| Abstract: | Earlier research identified a conversational rule of relevance that states, “when a conversation is seen to possess an issue-event structure the preferred type of extension is a remark that continues the issue.” This study reports an experiment that investigates the generalizability of that earlier research and tests two conditions hypothesized to limit application of the rule. The limiting conditions are posited on the basis of a cognitive principle and universal concerns for face. The first principle, discourse comprehensibility, is found to have a strong impact on the applicability of the rule. The second condition, message importance, is not; instead, the relevance rule is found to apply across levels of message importance. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed and implications of this research for further investigation of conversational rules and for training concerns are presented. |
