ABSTRACT
A study applied Relevance Theory to interpretation of textswritten in Ghanaian English, particularly those intended for reading bymultiple audiences. The nature of such "hybrid" texts is examined and keyprinciples of Relevance Theory are outlined. Relevance is defined in terms ofcontextual effect and processing effort. Contextual effects are achieved whennew information interacts with a context of already existing assumptions inone of several ways; the greater the effort required to derive contextualeffects (processing effort), the lower the relevance of the content. Inaddition, however, the greater the contextual effect, the greater therelevance. Analysis of several texts looks at contextualization,lexico-semantic variation, and syntactic variation. Proverbs are alsoconsidered, as a subcategory of hybrid text. It is concluded that two formsof relevance emerge from processing of hybrid texts: mother-tongue relevanceand other-tongue relevance, and variation in assumptions that underlies thisprocess is particularly great between different cultures. Contains 22references.(MSE)