Abstract Lying is a common but controversial verbal phenomenon in human society. This paper aims to uncover the motivation and mechanism of lying as regards its definition, classification and operation by analyzing both the speaker’s production and the addressee’s interpretation process. The Relevance-Adaptation Model is adopted as its theoretical framework. Lying cases, retrieved from an American TV drama Lie to Me, are analyzed from different perspectives to provide concrete evidence for the theoretical assumptions. The findings are two-fold: Theoretically, this paper formulates a working diagram of the Relevance-Adaptation Model with some modifications to the original to be better applied to the field of lying. Empirically, it supports the claim that the presumption of relevance motivates both the speaker and the addressee to lie or to process lying in the first place. Then, both communicators will enter a relevance-adaptation phase through making structural choices inter-adapt with relevant contextual correlates. An optimal lie is one which is maximally relevant and maximally adapted to the context to benefit the speaker and/or the addressee.

中文翻译：

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当说谎不仅仅是欺骗

摘要 说谎是人类社会常见但有争议的语言现象。本文旨在通过分析说话者的产生和受话者的解释过程，从其定义、分类和操作等方面揭示说谎的动机和机制。相关性-适应模型被用作其理论框架。取自美剧《对我说谎》中的谎言案例，从不同角度进行分析，为理论假设提供具体证据。研究结果有两个方面：从理论上讲，本文制定了 Relevance-Adaptation Model 的工作图，并对原始模型进行了一些修改，以更好地应用于说谎领域。根据经验，它支持这样一种说法，即相关性推定首先促使说话者和受话者撒谎或处理撒谎。然后，两个传播者将通过使结构选择与相关的上下文关联相互适应而进入相关适应阶段。最佳谎言是最相关并最大程度地适应上下文以使说话者和/或受话者受益的谎言。