 67 The means for this form of communication is most
often, but most importantly not always, language. The ostensive communicative act can be
done by any perceptual means: pointing, smiling, arranging the flowers or whistling. As a
general term for the means for communication they use the psychological term stimulus. This
is understood as “(..)any modification of the physical environment designed to be perceived”
(Sperber & Wilson 1986: 29). While this description focuses on the part of the sign producer
or the communicator, the interpreter can only identify a communicative stimulus by taking
the intentional stance toward this modification of the environment.
Ostensive inferential communication arises from two basic assumptions: first, that the
communicator has an informative intention: “To make manifest or more manifest to the
audience a set of assumptions” (Sperber & Wilson 1986: 58). Second, that the communicator
has a communicative intention: “To make it mutually manifest to audience and
communicator that the communicator has this informative intention” (61). By assumptions is
meant: “(..) thoughts treated by the individual as representations of the actual world”(2) and
by manifest: “A fact is manifest at a given time if and only if he is capable of representing it
mentally and accepting it as true or probably true”(39). The identification of a
communicative intention picks out a sign as specifically communicative. According to
cognitive psychologist Michael Tomasello, this function is at the basis of language and it is
carried out by the cognitive ability of humans to have joint-attention to something
(Tomasello 1999: 96).
67 They do see exceptions to ostensive inferential communication. One such is morseing (Sperber & Wilson
1986: 158). This is a bit strange since morseing is just a recoding of other linguistic signs (letters) and it still
needs to be interpreted.
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