| Acknowledgements | 第1-6页 |
| Abstract | 第6-8页 |
| Chapter I Introduction | 第8-15页 |
| ·An overview of Relevance Theory | 第8-10页 |
| ·Reading comprehension as a special kind of communication | 第10-12页 |
| ·The organization of the thesis | 第12-15页 |
| Chapter II Relevance Theory | 第15-40页 |
| ·Communication | 第15-21页 |
| ·The code model and the inferential model | 第15-16页 |
| ·Cognitive environment and mutual manifestness | 第16-18页 |
| ·Ostensive.inferential communication | 第18-19页 |
| ·The informative intention and the communicative intention | 第19-21页 |
| ·Inference | 第21-27页 |
| ·Non.demonstrative inference | 第21-23页 |
| ·Contextual assumptions | 第23-25页 |
| ·Contextual effects | 第25-27页 |
| ·Relevance | 第27-40页 |
| ·Degrees of relevance:effect and effort | 第27-28页 |
| ·A choice of context | 第28-32页 |
| ·Strong implicature and weak implicature | 第32-35页 |
| ·The principle of relevance | 第35-40页 |
| Chapter III Its Implications for Reading Comprehension | 第40-85页 |
| ·Implications for the study of lexical meanings | 第40-51页 |
| ·Disambiguation | 第40-44页 |
| ·Reference assignment | 第44-47页 |
| ·Interpretation of lexical meanings | 第47-51页 |
| ·Implications for the study of syntactic features | 第51-59页 |
| ·The arrangement of length of sentences | 第52-53页 |
| ·The employment of special sentence types | 第53-57页 |
| ·The creation of deviated sentence structures | 第57-59页 |
| ·Implications for the study of figurative utterances | 第59-76页 |
| ·Pun | 第59-64页 |
| ·Metaphor | 第64-69页 |
| ·Irony | 第69-76页 |
| ·Implications for the study of discourse coherence | 第76-85页 |
| ·Cultural default | 第76-80页 |
| ·Bridging reference | 第80-85页 |
| Chapter IV Conclusion | 第85-91页 |
| ·Major conc-lusions reached in this thesis | 第85-87页 |
| ·Suggestions for future research | 第87-91页 |
| references | 第91-93页 |
