The SCLCR-Lexicon & Frame Semantics

James J. Sosnoski

DRAFT

1. The SCLCR-Lexicon

In 2009, the Society for Conceptual Logistics in Communication Research (SCLCR) was founded by James J. Sosnoski, Gordon Carlson, and Jordan Stalker with the aim of compiling an online encyclopedic lexicon of the way conceptions are used, modified, and maintained in communication research (hence logistics). The basic unit in the SCLCR Lexicon (SCLCR-L) is a "conception." Though the compilers of lexicons usually consider their basic units to be words, SCLCR-L is domain specific (conceptions used in communication research). Most lexicons devoted to theoretical concepts (domain specific contexts) usually have titles such as The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind, or Keywords. However, since the cognitive linguistic approach we are taking in developing the lexicon is one in which meaning is identified with conceptualization, the basic unit of SCLCR-L is a conception. As one of the founders, I proposed that SCLCR-L be based on Ronald Langacker's view that

… meaning is a cognitive phenomenon and must eventually be analyzed as such. Cognitive grammar therefore equates meaning with conceptualization (explicated as cognitive processing). (Foundations, 5; italics, mine.)

As a symbol for conceptualization, the term conception refers to "invention, innovation, excogitation, … design -- the creation of something in the mind" (Wordnet —Princeton University's Lexical Database for English), adding that conceptions are used in a particular way at a particular time in a particular situation. From this perspective, research, which is a complex cognitive process spanning a period of time, conception seems the most appropriate unit for the SCLCR-L.

In his Preface to the Anniversary edition of Concept, Image, and Symbol, Langacker acknowledges that: "a number of important theoretical developments and directions of research have come to the fore only in recent years and thus are not well represented in this volume" (xi). Among the developments to which he refers is "dynamicity, pertaining to the temporal dimension of conceptualization" (xi). He notes that "How conceptions unfold through processing time, on different time scales, is a significant aspect of linguistic meaning" (xi). It is only in his later work, and then quite briefly that his analyses go beyond the sentence and concern discourse (Cognitive Grammar, 457-499) The dynamicity of discursive language-use is central to the SCLCR Lexicon. Conceptual logistics involves the analyses of conceptual, innovation, maintenance, modification, and evolution as they are described in research discourses.

In addition, the circumstance that the meaning of a term used in a research project often changes during the research process is a factor that needs to be taken into account in treating various senses of a term which are acquired as it is used ("sense relations," Cruse, 255-259). The research process is usually presented to other researchers as a fait accompli in publications about it. This tends to glaze over the modifications of a term that are required as difficulties are encountered. (In SCLCR-L, the expression, "conceptual logistics," refers to the extensions and changes in the meaning of a term over time.)

The first step in the construction of the SCLCR-L is to decide how to describe conceptions as the use of a concept .

2. Conceptions

In SCLCR-L, conceptions provide a frameworkfor understanding a "focal" concept. They are expressed in words used as technical terms that imply cognitive processes associated with conceptualization. Conceptions give expression to usage events (specialized uses of language) by combining concepts "ancillary" to the focal concept in domain-specific contexts of use. Let me "unpack" this rather dense formulation.

We use many nouns to refer to cognitive activities.  In Ronald Langacker’s view,

Though it is customary—and I think innocuous—to use nominal expressions to designate mental phenomena (e.g. mind, thought, concept, perception, etc.), such terms must always be understood as convenient reifications. Mind is the same as mental processing; what I call a thought is the occurrence of a complex neurological, ultimately electrochemical event; and to say that I have formed a concept is merely to note that a particular pattern of neurological activity has become established, so that functionally equivalent events can be evoked and repeated with relative ease. (FCG 100).

The term “concept” refers to the cognitive activity of conceptualizing, that is, of combining a word-form such as radius with a conceptual domain such as a circle.  In other words, it is impossible to understand what a radius is without framing it against the background of a circle.  Similarly the word-form finger only makes sense if it is framed by the domain hand; and in turn, the word form hand only makes sense If it is framed by the domain arm. Words are symbols for concepts. Two other linguists have views similar to Langacker's but use different terms.  In Charles Fillmore’s frame semantics our understanding of concepts is dependent upon how they are networked within the cognitive framework that is needed to contextualize them (Fillmore 2006).  In Michael Halliday’s view, meaning is dependent upon contexts of situations (Halliday 2002).  The parallels in terminologies can be shown diagrammatically:

To avoid confusion, in the construction of the SCLCR-Lexicon, the parallel distinctions made by the three linguists mentioned is rendered by the contrast: CONCEPT  / CONCEPTION.  Whereas concepts carry the meaning someone wishes to communicate, they have to be understood with respect to the way they are used to construe (interpret) situations.  To apprehend the way concepts construe experiences, attention has to be given to the way they are used in particular situations by participants in it or observers of it.  In descriptions of the SCLCR-Lexicon the word, “conception,” symbolizes the use of concepts, that is, they ways in which situations are construed by conceptualizing them (combining them with other concepts to reflect a pattern of experience).

For the purposes of building the SCLCR-L, I distinguish between focal and ancillary concepts. The focal concept is the one being discussed with the aim of making it understandable. However, concepts can only be understood by other concepts, whether verbal or visual. Hence, the term ancillary concepts, refers to the inter-related concepts that provide a framework for understanding the focal concept. These concepts are elements in a framework (semantic network of frames). When speaking of the basic unit of the SCLCR-L, I use the term, conception which refers to the use of the focal concept which can only be described by providing a framework describing the situation in which it is used, including motives, goals, traditions, and so on.

This delineation of “conception,” though technical, is consistent with the idioms with which the word is used in ordinary language—“Jack’s conception of their relationship differed from Jill’s conception of it.”; “Frank’s conception of religion was fuzzy.”

On another note, whereas Langacker and Fillmore are mainly concerned with the use of concepts in sentences, I am concerned with their use in discourses. As a result I borrow from Michael Halliday's and from Stephen Levinson's view of discourse. From this perspective, conceptions (conceptual frameworks) are boundaries within which the meaning (sense) of the word or term* are constructed.  In the context of discourse analysis, the framework, can be paralleled to Halliday’s conception of “context of situation” which, in my view, contains what Levinson calls “activity types”:

I take the notion of an activity type to refer to a fuzzy category whose focal members are goal-defined, socially constituted, bounded, events with constraints on participants, setting, and so on, but above all on the kinds of allowable contributions. (Levinson, 1992, 69)

Consider the concept of an “action assembly.”  If someone said that: “The action-assembly process is a critical component of our ability to communicate,” it would not be meaningful to persons unfamiliar with its context of use and they might take the concept to mean getting ready to act, e.g., to take a trip.  On the other hand, someone familiar with John O. Greene’s work on the cognitive dimensions of message production would understand the concept in the context of the relations among memory systems, message production, and communication.  To understand the remark, the listener has to know something about the activity type—research on cognitive processes. 

My use of the term, conception, as the main unit of the SCLCR-Lexicon  refers to past uses of concepts that have been recorded.  We are concerned about conceptions as they appear in discourses.  The “action-assembly” example is a case in point.  The sentence in the previous paragraph is a summary of Greene’s use of the concept in his article “A Cognitive Approach to Human Communication: An Assembly-Action Theory” (Communication Monographs, 1984, 28-306). In this context a conception refers to the ways in which a concept is framed in a discourse.  There are a number of obvious framing devices—definitions, descriptions of situations in which the concept is used, modifiers such as “a cognitive approach,” and so on.

Conceptions, the concepts embedded in the delineation of a focal concept, are implied in the “activity types” (Levinson 1992)  or “uses of terms” within the context of situation that make the focal concept meaningful.

__________

Notes:

I borrow the distinctions for the most part from the work of Ronald Langacker. I supplement his account with comments from other sources. The perspective in these differentiations is relative to the SCLCR Lexicon (SCLCR-L). I acknowledge that there are other ways of differentiating these terms; however, the relevant "context of use" is designing an encyclopedic lexicon of conceptions used in communication research.

CONCEPTIONS — From Langacker's Concepts, Images, and Symbols (CIS):

Cognitive grammar is … quite distinct from any version of generative theory… by equating meaning with conceptualization (or cognitive processing)…. Although cognitive grammar is not a direct outgrowth or a variant of any other linguistic theory, I do consider it compatible with a variety of ongoing research programs. Among these are Lakoff’s work on categorization (1982, 1987); Fauconnier’s study of mental spaces (1985); …. Fillmore’s conception of frame semantics (1982)… (CIS 1-2)

Meaning is equated with conceptualization. Linguistic semantics must therefore attempt the structural analysis and explicit description of abstract entities like thoughts and concepts. The term conceptualization is interpreted quite broadly: it encompasses novel conceptions as well as fixed concepts; sensory, kinesthetic, and emotive experience; recognition of the immediate context (social, physical, and linguistic); and so on. Because conceptualization resides in cognitive processing, our ultimate objective must be to characterize the types of cognitive events whose occurrence constitutes a given mental experience. The remoteness of this goal is not a valid argument for denying the conceptual basis of meaning. Most lexical items have a considerable array of interrelated senses, which define the range of their conventionally sanctioned usage. These alternate senses are conveniently represented in network form; (CIS 2)

The semantic description of an expression therefore takes for its starting point an integrated conception of arbitrary complexity and possibly encyclopedic scope. The basic observation supporting this position is that certain conceptions presuppose others for their characterization. We can thus posit hierarchies of conceptual complexity, where structures at a given level arise through cognitive operations (including simple coordination) performed on the structures at lower levels. Crucially, the cognitive domains required by linguistic predications can occur at any level in such hierarchies.

Consider some examples…. Central to the value of elbow is the position of the designated entity relative to the overall configuration of the human arm (try explaining what an elbow is without referring in any way to an arm!), so arm is a domain for elbow. (CIS 3)

FRAMES. According to Deborah Tannen, builds expectations — that structure B can be understood within the framework of A. (Framing in Discourse, 14-15). Tannen's perspective is from the standpoint of a discourse analyst.

In his "Frame Semantics," Charles Fillmore writes:

By the term ‘frame’ I have in mind any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you, have to understand the whole structure in which it fits; when one of the things in such a structure is introduced into a text, or into a conversation, all of the others are automatically made available. (373)

In SCLCR-L the structure in which framing occurs is a research discourse. Bringing together Tannen's observation about framing and Fillmore's delineation of a frame, we can say that a "conception frame[work]" frames the "concept frame." In other words, the use of a conception in a research project frames the concepts associated with it. For example, in Seymour Chatman's research into literary works, his conception of a "narrative" frames the concepts "story" and "discourse," so that when considering Chatman's conception of a "discourse" within a story, to understand it you have to understand the whole structure into which it fits — narrative and the contrast within that structure between story and discourse.

FOCAL CONCEPT: is the concept symbolized by the term under discussion, hence "focal." The meaning of concepts is expressed by "ancillary" concepts constituting a conceptual framework.

WORDS: I take a word to be a symbolic unit that is linguistic in character (morpheme, or combination thereof), a conventional linguistic unit. (Langacker does not define "word" but uses the expression in connection with minimal symbolic units, principally morphemes.)

TERMS: A term is a word used in a restricted or technical sense by a specialist working in some conceptual domain. All terms in the SCLCR-Lexicon are considered "working terms," that is, they differ according to the work they perform in special situations. It corresponds to Langacker's "usage event," "a symbolic expression employed by a speaker in a particular circumstance for a particular purpose" (Foundations, 494; Grammar & Conceptualization, 99ff).

In Langacker's terminology, CONCEPTS are domains and in Fillmore's terminology, they are frame networks (aka "frameworks"). In SCLCR-L domains/frameworks are conceptions (networked ancillary concepts). From Langacker's Foundations of Cognitive Grammar:

4. I. I. Basic vs. Abstract Domains
Most concepts presuppose other concepts and cannot be adequately defined except by reference to them, be it implicit or explicit. The concept [KNUCKLE], for example, presupposes the conception of a finger. It would be virtually impossible to explain what a knuckle is without somehow invoking the conception of a finger as a holistic entity; it would also be misguided, for the position of a knuckle in relation to the finger as a whole is surely a central and crucial feature of our understanding of the notion. Given the concept [FINGER], however, [KNUCKLE] is easily and straightforwardly characterized. [ANGER] provides the necessary context-or domain-for the characterization of [KNUCKLE] and hence constitutes one of its primary conceptual components.

Of course [FINGER] is itself far from being a primitive notion. One of the defining features of a finger is its position within the overall configuration of a hand, so [FINGER] has for one of its domains our knowledge of this configuration. [HAND] is similarly characterized in part by its position relative to an arm, and [ARM] in relation to the body as a whole. To some substantial (though undetermined) extent, therefore, concepts form hierarchies of complexity, such that concepts at one level are presupposed by those at the next higher level. To properly characterize a particular notion, one must invoke appropriate levels in relevant hierarchies, i.e. whichever levels make available those concepts by means of which a characterization is easily and naturally achieved. [KNUCKLE! is much more cogently defined in relation to a finger than directly (without specific reference to arm, hand, or finger) in terms of the human body as a whole.

Although it is typical for one concept (or conceptual complex) to serve as domain for the characterization of another, there must be a point beyond which no further reduction is possible. If [FINGER] is the domain for [KNUCKLE], [HAND] for [FINGER], [ARM] for [HAND], and [BODY] for [ARM], what is the domain for [BODY],? The notion [BODY] (so far as shape is concerned) is a configuration in three-dimensional space, but it hardly seems appropriate or feasible to consider three-dimensional space as a concept definable relative to some other, more fundamental conception. It would appear more promising to regard the conception of space (either two- or three-dimensional) as a basic field of representation grounded in genetically determined physical properties of the human organism and constituting an intrinsic part of our inborn cognitive apparatus. That is, our ability to conceive of spatial relationships presupposes some kind of representational space creating the potential for such relationships, but it is doubtful that conceptual analysis can go beyond positing this representational space and elucidating its properties. (FCG 147-148)

domain-specific:

EVERY PREDICATE is characterized relative to one or more cognitive domains, collectively called its matrix. This chapter explores the nature of domains and how they combine to form multidomain matrices. It is argued that the linguistically relevant portion of our knowledge of familiar entities is open ended and essentially encyclopedic. …

All linguistic units are context-dependent to some degree. A context for the characterization of a semantic unit is referred to as a domain. Domains are necessarily cognitive entities: mental experiences, representational spaces, concepts, or conceptual complexes. (Foundations, italics mine, 147)

In the context of research, certain "conceptual domains" are identified as research areas. (See Dudley Shapere, " Scientific Theories and Their Domains.")

contexts of use: I use this expression as the equivalent of "context of situation." See Michael Halliday's Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse, 51-17.

3. The Paradigm Problem

If it is not necessary to describe the use of research conceptions, then there is no need to do so. What exigency prompts one to consider it necessary?

The rhetorical exigency that necessitates describing the use of conceptions arises from the situation in communication research wherein the same term names quite different conceptions. For example, the term "culture," which appears frequently in communication research, has countless definitions. In a classic research project, A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn conducted an exhaustive classification of the definitions of culture in Social science publications including a "General History of the Word Culture," and a synthetic analysis of its definitions (Culture: a Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, 1952).

In the "Conclusion" of their study, Kroeber and Kluckhohn comment on the "conceptual problem" that prompted their research:

Anthropologists, like biologists somewhat earlier, were presented with a great array of structures and forms to describe. As the concept of culture was explained, more and more things came to be described as their possible significance was grasped. ... Starting with the premise that these descriptive materials were all relevant to a broad and previously neglected realm of phenomena, the concept of culture has been developed not so much through the introduction of strictly new ideas but through creating a new configuration of familiar notions: custom, tradition, organization, etc. In divorcing customs from the individuals who carried them out and in making customs the focus of their attention, anthropologists took an important step–a step that is perhaps still underestimated. When a time backbone was added to the notion of group variability in ways of doing things, not only group differences, but the notion of the historical derivation and development of these differences entered the picture. When the concept of “way” was made part of the configuration, this conceptualized the fact that not only discrete customs but also organized bodies of custom persisted and changed in time. (353, italics mine)

In the passages following this remark, Kroeber and Kluckhohn propose a "synthesis" of the 164 definitions they compiled. In doing so, they attempted to develop what Ronald Langacker calls a "schema," that is a general description of the uniformities in the definitions. They expected this "formula" (their term) to be modified and expanded as new features of culture were identified.

However, in their view this schema of the conception of culture did not solve the problem of the "great array of structures and forms."

Perhaps a better way of putting the problem would be to say that as yet we have no full theory of culture. We have a fairly well-delineated concept, and it is possible to enumerate conceptual elements embraced within that master concept. But a concept, even an important one, does not constitute a theory. There is a theory of gravitation in which “gravity” is merely one term. Concepts have a way of coming to a dead end unless they are bound together with a testable theory. In anthropology at present we have plenty of definitions but too little theory. (357)

In 1952 when Kroeber and Kluckhohn published Culture, theoretical systems, which Thomas Kuhn a decade later called "paradigms," were goals of scientific research. Kroeber and Kluckhohn hoped that their research would help produce an anthropological theory of culture. They expected their research to turn up "uniformities" in the use of the term "culture" among social scientists. The situational exigency they faced was the vast array of conceptions underlying the use of a single term and the resulting ambiguities. This problem, which I will refer to as the "paradigm problem," has not disappeared.

Their study can be viewed as a precursor of "logistical" discourse analysis. Conceptual logistics comparatively tracks changes over a period of time in the language used to describe a research project. Though, conceptual logistics does not have the same aim as Kroeber and Kluckhohn's "anthropological undertaking," the problem they addressed is the one that conceptual logistics addresses—the same term naming an array of different conceptions.

In my view, the "paradigm problem" cannot be resolved by the widespread adoption of fixed definitions of terms, no matter how extensive; nor by carefully preparing the conditions for this possibility which was Kroeber and Kluckhohn's aim. The problem is only a problem if the expectation is that to do science a paradigm is necessary. Otherwise, the polysemantic character of terms is not different from the polysemantic character of words. Language usage of any sort tends to produce polysemy.

An analogy—imagine that architects band together under the banner of a "disciplinary ideal." Then imagine that they decide it is a problem that buildings differ from each other and propose that types of buildings need to be uniform in structure in order to make them "consistent" with each other. So they divide buildings into "fields"—homes, apartments, restaurants, office buildings, and sheds. Then they contend that the five fields they propose should be different in structure because they have different purposes. However, each one of the five fields needs to have a uniform structure so that persons using that type of building will find it consistently familiar and hence more productive to use. Something similar to this happened in the 19th century as the modern university emerged with its departments supposedly devoted to distinct disciplines with distinctive and consistent theoretical "paradigms" either in place or being pursued. With the advent of the disciplinary ideal of consistency came the ambition to construct a fixed, and therefore reliable, technical terminology to attain it.

Granting that a vast array of possible meanings of a single term is confusing if not downright confounding, a usage-based model of a technical lexicon significantly reduces the confusion. Instead of a "top-down" approach wherein terms are treated as logical categories, a usage-based orientation to polysemy takes a "bottom-up" approach wherein terms are treated as evolving conceptual prototypes. A usage-based approach locates terms in specific research situations. From this perspective, conceptions used as technical terms are all "working terms," that is, all derive their meanings from the ways they are used in particular research projects.

This would be, in effect, like saying that this home or apartment or office building was built by Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Sullivan or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In this approach, it would not be possible to say that all homes in the United States have a structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, all office buildings one designed by Louis Sullivan, or all apartment buildings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Despite the fact that it is more complicated to identify all of the architects who designed buildings, nonetheless—as we know, it can be done. Further, once doing it is no longer requires printing the results, it becomes an effective and efficient to search for which architect designed which building according to what plans and for what purposes. Of course, the data to be searched has to be digital.

Is it necessary that each term have a single set of coherent meanings? Not if we take a usage based, digital approach to describing research terminologies. To resolve the paradigm problem, it is necessary to describe the use of conceptions.

4. Warranting Terms.

Before answering the question: how can we describe the uses of conceptions in communication research, it seems prudent to answer the question: how are they used there? Conceptions, no doubt, have numerous functions in research discourses. Almost every speech act that has been identified can be evoked to identify their illocutionary force. This leads to the question: is it necessary to describe the use of every word in research discourses? Hardly.

But, to narrow the range of uses to ones that need to be described in the SCLCR-Lexicon it is necessary to identify the terms without which the research cannot be regarded as research. The results of a research project are usually reported as a complex argument made up of argument units or structures. Research is characterized by claims or conclusions and the evidence or grounds for them. However, the most critical aspect of any argument is the assumption(s) that allow for the inference(s) to be made on the basis of the evidence provided. This relationship, whether made explicit or left implicit, establishes the evidence as proof of the conclusions submitted to specific research communities.

Taking Stephen Toulmin’s delineation of informal argumentation as a model (The Uses of Argument, 1958), the form of an argument structure is: Given X, If we assume Y, then Z. In syllogistic form:

Given that X contains Y
If we assume that Y contains Z
Then X also contains Z

In this pattern, Y = the warranting conception that allows for the conclusion X=Z.

For example, in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Leon Festinger argued that persons who are aware of holding contradictory beliefs experience a state of "cognitive dissonance" which is uncomfortable and that they are highly motivated to avoid this state of mind. A classic example is a woman whose religion regards abortion as wrong but whose political belief is that a woman has a right to choose abortion. Awareness of this inconsistency usually results in psychological discomfort. Persons who experience cognitive dissonance are most often motivated to do something to remove the inconsistency and reduce the psychological tension.

(X) contradictory beliefs produce (Y) cognitive dissonance.
(Y) cognitive dissonance produces (Z) an uncomfortable, thus unwanted, state of mind
(X) contradictory beliefs produce (Z) an unwanted state of mind.

Corrollary: if unwanted state of mind, then avoidance. Festinger, then explores various kinds of avoidance behaviors, the most famous being his "minimal justification" experiment.

From the perspective of argumentation, the type of speech act that it is necessary to describe in research projects is “assertive.” In particular the warranting conception that governs the data collection and leads to the inference that potentially resolves the problem is an assertion. "Cognitive dissonance produces an uncomfortable, thus unwanted, state of mind" is an assertion.

Considering arguing as a speech act, we can identify “assertives” as the type of conceptions that need to be described in the SCLCR-Lexicon, especially warranting conceptions.

5. Discourse Structures & SCLCR-L

What are we describing when we describe a term in a research discourse? There are several answers to this question, each of which fits a particular type of discourse analysis. The types of discourse analysis — conversational, critical, corpus, etc. — are usually distinguished with respect to the genre of the discourse being analyzed. Each genre is composed of different discursive structures — conversational discourse analysis attends to the turn-taking structure of the discourse, critical discourse analysis attends to the political rhetoric of the discourse, and so on.

In the SCLCR-Lexicon the analysis of research discourses concerns the argument structures and their relationships. The terms described in the analysis function mostly as warranting terms embedded in assertions that allow for inferences from the data to establish the conclusion. At the same time, the analysis also attends to the “communication matrix” embedded in the text of the discourse (see discourse/text distinction). From the perspective of a research discourse as a communicative event, the cognitive abilities expressed in the discourse are foregrounded because they reveal speech acts (or "intentions" in Searle's terms). Ronald Langacker lists the following linguistic expressions which imply cognitive abilities in his Foundations of Cognitive Grammar:

attend compare select abstract recognize imagine metaphor focus distinguish (e.g.,figure from ground) foreground background construe transform sequence designate

These cognitive abilities lie behind our linguistic abilities. They contribute various discursive elements related to the cognitive processes involved. There is, however, no one-to-one correspondence. Nonetheless, various combinations of these abilities produce identifiable discursive structures.

Some discourse structures are typical and frequently used whereas others are atypical and rarely used. I will focus on nine very common discourse structures. The following concepts refer to aspects of discourses that are “marked” (have an identifiable beginning and end) and are thus available for analysis.

• FRAMES: exchanging information [framing/categorizing]
• QUESTIONS: collaborating (planning & problem solving) [questioning/answering]
• DESCRIPTIONS: describing (propositions/statements) [asserting/stating]
• COMPARISONS: comparing (matching the features of one entity with another.) [evaluating]
• ASSERTIONS: proclaiming (declare someone to be something, affirm or declare as an attribute or quality of someone or something, praise, glorify, or honor) [declaring]
• ARGUMENTS: arguing (logically arranged propositions) [inferring]
• NARRATIVES: narrating/reporting events (anecdotes, news “stories”) [chronicling, situating, describing events]
• PLOTS: plotting (life stories as story structures) [storytelling]
• CONFIGURATIONS: configuring (cultural stories as instructive stories) [imagining]

These discourse structures are linguistic patterns that are the result of cognitive abilities employed in signification (making meaning).

Several of these structures relate to the discourse analysis of arguments. In the previous section (#4), I discussed the argument structure which is paramount in research discourses and the importance of the warranting terms as the "key" conceptions in the arguments. In describing a warranting term, other discursive structures are also relevant.

Research discourses include descriptions of data, comparisons of data, methods, earlier researches, as well as assertions. Configurations sometimes enter research discourses as data.

In Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse (1999), Paul Werth argues that the situations in which discourses are constructed are embedded in the text. His conception of a "textworld" refers to this circumstance. In effect, the cognitive ability to narrate is reflected in the various linguistic features that implicitly tell the story of the discourse situation. The story of the research project is told implicitly in the research discourse (see #6). However, the story is not told chronologically, it is plotted to provide a background to the argument.

The implicit story in a research discourse is comprised of the events that move from questions (problems) the researcher(s) encounter, through various actions they perform (e.g.,inferences) to a conclusion (assertion) in which the initial problem is resolved, at least in part.

The terms used to express the cognitive aspects of a research project are embedded in the discourse that makes its results public.

 

7. Configural discourse analysis as an instance of frame semantic analysis

 

Discourse Analysis is, for the most part, the study of language use. Most language uses go beyond the sentence, particularly conversations and texts. As the Handbook of Discourse Analysis testifies, there are as many types of discourse analysis as there are genres of writing and speaking. The genre analyzed in the SCLCR-Lexicon is research discourse. The purpose of the lexicon is to describe the conceptions used in communication research. From the perspective of discourse analysis, therefore, the "background prototype frame," is research.

Considering background prototype frames, we can identify hierarchies of frames and their modular character. The type of discourse analysis built into SCLCR-L is "configural," which, in most respects, is consonant with frame semantic analysis. The basis of comparison is that both analytics treat words/texts in their context of use which invariably implies a symbolic action in Kenneth Burke’s sense — agent, act, purpose, agency, and scene. The term "configural" (con-with & figura-figure of a person) is a term for an interaction such as communication.

It is an historical accident that I developed configural discourse analysis before I became acquainted with Charles Fillmore’s frame semantics. Nonetheless, the term "configural" fits Fillmore’s view of frame semantics. Consider his example of the "ridiculous" sentence, "The decedent while on land and in mufti last weekend ate a typical breakfast and read a novel high in flip strength" ("Frame Semantics," 382-383)

Fillmore points out that the expressions, "decedent," "on land in mufti," "high in flip strength," are virtually unintelligible without understanding their "highly specialized contexts." For example, the context of decedent is a legal term for a deceased person. It is "used to identify a dead person in the context of a discussion of the inheritance of that person’s property." The context of Mufti is being in the military. It "refers to ordinary clothing when worn by somebody who regularly wears a military uniform" and "has relevance only in the context of a military community." the context of flip strength is pornographic material, for example novels, that users flip through to get to the sexual content. All of these contexts FRAME the "ridiculous" sentence. Fillmore notes that:

Given all these examples of clear cases of terms linked to highly specific cognitive frames, we can see that the process of understanding a text involves retrieving or perceiving the frames evoked by the text’s lexical content and assembling this kind of schematic knowledge (in some way which cannot be easily formalized) into some sort of ‘envisionment’ of the ‘world’ of the text. ... The sentence did not give you this information directly; you had to ‘compute’ some of it by constructing, in your imagination, a complex context within which each of the lexically signaled framings was motivated. We see in this way that there is a very tight connection between lexical semantics and text semantics, or, to speak more carefully, between lexical semantics and the process of text comprehension. The framing words in a text reveal the multiple ways in which the speaker or author schematizes the situation and induce the hearer to construct that envisionment of the text world which would motivate or explain the categorization acts expressed by the lexical choices observed in the text. (384)

Configural Discourse analysis involves identifying the various discursive structures and their cognitive equivalents.

1. Initially the background prototype genre: research publication
2. Then the discourse type: argument with implied narrative
3. Then the discursive structures: e.g., claim, warrant, grounds AND initial state, action, final state.
4. Then linguistically marked cognitive operations
5. Finally, an interpretation

The SCLCR-Lexicon analyses discourses that appear in research publications. This constitutes the prototype background frame. Generically, such discourses evoke the expectation that the text of the discourse will contain an account of an inquiry into a problem. (Debrah Tannen’s conception of "discourse" is framed by a set of expectations. See "What’s in a Frame? Surface Evidence for Underlying Expectations" in Framing in Discourse.) The generic expectation is also that the "context of use" of terms in research discourses are related to the inquiry which the discourse delineates. The discourse type is an argument with an implied narrative of the research project. The argument structure (claim, warrant, grounds) "marks" the warranting conception. The narrative structure (initial state, decisive action, final state) reveals the situation of the research project that is embedded in the text. The warranting term in the text is networked with other terms semantically. All of the terms are used in the context of the cognitive abilities expressed in the semantic network.

Describing the use of a conception

First, the name (term) of the conception must be identified.
Second, the author of the conception must be identified
Third, the context in which the conception was used must be cited.
Fourth, its conceptual or semantic network must be described.
Fifth, its diachronic relation to other conceptions (before or after) must be identified.

Hence the following fields in the SCLCR database:

Term
Author
Conception / Embedded concepts
Publication / Notes on the context of use
Year

The focal concept being described is entered into the field, "term." The person who is using this term in a research publication is entered into the field, "author." His conception of the focal concept is described in the field, "conception." The correlative field, "embedded concepts" in which the "ancillary concepts" are enumerated provides a semantic network for understanding how the author uses the term. The field, "publication," refers to the The prototypical background frame—the research project in which the focal term is used. The "Notes on the context of use" field briefly describes the research project, usually with respect to its problematic. The field, "year," provides a frame for relating this particular use of the focal concept to other uses.

Consider the parallel to Charles Fillmore’s frame semantics:

The notion can be exemplified with the Commercial Transaction Frame, whose elements include a buyer, a seller, goods, and money. … Among the large set of semantically related verbs linked to this frame are buy, sell, pay, spend, cost, and charge, each of which indexes or evokes different aspects of the frame. The verb buy focuses on the buyer and the goods, backgrounding the seller and the money; sell focuses on the seller and the goods, backgrounding the buyer and the money; pay focuses on the buyer, the money, and the seller, backgrounding the goods; and so on. The idea is that knowing the meaning of any one of these verbs requires knowing what takes place in a commercial transaction and knowing the meaning of any one verb means, in some sense, knowing the meaning of all of them. The knowledge and experience structured by the Commercial Transaction Frame provide the background and motivation for the categories represented by the words. The words, that is, the linguistic material, evoke the frame (in the mind of a speaker/hearer); the interpreter (of an utterance or a text in which the words occur) invokes the frame. (Petruck)

Compare the structure of seller sells goods to a buyer for money to Searle’s conception (series of concepts) of speech acts (Speech Acts, 1969). In both cases, you have an agent (author), an action (conceptualization), ( a standard situation) an implied audience and a relation to other authors, publications, and conceptions (a semantic network—illocuctionary force, sincerety conditions, expressibility). The "prototype background frame" in the SCLCR-Lexicon is "communication research." There are five elements in this frame: An Author published a Conception of a Term in a Book/article in a particular Year (A published C of T in B in Y). Given the "prototype background frame" "communication research," users of the SCLCR-L know that this publication is about its author’s research.

This entry is roughly equivalent to Fillmore's account of the commercial transaction frame (see http://sclcr.com/toolkit/conceptDatabase/viewConcept.php?id=381)

For Fillmore and colleagues the central unit in the analysis is a "frame." And that frame evokes a typical experience. In SCLCR-L the unit is a "conception" which can be understood as a frame[work] in Fillmore’s sense. As I implied in the previous paragraph, the five frame elements in the SCLCR-L matrix refer to a typical communication research project.

In the SCLCR-L frames are embedded in frames. There are various "layers" that can be made to appear in the concept maps accompanying the conception entry. The framing frame, so to speak, is communication research. Within this frame is the frame, conception, which has to be understood as the action of conceptualizing. Within that frame are the ancillary concepts that make up the description of the conception, each of which is itself a concept frame (implying a conceptualization) as it delineates a "stage" of the implied process.

The lexicon is in the process of being built. We have targeted as our model FrameNet. The digital lexicon we will eventually produce depends on the design of our search engines. Given the circumstance that we are not in the position of searching coyprighted discourses, we have to rely on contributors who describe them in a format we can search in particular ways to create entries based on the work of the contributors. We are not claiming that our project is an instance of frame semantic analysis but that it is based on approximations of it which we hope will become increasingly refined. We do not expect that its initial design will remain fixed and welcome comments on it.

Prenote: this essay is structured to parallel the description of FrameNet available on site — “The Berkeley FrameNet Project.”

The SCLCR Leixcon (SCLCR-L) is a project in usage-based computational lexicography, now in its third year." The project’s key features are (a) a commitment to usage based evidence for semantic generalizations, and (b) the representation of the semantic networks of its target terms based on frame semantics. The resulting database contains (a) descriptions of the semantic frameworks (conceptions) underlying the meanings of the concept described, and (b) the representation of terms and technical phrases within its semantic network, each accompanied by (c) a collection of annotated context of use attestations within the entry. This overview will present the project’s goals, workflow, and information about the “tools” that have been adapted or created in-house for this work.

Introduction

The SCLCR Lexicon project produces modified frame-semantic descriptions of technical terms in communication research and backs up these descriptions with annotated attestations from relevant research publications. These descriptions are based on hand-tagged semantic annotations of keywords extracted from the descriptions and systematic analysis of the semantic patterns they exemplify using computational algorithms. The primary emphasis of the project therefore is the encoding, by humans, of semantic knowledge in machine-readable form. The intuition of the contributors is guided by and constrained by the use of semantically coded entry forms. The conceptual domains to be covered are: terms, authors, conceptions, embedded concepts, citations, dates, context of use, and related visualizations.

Scope of the Project

[NOTE: In the following the distinction between concept and conception used earlier is termed frame and framework to emphasize the parallels between SCLCR-L and FrameNet.]

The results of the ongoing project are (a) a lexical resource, called the SCLCR Toolkit (database), (b) associated software tools, (c) visualizations of the conceptions, and (d) related documents. The database has three major components (described in more detail below):

These three components form a highly relational and tightly integrated whole: elements in each may point to elements in the other two.

Conceptual Model

The SCLCR-L work is in some ways similar to FrameNet which is based on Charles Fillmore’s frame semantics (FS). In FS, the conceptual model is an “ACTION,” involving the frame elements: agent, act, agency (“means”). In his example of the parent frame “transportation” frame, two other child frames, “driving” and “riding,” are regarded as subordinate frames (subframes) and each includes frame elements (FE) that parallel the parent frame’s FEs:

For example, the transportation frame, within the domain of motion, provides movers, means of transportation, and paths; subframes associated with individual words inherit all of these while possibly adding some of their own. Fig. 1 shows some of the subframes, as discussed below.

Figure 1a: A subframe can inherit elements and semantics from its parent

 

In SCLCR-L the conceptual model is COMMUNICATION (author > discourse > implied audience > situation > conceptualization), a conceptual domain usually considered to be a subdomain of ACTION.

Figure 1b: A subframe can inherit elements and semantics from its parent.

The argument frame, for example, specifies statements (as sentences in a text), a structure (a particularization of cognitive abilities), and inferences as the principal elements in the structure. In this frame, the argument initiates and controls the structure of the cognitive abilities.

If we were to describe the PUBLICATION frame, it would be a subframe of DISCOURSE and ARGUMENT / NARRATIVE subframes of PUBLICATION.

In the publication frame the primary role in the scene is the author of the article, and research is the activity that the author pursues.

As is clear from the above, SCLCR-L is structured as a frame semantic network. However it differs from FrameNet with respect to its methods. Whereas FrameNet seeks to find “concise formula[s] for all semantic and syntactic combinatorial possibilities together with a collection of annotated corpus sentences in which each possibility is exemplied,” the descriptive technique employed in the SCLCR-L project is more closely related to discourse analysis. As Sanders and Spooren note, “Discourse is often considered a crucial notion for understanding human communication” because language users, most of the time, communicate through discourses rather than sentences ("Discourse and Text Structure," Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, 916).

In SCLCR-L the primary unit of analysis is a conceptualization expressed as a discursive structure. From the point of view of expression, a discursive structure has an identifiable beginning, middle, and end—for example, an argument. Many discursive structures, an argument being one of them, comprise a set of concepts that correspond to a cognitive activity as it is expressed in language. In Kenneth Burke’s terms, it is a symbolic action which is the "scene" in Fillmore's approach (The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, 8-16).

The “scene” of a research discourse is the process of solving a problem. Thus the implicit symbolic action in a research publication is a narrative describing the search for a solution to the problem. This narrative is usually “covert” rather than “overt” in publications about research projects. The story of the research project is condensed into an argument in most publications about it.

Thus to describe a conceptual frame that occurs in a research discourse requires analyzing how it functions within it. To identify a function in a system requires the identification of its structure. If we consider a discourse as a system of conceptualizations expressed in sentences, then the type of discursive structure in which the conception occurs determines its function.

For example, Charles R. Berger's complex argument about the reduction of uncertainty is expressed as a complex discursive structure. If a conception of “uncertainty” occurs in a sentence related to the other sentences in an argument it may function as a claim, warrant, or ground. Consider the following sentence that are included in the SCLCR-L’s entry on “uncertainty reduction.”

These sentences have “functions” in Charles R. Berger’s complex argument which are noted in the parentheses. The first two sentences describe his assumptions and the concept of uncertainty reduction has warranting function. In the third, uncertainty reduction functions as a claim made about it. The last sentence does not couple uncertainty with reduction and refers to situations where uncertainty is experienced which provide the data in Berger's argument.

Discourse analysis involves relating the units of a discourse to discursive structures and then relating the discursive structures to a purpose. The purpose of research is in one sense or another to solve a problem. In Berger's case, the problem has to do with the alleviation of uncertainty because it is a stressful state. In SCLCR-L the context of use and/or context of situation describe the problematic aspects of the situations in which the conception of uncertainty reduction is used.

 

Notes:

The sentences taken from the SCLCR-L entry on uncertainty reduction are quoted here out of context. To check out my interpretation of their function in the entry, you have to consult it—“uncertainty reduction."

 

 

 

Organization and Workflow

Overview

As in FrameNet, the computational side of the SCLCR-L project is directed at efficiently capturing human insights into semantic structure. The majority of the work involved is marking texts with semantic tags, specifying (again by hand) the structure of the frames to be treated, and writing encyclopedic-dictionary style entries based on the publications in which the terms are used. The annotation is structured by the fields of a relational database which are chosen to reflect the implied research scenarios — term, author, year, citation, conception, embedded concepts, context of use, and visualizations of the conception.

Semantic networks are then generated by an algorithm that shows the parent frame (focal concept), the child frames (conception desribed with ancillalry/"embedded" concepts), and relations to other conceptions with the same frame elements. These relations are visualized in concept maps supplied with each entry in the SCLCR-L.

Four processing steps are required produce the SCLCR-L database of frame semantic representations: (a) identifying selective publications) for use in the entry (Preparation), (b) extracting representative ancillary concepts to describe the conception (Extraction), (c) describing the conception and its context of use (Annotation), and (d) posting these frame elements to a database which delivers lexical semantic representations based on the annotations and other data (Entry Writing). These are discussed briefly below and shown Fig.3 .

Workflow and Personnel

As work on the project has progressed, we have defined several explicit roles which project participants play in the various steps. These roles are referred to as Contributors, Annotators and Reviewers. These are purely functional designations: the same person may play different roles at different times.

1. Preparation. To make an entry into the SCLCR Toolkit (database), a potential contributor must become a member of the Society for Conceptual Logistics in Communication Research. Members are persons who are interested in becoming contributors and thus, have a commitment to conceptual logistics which is a usage-based discourse-oriented view of frame semantics and a commitment to communication research. Though non-members may access the SCLCR-L, only members of SCLCR can contribute to the Toolkit database.

2. Extraction. Usually, an SCLCR contributor is involved in communication research either as a student of research methods and projects or as a researcher actively engaged in a project who wishes to enter conceptions related to his or her project. In either case, contributors select a term/concept to enter into the Toolkit database on the basis of documents used in the research project or documents that have been published about it. Contributors may be investigating research conceptions in previous projects that relate to their planned research.

Contributors select passages from the documents gathered that delineate conceptions used in communication research. Such passages contain a parent frame (focal concept) and a group of child frames (conception sub-frames and frame elements). The selections are governed by the models of conceptual logistical discourse analyses already on the SCLCR site which includes various theoretical and methodological essays.

3. Annotation. In SCLCR-L annotation is done with forms that can be loosely called “software tools” in the sense that they “instrumentalize” the entry of data. The net effect is a description of a conception (and its embedded concepts) linked to authorship, publication, and date, a description of the context of use (in M. A. Halliday’s conception of context of situation), a visualization of the semantic network and, if available, a visualization of the conception and its component concepts.

4. Entry Reviewing. The Toolkit database is designed so that members of SCLCR can submit reviews of the entries. In this sense the lexicon is peer reviewed. Entries are that are regarded as incorrect, confusing, misleading, or inarticulate in the review process are sent to SCLCR_L’s editors who either respond to the reviewer’s concerns or, if they agree with a negative review, ask the contributor to revise the entry so that its errors are corrected. Since the reviewers are members SCLCR, they are communication researchers and hence are peers to the contributors. Negatively reviewed entries that are not revised within a specified period of time are “quarantined” until revised.

Implementation

Data Model

The data structures described above are implemented in a SQL database governed by various algorithms. The fields of the database correspond to a standard model of communication — addresser — text of description — code (coded list of embedded concepts) — — context of use — and citation. [ Addressee is not a field since the communication researchers using the lexicon are "implied audiences" in the discourse of the SCLCR-L.]

Software

The software suite currently supporting database development is an aggregate of existing software tools and ones created for the project.

 

Conclusion

At the time of writing, there are roughly 200 entries in the SCLCR Toolkit (database).

To illustrate what the users of the SCLCR-L find when they search for a term the entry for “narrative” would have the the following features in the display of the entry:

a. Relaed concepts (20)

Narrative (2004): In their Discourse analysis : an introduction (2004), Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Dionysis Goutsos define narrative from a linguistic point of view: In very general terms, narrative is the e…  Narrative (1993): Seymour Chatman is a highly respected American narratologist.  He is probably best known for his Story and Discourse which is an extensive account of the elements that make up narratives.  I…  Narrative (1987): Gerald Prince is a well-known narratologist.  He is best known for his conception of a "narratee," the implied audience of a narration, who can be traced in the linguistic markers of a…  Narrative (1986): In his Recent Theories of Narrative (1986), Wallace Martin discusses the classification of narratives: An anthology of literature that is arranged chronologically will usually contain examples of…  Narrative Function (1987): A narrative function is a role defined by an inter- between one figure and another in a narration that advances the story. In his Dictionary of Narratology, Gerald Prince writes that [V...  Narrative Structure (1928): In his "Introduction to the Second Edition" of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale, Alan Dundes notes that "there seem to be at least two distinct types of structural analys...  Story (1987): Gerald Prince is a well-known narratologist.  In Grammar of Stories, he developed a description of stories based on Chomsky's model of generative grammar.  Though he later abandoned this...  Storyworld (2002): David Herman, in his Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative, regards a “story world” as a complex mental model of a possible world. The concept “world” has become..  Desire (2010): Desire is a twofold mental state—a desire for what attracts one or a desire to be rid of what is unattractive. Desire is a lack a person feels as the consequence of a belief that the desired obj...  Action (2002): "Action structures are mental models of participent-oriented patterns of effort, conflict, trouble, and, in some cases at least, resolution of conflict and overcoming of trouble" (Herman, St...  Suspension Of Disbelief (2002): In Mythic Structures in Narrative: The Domestication of Immortality, Victor Nell describes the phenomenon of “suspension of disbelief” as follows: … the narrative mode, like hyp...  Human Communication As Narration (1987): In Human Communication As Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action, Walter R. Fisher argues that storytelling is central to communication.  HE proposes four theses: (1) a r...  Quest Stories (2010): The QUEST story is one of the oldest stories we have, dating back to Gilgamesh. Jason and the Argonauts is another ancient quest story and perhaps the prototype of the genre in which a young man disco...  Cultural Configuration (2010): A cultural configuration is a configuration (which offers an analogy from one realm of experience to suggest the contour of an experience in another realm) that employs a story as an analogy to the pe...  Configuring (2007): Storytelling is a fundamental form of human communication. We become fully aware of our own lives through the process of putting our experiences together in story form. By the same token, we understan...  Personal History (2007): In his "Neurocognitive Processes of Human Memory" (1998), Endel Tulving, a renowned memory researcher, describes the episodic memory: Episodic memory does exactly what the other forms of...  Text (1976): In A Theory of Semiotics, Umberto Eco puts the distinction between a text and a discourse  into a sharp focus. In his first chapter he describes a very simple communication situation in whic...  Self-presentation & Self-schemas (1999): In their Social Pyschology, Aronson, Wilson, and Ekert write: Self-presentation [is] the attempt to present who we are, or who we want people to believe we are through our words, nonverbal hebavio…  Virtual Experience (2007): In the course of working on virtual reality experiments in the Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois  — Chicago, I described a virtual experience in "The Virtual H… Null Experience (2007): Certain experiences that a person goes through can be related to by others. In the Cognitive Studies article, one of the main aspects that were touched on was the null experience. Through certain…

 

b. If you click on Chatman’s conception of narrative, you would be presented with the following conception:

Narrative Author: Seymour Chatman Seymour Chatman is a highly respected American narratologist.  He is probably best known for his Story and Discourse (S&D) which is an detailed account of the elements that make up narratives.  In a subsequent work, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film(CTT), he defines narrative: … what makes Narrative unique among the text-types is its "chrono-logic," its doubly temporal logic. Narrative entails movement through time not only "externally" (the duration of the presentation of the novel, film, play) but also "internally" (the duration of the sequence of events that constitute the plot). The first operates in that dimension of narrative called Discourse (or récit or syuzhet), the second in that called Story (histoire or fabula). (CTT, 9) In Chatman's view the story logic in traditional narratives is not necessarily a simple cause-effect relationship: In traditional narratives, the internal or story logic entails the additional principle of causality (event a causes b, b causes c, and so on) or, more weakly, what might be called "contingency" (a does not directly cause b, nor does b cause c, but they all work together to evoke a certain situation or state of affairs x).  (CTT 9) Chatman contrasts narratives to non-narratives: Non-narrative text-types do not have an internal time sequence, even though, obviously, they take time to read, view, or hear. Their underlying structures are static or atemporal—synchronic not diachronic. For instance, Arguments are texts that attempt to persuade an audience of the validity of some proposition, usually proceeding along deductive or inductive lines. Descriptions render the properties of things—typically, though not necessarily, objects visible to or imaginable by the senses. They "portray," "depict," or "represent."  (CTT 9) In his "Introduction" to Story and Discourse(S&D), Chatman distinguishes between discourse and story based on the expression/content distinction of Louis Hjelmslev.  The expression plane conveys meanings, understood as units of the content plane—"What in narrative is the province of expression?  Precisely the narrative discourse.  Story is the content of the narrative expression, while discourse is the form of that expression" (S&D 23).   Chapman considers narratives to be a special form of communication.  Instead of an author communicating directly to an audience, in narratives an implied author whom the audience never sees communicates with an implied audience, the one the actural author imagined when composing the story.  What is communicated is the story, the content of the discourse.  "The discourse is said to 'state' the story, and these statements are of two kinds—process and stasis—according to whether someone dis something or something happened" (S&D 31-32).  See Chatman's "Diagram of Narrative Structure" for a representation of his model. Chatman's conception of narratives was criticized in an issue devoted to his book (James Joyce Quarterly, 18) by a team directed by James J. Sosnoski that applied his concepts to Joyce's "Araby."  Jonathan Culler and Gerald Prince also responded to Chatman's book and Sosnoski, et. al.'s criticisms of it.  Chatman responded to everyone.

 

c. Accompanying the description of the conception you would find

a list of the concepts embedded in it:

notes on the context of use:

Chatman's Story and Discourse is a synthetic work based largely upon the work of "French" narratologists (Genette, Barthes, Bremond, Prince, Richardou, Todorov).  Chatman includes various analyses of fictions and films in Story and Discourse, mostly as illustrations of his concepts.  Earlier he did a full-scale analysis of James Joyce's Dubliners story, "Evangeline."

d. On the same page you would have access of a selective bibliography of works cited in SCLCR-L in connection with “narrative.

Chatman, S. (1969). "New Ways of Analyzing Narrative Structure, With an Example from Joyce's Dubliners." Language and Style 2: 3-36.
Chatman, S. (1978). Story and Discourse. Ithaca, Cornell UP.
Chatman, S. (1981) "Analgorithm." James Joyce Quarterly. 18, 293-299.
Chatman, S. (1993). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY, Cornell UP.
Sosnoski, J. et.al. (1981) James Joyce Quarterly. 18, 237-299.

e. In addition you would find a concept map of the semantic network (confined to entries in SCLCR-L) in which the conception, narrative, is located:

 

The map shows Narrative as the parent frame (focal concept), and story, situation, discourse as subframes. Chatman’s conception of narrative (narrative 1993) has the frame elements: discourse, sequence of events, story logic, story, temporal logic, chronologic, text types, situation, its embedded concepts. The concept map also shows the frame elements of story, situation, and discourse, each of which is a separate entry in the database and constitutes a subframe of narrative.

 

---

 

We are still working on the protocols for entries, refining the algorithm, and constructing other algorithms to show different semantic features.

SCLCR-L is a work in progress. We welcome comments, suggestions, and new members.

 

 

Works Cited:

Berger, C. R. and R. Calabrese (1975). "some Explorations in Initial Interaction and Beyond: Toward a Developmental Theory of Interpersonal Communication." Human Communication Research 1: 99-112.

Burke, K. (1973). The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. Los Angeles, U of California P.

Cruse, D. A. (2003). "The Lexicon." The Handbook of Linguistics. M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller. Oxford, UK, Blackwell: 238-264.

Fillmore, C. J. (2006). "Frame Semantics." Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. D. Geeraerts. Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter: 373-400.

John O Greene. (1984) “A Cognitive Approach to Human Communication: An Assembly-Action Theory” (Communication Monographs, 28-306)

Halliday, M. (2002). Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse. London, Continuum.

Kroeber, A. L. and C. Kluckholm (1963). Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. New York, Vintage Books.

Langacker, R. W. (2002). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.

Langacker, R. W. (2002). Concept, image, and symbol : the cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin/New York : Mouton de Gruyter.

Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: Basic Introduction. Oxoford, UK, Oxford UP.

Levinson, S. C. (1992). "Acitivity Types and Language." Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. P. Drew and J. Heritage. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge UP.

Sanders, T. and W. Spooren (2007). Discourse and Text Structure. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. D. Geeraerts and H. Cuyckens. Oxford, UK, Oxford, UP.

Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge UP.

Shapere, D. (1977). "Scientific Theories and Their Domains." The Structure of Scientific Theories. F. Suppe. Urbana, IL, U of Illinois P.: 518-565.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge UP.

Tannen, D., Ed. (1993). Framing in Discourse. New York, Oxford, Oxford U P.

Toulmin, S. (1976). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge, Cambridge UP.

 

 

 

 

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