The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements OS ot american National Standard for Information Sclences = Permanence cof Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANst 23948-1984, Library of Congress Cataloging in-Pablication Data Framing and perspectivisin Sse, pcm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, ssn 0922-842 ; 111) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis. 2. Frames (Linguistics) 3. Perspective (Linguistics) 1 Ensink, (Ti in discourse | edited by Titus Ensink, Christoph Sauer, 1 s02.96.F73. 2003 AaiSatdet 200203022 sx 0 272 S355 6 (Fux) S8B11 365 5 (US) (by all paper) ‘© 2003 — fohn Benjamins BV. No part ofthis book may be reprodiced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission fromthe publisher, John Benjamins Publishing Co. - P.O. Box 36224 - 1020 vn Amsterdam: The Netherlands John Benjamins North America - PO. Box 27519 - Philadefphia ra 19118-0819 wsaSocial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation The role of frame and perspective Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer 1. Introduction ‘The central concern of Discourse Analysis is to describe and explain how hu- ian discourse functions the way it does, i.e. how people are able ta communi- cate complex meanings by means of coherent situated texts (see Brown & Yule 1983:ix; Fairclough 1995: 4-10; Wood & Kroger 2000:3-16), The discourse it- self (its ‘text”) may be at the core of the communication process, but it is by mo means suficient to account Tovwhar hoppens ir that recom The text it self would be sufficient within the paradigm based an the conduit metaphor for communication (‘communication is a process in which information is sent by a sender toward a receiver”). We believe, however, that this paradigm nowadays has few adherents. Instead, communication is considered a process which calls for active participation and an active role of the listener/reader, a process which therefore is not determined (Sperber & Wilson 1986; Clark 1996), ‘Communication is a form of secial action between people, in which peo- ple assess, interpret, and influence each other on multiple levels, The interactive nature of communication determines the way we look at discourse. Basic to this nature is the fact that interaction must be built on ‘common ground’ (Clark 1996:92-121): participants in the interaction need to share a certain body of knowledge and suppose each other to share that knowledge. People routinely ‘calculate’ which knowledge they themselves have and which knowledge their partners have, so as to establish which knowledge is shared. Interaction thus re- lies on cognitive factors, since it presupposes knowledge. Communication and interaction are basically social concepts, but these concepts need a cognitiv foundationTitus Ensink and Che joph Sauer In this volume, we single out two concepts as central to the concern of Dis- course Analysis along these lines: frame and perspective, ‘Frame’ refers to the fact that discourse participants need a shared sense of the way in which the discourse is framed, i.e. an overall sense of the function of the discourse in the social situation. ‘Perspective’ refers ta the fact that the content of a discourse necessarily is “displayed” from some point of view. Discourse participants can- not contribute to the discourse without at the same iime showing their view on the subject matter of the discourse. Both concepts thus refer to practices that are necessary for discourse participants to orient towards. Both concepts func- tion at the intersection of a psychological-cognitive and a social-functianal ap- proach of discourse. They presuppose knowledge and the operation af knowl- edge structures. Furthermore, they presuppose some indeterminacy as to the Content of these knowledge structures, and they presuppose that people orient themselves more or less consciously towards the operation of these knowledge structures. In this volume, we have brought together some contributions which both elucidate and elaborate these concepts and apply them to the analysis of several types of discourse. We will now discuss both concepts in more detail: ‘frame’ in Section 2, ‘perspective’ in Section 3. In Section 4, we present an illustrative analysis of a fragment of written discourse in which the relevance of both concepts is shown, In Section 5 we introduce the contributions to this volume. when applied to discourse, a metaphorical term, Basically the term ‘frame’ invokes a spatial concept. A frame gives to an abject its place in space and separates it at the same time from its environment. Paradigmatic is the painting in a frame. Everything within the frame is the painting. The frame separates the painting from the environment and is used. at the same time to give the painting its place, e.g., by fixing it to the wall, A frame thus gives structure to both an object itself and to the way the abject is perceived. This double function of the term ‘frame’ is also characteristic of its metaphorical use. Instead of structuring space, a frame may be used for struc- turing time. The opening and closing of the curtain constitute the frame in which the theatrical performance is perceived in time and in which the perfor- mance is separated from previous and subsequent events. And frames may be used to structure cognitive space. As soon as something (either concrete or ab- stract) is seen as being related to something else, framed, because it is seenSocial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation as ‘somewhere’ in cognitive space. “Our general human cognitive capacities appear to include the ability (and the need) to set up frames, or structured un- derstandings of the way aspects of the world function” (Fauconnier & Sweetser 1996:5; bold in original). The metaphor of a ‘frame’ is apparently appealing. Several reviews of the use of the term ‘frame’ in theoretical literature show an at first sight confusing complexity. The complexity has two causes: (1) the term is used with different meanings within different fields of research; (2) within the same field different terms are used in order to refer to (roughly) the same concept or meaning. ‘The first cause may be illustrated when we consider the fields of research enumerated in Tannen (1993b) and Lee (1997). They mention the following fields of research in which the term ‘frame’ is used (the names of the most relevant authors/proponents are added): Tannen (1993b: 15-18) = Linguistics (Fillmore; Chafe) — Anthropology (Bateson; Frake) = Sociology (Goffman; Hymes) = Artificial Intelligence (Minsky; Schank) — Earlier in her discussion Tannen mentioned the field of (Cognitive) Psy- chology (Bartlett; Rumelhart; Abelson) in which ideas similar to those im- plied in the term ‘frame’ are common, but in which different terms are used Lee (1997: 339-340) = Linguistics, in particular Cognitive Grammar (Fillmore; Lakoff; Lan- gacker) — Anthropology (Bateson; Frake) = Sociology (Goffman) - Ethnography of Speaking (Hymes; Saville-Troike) — _ Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz; Schiffrin) The second cause may be illustrated in the following list of terms used in a similar sense as some of the uses of the term ‘frame’: = _ perspective (Graumann; Anderson & Pichert) = schema (Bartlett; Thorndyke & Yekovich) — demon (Charniak) = script (Schank & Abelson) = type of activity: speech activity (Hymes; Gumperz)Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer = footing (Goffman: Levinson) ~ keying (Goffman) = layering (Clark) Nevertheless, it appears. possible to reduce these uses and these terms to two (or maybe three) basic meanings. which are different ways of filling in the same basic metaphor. a1 Knowledge frames The concept ‘frame’ is useful for the description of the way our knowledge is organised and how we use our knowledge in understanding, The concept in this sense has been clearly formulated by Marvin Minsky: What happens when a child reads a story that begins like this? Mary was invited to Jack's party: She wondered if he would like a kite. If you asked what that kite was for, most people would answer that it must be a birthday present for Jack. How amazing it is that every normal person can make such complicated inferences so rapidly — considering that the idea of a gift was never mentioned at alli Could any machine do such remark- able things? Consider all the ether assumptions and conclusions that almast everyone will make: The party i a birthday party Jack and Mary are children. ‘She’ is Mary, ‘Fhe’ is Jack. She is covtsidering giving Jacke kite. She wonsbers if he would lke the kite, We call these understandings ‘common sense! They're made so swifily that they're often ready in our minds before a sentence is complete! But how is this done? In order to realize that the kite is a present, onc has to use such knowledge as that parties involve presents, that presents for children are usu- ally toys, and that kites are appropriate toys to be given as presents. None of this is mentioned in the story itself, How do we bring together all that seat- tered knowledge so quickly? Here's what | think must happen. Somehow the words ‘Mary was invited to fack’s party’ arouses a ‘party-invitation’ frame in the reader's mind — and attached to the terminals of that frame are certain memories of various concerns, Who is the hast? Who will attend? What present should J bring? What clothing shall T wear? Each of these concerns, in wen, isSocial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation — 5 represented by a frame to whose terminals are already attached, as default as- signments, the most usual solutions to that particular kind of problem, (Minsky 1986:261) ‘A knowledge frame isa cognitively available pattern used in perception in or- der to make sense of the perceived material by ‘imposing’ that pattern and its known features on that material. Similarly, Fauconnier and Sweetser (1996: 5) talk about frames in this sense: ‘These frames allow ws to make maximal use of the data we are given in cru cial respects; for example, if someone talking about a house mentions the front daor, the bathroom door, or the drivenay, we don't ask what front door? We know that there is probably a front door, simply from a complex understand- ing of the kind of object in question. Knowledge frames in this sense are also referred to as schema, demon or script. The concept frame in this sense is central to (cognitive) linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology. The concept is used in order to describe and explain the coherence in knowledge as used for the representation we) understanding of the world. In linguistics, it is used for the description of complex semantic relations related to concepts. In artificial intelligence, it is used for developing systems. which are capable of accessing databases in an intelligent and efficient way. The concept has been used in order to develop computational systems which are apable of intelligent processes similar to human processes. In cognitive psychology, the concept has been used in order to explain aspects of knowledge storage, knowledge retrieval, and the use of knowledge in processes of perception and comprehension. The most powerful aspect of frame theory is undoubtedly that it accounts for the ‘principle of continually available output’ (see Kuipers 1973; Bobrow & Norman 1975): human perception and comprehension do not need complete data in order to yield coherent and interpreted output. Whenever we see a car behind a thick tree, we donot perceive a complete car, but fragments of the front and the back- side, But we do not see two fragmentary parts, we ‘see’ one unified whole car. Thus, by using the coherence of the knowledge in our semantic memory, we find an explanation for the human capacity of understanding a lot from only a little bit of data (Baddeley 1990; 335-347; 1999: 145—1 60); see also Schank 8 Abelson 1977). In discourse analysis, the concept ‘frame’ is used in this sense as well, When the question is asked how people use their everyday knowledge in a routinised way in the understanding of text to fill in presupposed but implicit informa- rocesses ofEnsink and Christoph Sauer tion, the concept appears to be useful (Levinson 1983: 281; Kintsch & van Dijk 1983:46—49, 307-311; some criticism in Brown & Yule 1983; Suchman 1987; Edwards 1997), For example, in examples like “I entered the room. The win- dow was broken” it is easily understood that the window belongs to the room, Hence, the coherence of the two sentences is explainable on the basis of the knowledge frame for a room which is accessed when the first sentence is pro- cessed, Not all relevant information needs to be mentioned in order to under- stand ‘completely’ what the discourse means. Frames thus contribute to the explanation of the often noted characteristic of human discourse that the form of an utterance "hopelessly underdetermines its interpretation”. ‘The concept ‘frame conceived as a knowledge frame has also been used in a more specific way in discourse analysis. Especially in media analysis, ie in discourse analysis applied to media texts, analysts use the concept for de- scribing and explaining differences in the way people perceive news events, and subsequently, the way reporters report about those events. Seminal in this re- spect has been the work of Tuchman (1978) who introduced the concept to the field of media analysis. Along these lines, Bing and Lombardo (1997) analyse a number of media texts pertaining to sexual harassment. They show that sexual harassment is not an object or event with fixed properties and with a fixed way of evaluating, but that the way people talk and think about sexual harassment depends on the frame they choose to fit it into, viz, the judicial frame, the vic tim frame, the initiator frame, and the social science frame. We encounter a similar approach in Gitlin (1980), Entman (1991) and Pan and Kosicki (1993). 2a Interactive frames When people interact they expect cach other to behave comprehensibly and to a certain extent predictably, Several authors have described interaction on this basis. As a rather typical example, consider John Gumperz (1982), who describes interactive pracesses as based on processes of conversational inference, i.e. “.. the situated or context-bound process of interpretation, by means of which participants in an exchange assess others’ intentions, and on which they base their responses” (Gumperz 1982:153). This process is further described as follows: ‘The identification of specific conversational exchanges as representative of socio-culturally farniliar activities is the process | have called ‘contextualiza- It is the process by which we evaluate message meaning and se- quencing patterns in relation to aspects of the surface structure of the mes- sage, called ‘contextualization cues. The linguistic basis for this matching pro-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation cedure resides in ‘co-occurrence cxpectatio hich are learned in the course of previous interactive experience and form part of our habitual and instinc- tive linguistic knowledge. Co-accurrence expectations enable us to associate styles of speaking with contextual presuppositions. We regularly rely upon these matching procedures in everyday conversation. Although they are rarely talked about and tend to be noticed only when things go wrong, withaut them we would be unable to relate what we hear to previous experience. (Gumperz 1982:162) Although the concept ‘frame’ is not used by Gumperz, it is clear that a si lar concept is involved. Note that the key formulation is “the identification of specific conversational exchanges as representative of socio-culturally familiar activities”. To be familiar implies to be stored as a form of normal and read- ily accessible information. Similarly, “co-occurrence expectations” presuppose an organisation of knowledge that is clustered, coherent, and contains “default values": This is precisely the core af the concept of ‘knowledge frame’ Interac tive frames may thus be considered a specific case of knowledge frames. Inter- active frames are those frames which pertain to our behaviour of what we do whenever we speak with one another in different social situations, Participants in interaction need to share a sense of which kind of activity they are engaged is is warranted by the mutual orientation toward interactive frames. Interactive frames are also referred to as ‘kind of activity’ or ‘speech activ- ity’ Examples of this use may be found in Tannen and Wallat (1993:59-60), or in the following quotation: “In the ethnography of speaking ... the con- cept [frame] applies primarily to the type af activity being engaged in: joking, imitating, chatting, lecturing, ete, (...)” (Lee 1997:340), ‘The term ‘frame’ is used in the interactive sense in anthropology (Bateson; ake), sociology (Goffman), the ethnography of speaking (Hymes; Saville- ‘Troike), and interactional soci ‘s (Gumperz; Schiffrin). The concept has been applied in the analysis of the interaction in many different situations. ‘The contributions in Tannen (1993a) analyse the following interactions or situ- ations: medical examination (Tannen & Wallat), psychotic discourse (Ribeiro), sportscasting (Hoyle), sermons (Smith), group discussions (Watanabe), and interviews (Schiffrin). Similarly, Van den Berg (1996) analyses social research interviews as built up from frames toward which the researcher and the inter- viewee orient themselves,‘Titus Ensink and Chelstoph Sauer 23 Footing and changes in frame Erving Goffman (1981) introduced the concept ‘footing’ which is rather sim- ilar to the concept of interactive frame and which became rather influential in discourse analysis, Gaffman himself did not provide a clear definition. The following quotation comes closest to a definition: A change in footing implies a change in the alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance. A change in our footing is another way of talking, about a. change in our frame for events. (4. {Change in footing is very commonly language-linked: if not that, then at least one can claim that the paralinguistic markers af language will Figure. (Golfrrsats 1981: 128) The concept has been elaborated system: applied in analysis many times (e.g. Heritage & Greatbach 1991; Clayman 1992; most of the contributions to Tannen 1993a; Wortham 1996; Ensink 1997 — to mention only a few examples of authors using the concept). Goffman’s remark that a “change in our footing is another way of talk- sally by Levinson (1988). It has been ing about a change in our frame for events” suggests that the concepts frame and footing may be seen as identical, Moreover, Goffman himself (Goffman 1981: 128, footnote) considered ‘footing’ an elaboration of his Frame analysis (Goffman 1974), There is, however, a difference in focus, The term ‘footing’ roughly refers to the way in which the communicative participant (speaker or hearer) is involved in the situation and the ground for this way. The term ‘frame’ refers ta the overall picture of what the situation is. Hence, there is no simple identity (which would allow us to do away with one of the terms), but rather a strong co-occurtence relation between both concepts, It is remarkable that in the quotation above Goffman speaks repeatedly about a change in footing (or in frame). A change may be taken in the sense of one frame taking the place of another one, just as might be the case with knowledge frames, We may consider an object or event as fitting some frame, but then recognise on some ground that we have been mistaken. For example, if we perceive a flying object, we may first think that we see a bird, but then recognise that it is not a bird but a kite. The perception, the outside stinvulus to the retina, in itself did not change. But we chose a different knowledge frame to fit the perception into, However, a change in footing, ot in frame, is not restricted to replacing; there is also the possibility of embedding. Consider this quotation:Sacial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation ‘The question of footing is systematically complicated by the possibility of em- bedding. For example, a speaker can quote himself or another directly or in rectly, thereby setting into an utterance with one production format another utterance with its own production format, albeit now merely an embedded one. (Goffman 1981:227) In his Frame analysis, Goffman (1974) has devoted many chapters to the phe- nomenon of frames embedding other frames. Using the musical analogy of tonal transposition, Goffman terms these embedding frames keys (Clark 1996, Chapter 12, describes similar phenomena using the term layering). Whenever a keying occurs, “a systematic transformation is involved across materials al- ready meaningful in accordance with a schema of interpretation, and without which the keying would be meaningless” (Goffman 1974:43), There are good reasons (see Ensink, this volume) to consider these frames a3 a separate category, next to knowledge frames and interactive frames. Most authors do not, but treat them as belonging to interactive frames. In this vol- ume, there is considerable attention paid to phenomena pertaining to embed- ding frames, in particular in the papers by Cowper, Ensink and Jacobs, and to some lesser extent by Bredel. 3 Perspective ‘The concept ‘perspective’ is in many regards similar to the concept ‘frame’ Per- spective is a concept pertaining to the way in which space is perceived and represented. It is an aspect of the basic properties of visual perception. From this spatial basic meaning, several metaphorical meanings have been derived Sandig (1996) points out that perspective is a topic of analysis in such fields as social psychology, philosophy, psychology, poetics, the arts, and'linguistics, In discourse analysis, the concept refers to the way people imply a certain way of looking at things when communicating about them, Perspective is equivalent to the concept ‘point of view’ (see Simpson 1993). For something to be rep- resented (in communication, in text) implies a point of view from which it is represented. It is not passible to represent something, without representing it from some point. If discourse perspective is broadly defined as a particular vantage point, or point of view in discourse, then, strictly speaking, no sentence in any discourse is free from a certain degree of perspectivizatio (Sanders & Redeker 1996:290)‘Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer ‘The identification of that point, and its implication for the way of representing, is the main point of describing and analysing perspective in discourse. Sandig (1996) identifies the following principles which are important to account for when describing perspective in discourse: — Perspective is pervasive in discourse. Perspective is relevant in all those dis- course phenomena in which the attitude or point of view of the speaker is made explicit, or in which the existence of different attitudes or points of view is acknowledged. = The concept perspective presupposes a perspectivising person (normally the speaker) and a perspectivised object (what is talked or written about); perspective itself may be described as the relation between the perspectivis- ing person and the perspectivised object, as established in the discourse. The normal case of perspective is one’s own perspective: the speaker speaks from him/herself. But it is possible to adopt a ‘foreign’ perspective. = In discourse, the speaker normally speaks from a certain perspective. It is also possible to speak about a perspective, metacommunicatively, so to speak. — Perspective is not constant or predetermined, It is the result of a choice. In subscquent parts of a discourse a speaker or may choose a different perspective. The discourse perspective thus may shift, Even when we admit that “no sentence in any discourse is free from a certain degree of perspectivization’, it is possible to identify some discoursal or textual aspects that contribute more explicitly to the identificati sognisability of perspective than other ones: = voice (the choice between active or passive): see Mikame (1996), and au- thors quated by Cornelis (1997) and Cornelis (this volume) = forms of quotation: see Simpson (1993:21-30), Sanders (1994), Sanders and Redeker (1996), and Bredel (this volume) = lexical choice: in many cases a speaker/writer has different options in order to refer to some object or state of affairs; making a choice from these op- tions often implies a perspectival choice, such as the choice between ‘come’ and ‘go’ or the choice of verbs in a root-form as opposed to a derived form, as in German ‘pflanzen’ (to plant) —“bepflanzen’ (fo plant-into): see same (1996) — deixis: the way in which a speaker ar writer fits the discourse to the actual place and time of the situation in which the discourse is produced: see Simpson (1993; 12-21), Levelt (1989:-44-58)Social-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation — in the analysis of narratives (both literary and non-fictional) the point of view of the narrator is an important focus of analysis: see Bal (1983) and Simpson (1993) Regarding perspective indicating choices, Mikame (1996) argues that a speaker will normally choose an unmarked formulation, The normal unmarked per- spective is the ome which belongs to the Origo (to use Bihler's term) of the speaker: Der Sprecher schildert einen Sachverhalt im Normalfall vom Sprecher-Origo- Punkt her, diese eyozentrisch-fixierte Perspektive Lisst sich aly unmarkierte Perspektive auflissen [Perspektive = SOP], Lisst er dagegen seine Perspek- tive vom SOP zu einem bestimmten Objekt ( = thematisches Objekt) dberge- hhen und stellt won dort den Sachverhalt dar, so Hisst sich diese dem Objekt angentherte Perspektive als markierte Perspektive auffassen [Perspektive Objekt}. (Mikame 1996: 370) The speaker represents a state of affairs in normal cases from the point of the speaker's Origo; this egocentrically fixed perspective may be considered the un- marked perspective [perspective = point of the speaker's Origo, PSO], But if he shifts hie perspective from the PSO to.a certain object (the theiutic abject) and if she represents from there the state of afftirs, then the perspective close to this object may be considered the marked perspective [perspective = object) Thus, if a speaker uses ‘come’, the normal, unmarked, perspective is that the movement is toward the location of the speaker (‘come to me"), When the movement is from the location of the speaker taward some location elsewhere, then the perspective belongs to the other location. In this case, the perspective is marked (‘I'll come to the Dome’), and therefore communicatively salient. Similarly, the choice of the active voice, the use of the root verb and the choice of the indirect mode are unmarked, Mikame argues that the marked perspec- tive may be chosen whenever the speaker or writer wishes to signal that the perspective from the object is more relevant. 4. Analysis of an illustrative example In order to show the relevance of the concepts frame and perspective, we will discuss the following example. On February 24, 1997, Time published an article “Bye to all that” by Anthony Spacth. The first six sentences (the first paragraph) of this article are the following (we have added numbers to each sentence):2 Titus Ensink and Christoph Sawer (1) Hwang Jang Yop wanted to go shopping, or so he told his comrades at the tightly guarded North Korean embassy in central Beijing, (2) But after a short taxi ride, Hwang and an aide were at the door of their sworn enemy: the embassy of South Korea. (3) The pair passed through its gates a few minutes afler 10 a.m, and asked to meet the ambassador, (4) Hwang then announced his intention to defect, adding, ‘Is this place safe?’ (5) The scholarly 73-year-old sat at the consul generals desk and composed a pub- lic statement, with advice to loved ones back in Pyongyang: (6) ‘I would like to ask my family to think that I have le(t this world as of today. In order to make sense of these sentences.a reader of the magazine has to iden- tify at least the following features — describable on the basis of our central concepts — in order to grasp the ostensibly intended meaning: 1. Discourse functions on the basis of both explicitly provided information and presupposed information. The information that {s provided in (1) is that “Hwang” and “his comrades” belong to “the tightly guarded Embassy of North Korea”, North Korea is a Stalinist bulwark, as a politically knowledgeable reader will know (the formulation “comrades” fits into that knowledge). This is part of the information that is presupposed. Moreover, the reader has to invoke general knowledge (again, presupposed in the communication) concerning diplomacy, the way of life within oppressive political systems, espionage and possible bug- ging, the position of embassies in large cities, the way public statements are made, and so on, The reader has to know things like: ‘Beijing is China’s Cap- ital’; ‘Countries have an Embassy in a foreign capital for their representa “High officials have drivers as an aide’; ‘Pyongyang is North Korea’s Capital's “Enemy countries try to bug places such as embassies in which they might get vital information’; ‘Oppressive regimes hit back hard at traitors’; and so on. Such knowledge is organised and accessible in knowledge clusters ar knowledge fromes, similar to the way in which children understand stories about kites and birthday presents (cf. Section 2.1). m5 2. Discourse is normally seen as somebody's discourse: a person or an ins! tution as the source of the text, And discourse is seen as performing a func- tional activity. The quoted paragraph is attributable to Time and to its journal- ist Anthony Spaeth. The discourse is seen as a specific activity, viz. jaurnalistic reporting (ef. Section 2.2). A reader will interpret the paragraph accordingly. In the first clause of (1) a certain fact is put forward about Hwang Jang Yop, namely that he wanted to go shopping. This fact is reported to the reader bySocial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation Anthony Spaeth through the medium of Time’s magazine. Normally, a reader is not suppased to know who Hwang is, or what the relevance of the rather trivial fact is that someane wants to ga shopping (don't we all every day?). But a reader normally expects reported facts to be relevant to the report, The rele- vance of the reported fact may be made explicit in roughly the following way. In the second clause of (1), the reported fact is linked to other information: Hwang told his comrades at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing so. The fact reported in the first clause now is entbedded within a reported statement. The second clause of (1) thus effects an important shift. Whereas the credibility of the proposition "Hwang wants to go shopping’ seems to depend on the com- ion of Time's reporter ta the reader in the first clause, it depends on Hwang's communication to his comrades in the second clause. This invokes questions about the communication between Hwang and his comrades. Why did Hwang say so to his comrades? ‘The first word of (2) is“but” This signals a contrast. The contrast is appar- ently between the expectation resulting fram (1) (namely that Hwang is going. to do some shopping) and the reported fact in (2)-(4). The reported fact in (2)-+(4) is that Hwang did not go shopping but went to the South Korean Em- bassy (the Enemy), in order to defect. The contrast results in the interpretation that Hwang's discourse to his comrades, reported in the second clause of (1), was not sincerely meant but intended as a pretence. muni 3. Nevertheless, there are many cases where discourse is not directly and cally attributable to one source. Discourse may contain allusions to other discourse, discourse may be produced by someone who acts on behalf of somebody else, discourse may contain the literal or paraphrased embedding of another discourse, i.c. quots which functions within one frame may be transposed to another frame, and thus be put on a different footing (cf. Section 2.3). The quoted paragraph contains both direct and indirect quotations from Hwang. Whereas basically the whole paragraph may be considered a form of communication of a news medium (Time and its journalist) to the general audience, at least three other forms of communication are referred to, two of which are embedded directly (indicated by’) in this text: jon ina direct or indirect form. Verbal behaviour = Hwang communicating to his comrades (1) — Hwang communicating to South Korea's Ambassador (4) = Hwang communicating in a public statement, in particular to his fam- ily (6).Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer By comparing Hwang's quoted communication in (1) and (4), it appears that he has made two announcements within s short span of time, He has an- nounced that he wanted te do some shopping, and he has announced that he wanted to defect. The reader now knows that Hwang's first announcement was not sincerely meant, but the second very much so. Furthermore, sentence (6) is embedded within (5). In (5) Hwang is described as having written a pub- lic statement, part of which is quoted in (6). Whereas the general addressee of (6) is the public in general (“a public statement”), the intended addressee is Hiwang’s family in North Korea, 4. Discourse communication involves the representation of facts, but it does not do so objectively, nor detached from any point of view. Instead, a specific point of view is always involved, (Here we see how perspective operates in dis- ‘course, cf. Section 3.) This is the most perspicuous in cases in which evaluation becomes explicit, Evaluation is dependent on which side you are on. Not ev- erybody sces things the same way. Consider the effect of the formulaic choice in (4): “Hwang then anounced his intention to defect”, Here the formulation “defect” is used, This formulation has not merely a descriptive sense (moving from one political party to another) but also an evaluative sense, There is en- mity between these two parties. The description is from the point of view of the party which is left. Otherwise, one should use the formulation ‘join’ (Hwang then announced his intention to join them”), Similarly, consider this sentence from a subsequent paragraph in the Time article: “Aside from that remarkable fact, much else was hazy about his coming in from the cold”. To whom is the fact “remarkable”? To which perceptor are things “hazy”? What determines the choice of direction implied in “coming in”? — Another aspect of the Time article in which perspective operates is the fact that, although the events are described in the third person by a narrator (Spaeth) who himself does not take part in the narrated events, facts are presented in such a way that the reader keeps close to Hwang as the protagonist of the narrated events, thus adopting Hwang's point of view: the aide is an aide to Hwang, South Korea is their (ise. Hwang's and his aide's) enemy, the sitting at the table is described from Hwang’s position, and soon, 5 The concepts frame and perspective in discourse analysis: This valume Although the concepts ‘frame’ and ‘perspective’ are not identical, they are closely related. frame isa arucure of perception, « perspective isa dinesSocial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation tion of perception. Both concepts are based on a spatial metaphor. As a result, the phenomena both concepts refer to are closely related and often co-eccur. A shift in frame often implies a shift in perspective. And often it is difficult to identify which structure of perception must be used, without at the same time identifying from which point of view that structure is to be used.! Indeed, some phenomena may be described using both terms. Quotation is a case in point. Quotation is a shift in the deictic centre of the discourse, hence in perspective. At the same time, it shifts the frame in which the quoted words are to be inter- preted. Hence, quotation may be regarded a key example af the intersection of framing and perspectivising phenomena. Because of the structural similarity of both concepts, and because of their relevance to the description of discourse phenomena, we have brought together in this volume several contributions focusing on these phenomena, and using theoretical tools aiming at describing and explaining framing and perspe ing devices in the production and comprehension of discourse. ‘We may characterise the contributions to this volume as follows. ‘Theo van Leeuwen argues that any discourse is realised by multimodal means, Thus, spoken discourse does not only contain words, but these words inevitably have volume, melady, and speed; moreover, the speaker of the words has facial expressions, and makes different gestures. Printed discourse does not only consist of words, but inevitably these words are distributed in a specific way on a page, they have graphic characteristics, and so on. The key ques tion van Leeuwen addresses is how different modes interact in the composition of a discourse (especially written discourse) so as to have an integrated inter pretative result. Van Leeuwen distinguishes three major aspects in multimodal composition: ~ information value, The way elements are put in space, notably lefi ~ right, up — down, foreground — background, gives a specific information value to these elements, Space may be taken in its literal sense, but space often refers to sentiotic space. = salience. The way elements are designed in order to attract the perceiver’s attention to a greater or lesser degree. The location in space may also add to an element's salience, as do movement, tonal colour, relative size. — framing, The way the elements of a composition are connected or discon- nected by formal means, such as white space, boundary lines, vectors, and so on. Whether elements belong together, form part of each other, are in- dependent and separate, or contrast may be decided on the basis of these framing devices. 4s6 Titos Ensink and Christoph Sauer Titus Ensink claborates the notion of ‘key’ itself, although he proposes a dif- ferent term, viz. ‘transformational frame’ First, he argues that it is necessary to distinguish these frames from interactional patterns followed in interaction, ‘on the basis of which people model their contributions to that interaction. Central to his argument is the asymmetrical relation between transformational frames and interactive frames (the first may and must contain the latter ones, whereas the latter ones cannot contain the first). Subsequently, a number of cases are analysed in which tranformational frames operate. In these analyses, the descriptive relevance of the concept is shawn. Geert Jacabs presents an analysis of press releases from the point of view that they are meant to be subsequently part of a press publication. The per: son oF organisation issuing a press release calculates in advance the role it will play in the subsequent report, Since the report is a form of framing, in partic- ular, keying, the advance calculation may be considered a farm of what Jacobs terms prekeying. Jacobs relates these phenomena to the increased influence and presence of media in social life. Prekeying and keying thus are forms of ‘me- diazation’. Jacobs focuses on deictic phenomena. He shows that many press releases choose the deictic centre of the expected subsequent press report. Part of the press release is thus conceived and realised already within the subsequent frame, at the same time adopting the perspective belonging to that frame. Janet Cowper equally relies on Goffman’s analytic framework in her anal- ysis of real and satirised political interviews. The normal political interview is an event that may be transformed or transposed into the ‘key” (in Goffman’s terminology) of satire. The behaviour within the key is patterned after the be- haviaur in the primary frame. Cowper presents an elaborate comparative de- scription, based on a Conversation Analytic approach, giving two instances of both: one serious political interview, and one satirical sketch in the format ofan interview (a so called ‘format sketch’). Apart from ‘keying’ Cowper also makes extensive use of Goffman’s concept ‘footing’ in her analysis of interviewer's and interviewee's behaviour in both instances. Ursula Bredel analyses quotation on a rather broad basis. Quotation phe- nomena are not limited to one speaker explicitly referring to, and incorporat- ing, another speaker's discourse into one’s own discourse, but they are extended to the phenomenon of ‘polyphony’ (in Bakhtin's terminology): in discourse there are traces of different voices, including one’s own voice, in different in- stances of oneself. Bredel distinguishes three forms of polyphony: interpoly- phonic constructions (a speaker inserting foreign voices within his own dis- course), intcapolyphonic constructions (a speaker invoking different forms or instances of himself) and hybrid constructions (a mixture of these passibil-Sacial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation ities). The use of the different possibilities has perspectivising effects, Bredel analyses these in two paradigmatic examples, taken from a larger corpus of narratives. (The full corpus aims at a comparative analysis of perspective in stories told by West Germans, as opposed to stories told by East Germans.) In one story forms of intrapolyphony prevail, in the other one forms of inter- polyphony. Polyphony turns out to be especially useful in making inconsisten- cies in one’s experience accountable. Louise Cornelis analyses one specific grammatical choice, namely, active or passive voice, as an indicator of text perspective, Choice of the active voice sig- tnals that the entity the activity of which is described, is closer to the speaker (ar writer), whereas the passive signals a greater distance. Cornelis analyses a small corpus of newspaper reports on a soccer match in order to find out whether journalists who ate closer to the winning team (hence may be expected ta sig- nal a stronger identification) use the active voice more often, Subsequently, she describes an experiment in which two versions of one text are used. One version uses predominantly active voice, the other the passive. The experiment shows that readers of the text do recognise the perspective which belongs to the chosen voice an theoretical grounds: choice of the passive is seen as signalling a more distanced point of view. Ines Busch-Lauer analyses the perspective in one specific type of text, namely letters-to-the-editor in scientific medical journals. These texts are dis- tinctly expert and professional. They aim at expressing an attitude or an evalu- ation concerning previous publications, For that reason, they may be expected to be a rich source for finding perspectivising phenomena, Busch-Lauer fo- cuses on stylistic choices as an indication of the chosen perspective. She dis- tinguishes three main perspectives, all of which may be described (following Sandig, above) as the relation between a perspectivising person (normally the writer of the letter) and a perspectivised object (in this ease, the previous pub- lication on which the letter wishes to comment): (1) author — research re- sults; (2) author = readership; (3) author = science in general. More specifi- ly, Busch-Lauer tries to establish cross-cultural differences in the use of these perspectives by making a comparison of the perspective chosen in letters to German and English medical journals. ‘The first four contributions (van Leeuwen, Ensink, Jacobs, Cowper) per- tain toframing, whereas the next three contributions (Bredel, Cornelis, Busch- Lauer) pertain to perspectivising phenomena. If we look at the different contri- butions from the point of view of ourintraductory remarks in Sections 2 and 3, we may notice that we did not include any contribution pertaining to knowl- edge frames (cf. Section 2.1) considering the rather exclusively psychologicalTitus Ensink and Christoph Sauer basis of the concept in this sense, Van Leeuwen’ contribution pertains to fram- ing in general. Framing is considered in a basic and rather literal sense, namely as pertaining ta boundary lines in space (cf. Section 2). The next three contri- butions address the way frames may be transformed or transpased. These con- tributions use the notion of frame in a metaphorical sense (cf. Section 2). They rely on Goffman’s Frame analysis (1974), in particular on the notion of ‘key’: the transformation of some behaviour (or discourse, for that matter) which is already meaningful in itself toward a new frame which reconstitutes the basic meaning of what we perceive (cf, Sections 2.2 and 2.3), Ensink argues in favour of a terminological distinction (transformational frames as distinguished from interactional frames proper). Iacobs describes some of the ways in which a dis course may anticipate its being included in subsequent discourse, by framing its own formulations in terms of the frame expected in the subsequent discourse. Cowper makes a comparison of the same type of discourse (a news ) in a serious and a satirical situation, hence in a single framed and an embed- ded situation, The three contributions pertaining to perspective (ef, Section 3) focus on different linguistic and discoursal aspects in which perspective may manifest itself: quotation (Bredel), the choice between active and passive voice (Cornelis), and stylistic and formulaic choice (Busch-Lauer). All three contri- butions show that a different perspective as manifeste reflection of some social difference, be it a historical turning point in soci or belonging to different regional or national commun ‘The first two contributions (van Leeuwen, Ensink) have a general thea~ retical outlook, whereas the next five contributions (Jacobs, Cowper, Bredel, Cornelis, Busch-Lauer) contain empirical research. Framing is considered by van Leeuwen as part of an overarching theoretical concept: multimodality. Since discourse (ar ‘composition, in the terminology used by van Leeuwen) is located within semiotic space, every aspect of semiotic space contributes to the way the discourse is understaod. Framing is one of the main aspects of semiotic space, hence an impartant aspect of the way in which the structure and the function of a discourse are communicated. Van Leeuwen thus presents the most general outlook of this volume, Ensink’s contribution is aimed at a terminological and theoretical clarification regarding interactional frames as to the property of embedding (cf. Section 2.3): some interactional frames may contain others, some do not. ‘The empirical research described in this volume is descriptive in nature. Th all cases we find a corpus of materials in which framing or perspectivis- ing phenomena are analysed, In most cases the corpus is also comparative on the basis of some criterion such as belanging to the same local community or iscourse is also aSacial-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation not (Cornelis), nationality (British vs, German, Busch-Lauer), before or after a historical turning point (before or after the Werde, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bredel}, intended seriously or satirising (Cowper), In the analyses of Bredel and Busch-Lauer the comparison has intercultural implications, In general, we encounter in this volume theory construction on the basis of illustrative evidence (van Leeuwen, Ensink), corpus analysis (Jacobs), com- parative corpus analysis (Cowper, Cornelis, Bredel, Busch-Lauer), and exper- iment (part of Carnelis’ contribution), We feel that this is a fair reflection of how research in Discourse Analysis proceeds. Notes 1. We can find some-examples where both terms are used interchangeably, Thus, Graumann (1989295) writes: “On a more technical level, perspective ino ftentimes equated with schema, frame of reference, attitude of role” Graumann does not use ‘frame’ for short, but ‘rame of reference’ although the term ‘schema’ normally is used to refer to a knowledge frame in tie sense we use in this paper. In Anderson and Pichert (1978) an experiment is described in which the same text (a description of 1 house) is read by two groups of readers, One group is asked to read the text as a prospective buyer. The other group is asked to read while imagining that they are planning to burglarize the house. Anderson and Pichert rely ‘on cognitive frame theory to explain several experimental findings pertaining to memory effects. They describe their experiment, however, as ane pertaining, to subjects! perspective 2. 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