Lic Paper Jan Krattiger

University of Basel Department of English Licentiate thesis in Linguistics
Towards a better understanding of communication:

the combination of transformational framing processes and a multimodal approach to composition, exemplified with the analysis of a television interview
Handed in on the 5th of November, 2011 Jan Krattiger Lothringerstr. 87 4056 Basel jan.krattiger@stud.unibas.ch 078 765 13 51 Immatriculation Number: 02-050-235 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Miriam Locher Co-Supervisor: Dr. phil. Danile Klapproth
Acknowledgements To begin, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Miriam Locher, for her support and helpful hints into the right directions whenever I unknowingly tried to follow a path that would lead nowhere in the end. My co-supervisor Dr. Danile Klapproth for introducing me to framing theory in a seminar called Framing in Discourse in the summer term of 2010 and a lot of interesting seminars during my time at the Department of English. Every other professor or teacher of the Department of English that showed me the intricacies of the English language over the years, in linguistics and literature. My family for their endurance and support over so many years, without which all of this would never have been possible. Cornelia for semester after semester of shared seminars and lectures and the good times between Petersplatz and Nadelberg. Alain for making me want to be a better academic scholar. Finally, Joanna for mental support, the best tea at two in the morning and for making me want to work harder.
Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Aim and Scope 3. Literature Review

3.1 Framing theory 3.1.1 Primary frames / Knowledge frames 3.1.2 Interactive Frames 3.1.3 Transformational Frames Frame shifts, Frame embeddings and de-embeddings 3.2 Multimodality 3.3 Composition 3.3.1 Information value 3.3.2 Salience 3.3.3 Framing 3.3.4 Summary
1 4 6
6 9 10 12 15 17 19 20 26 27 28
4. Data
4.1 Television as a medium 4.1.1 Products 4.1.2 Summary 4.2 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS) 4.2.1 Genres and Program structures of The Daily Show 4.3 The Interview 4.3.1 The Interviewer and the Interviewee 4.4 General characteristics of the data and limitations
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29 30 32 32 34 35 36 37
5. Methodology: Key concepts and tools for analysis

5.1 Transcription method 5.2 Tools for Analysis 1: Transformational Frames 5.3 Tools for Analysis 2: Composition
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39 39 40
6. Analysis
6.1 Analysis 1: Transformational Frames 6.1.1 Fragment 1: Introduction 6.1.2 Fragment 2: Interview opening Fragment 2 a) Fragment 2 b)
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42 42 44 44 46
Fragment 2 c) Fragment 2 d) 6.1.3 Fragment 3: Intermission 6.1.4 Fragment 4: Part two 6.1.5 Fragment 5: Interview Closing 6.1.6 Summary of Analysis 1 6.2 Analysis 2: Composition 6.2.1 Fragment 1: Introduction 6.2.2 Fragment 2: Interview 6.2.3 Fragment 3: Intermission 6.2.4 Fragment 4: Interview Part two 6.2.5 Fragment 5: Interview Closing 6.2.6 Summary of Analysis 2
48 50 51 53 55 57 58 58 61 65 66 68 70
7. Discussion
7.1 Analysis 1: Transformational frames 7.2 Analysis 2: A multimodal approach to composition 7.3 Fusion of Analysis 1 and Analysis 2
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71 72 75
8. Conclusion
References Appendix I Appendix II
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81 84 85
Towards a better understanding of communication This is the introduction. Writing one allows a writer to try to set the terms of what he will write about. Accounts, excuses, apologies designed to reframe what follows after them, designed to draw a line between deficiencies in what the author writes and deficiencies in himself, leaving him, he hopes, a little better defended than he might otherwise be. (Goffman 1974: 16)
1. Introduction
The general idea for this paper arose out of a linguistics seminar at the English Department of the University of Basel (Prof. D. Klapproth, ST2010) called Framing in Discourse. The main theoretical framework discussed was the one introduced by Erving Goffman in 1974, who, in the influential essay on the organization of experience titled Frame analysis, offered an approach to the analysis of human interaction and communication based on the 'framing metaphor' as Ensink and Sauer (2003) point out, [t]he term 'frame' is, when applied to discourse, a metaphorical term. Basically the term 'frame' invokes a spatial concept. A frame gives to an object its place in space and separates it at the same time from its environment (2003: 2). This very basic theoretical framework had a big impact on a broad variety of academic disciplines and was subsequently developed further by numerous scholars, leaving as a legacy a broad variety of concepts and subconcepts that build on this notion of frame (see Tannen & Wallat 1993, Ensink & Sauer 2003). They centre around the basic question that Goffman (1974) raised in Frame analysis, namely the question of What is it that's going on here? that individuals face when attending to any current situation (1974: 8). The sociologist Goffman (1974) was very aware of the open characteristics of his concept, himself stating that Players usually come up with five or ten rules (as I will), but there are no grounds for thinking that a thousand additional assumptions might not be listed by others (1974: 6). This paper shall be an attempt not at coming up with a set of completely new rules, but at anchoring Goffman's basic principles in a contemporary environment and updating them for the modern world we live in today. Especially Titus Ensink's (2003) relatively recently developed concept of 'transformational frames' is,rather than one of the abovementioned additional assumptions in the Goffmanian sense, a clear and straightforward set of rules that substantiates the basic principles of Goffman's 'frame analysis' in an enlightening and tangible fashion. Following closely the framework of Goffman's framing theory', with a focus on the notion of 'key', Ensink's concept of transformational frames will constitute the basic linguistic framework that serves the data analysis for this paper.
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Towards a better understanding of communication
However, and this is crucial for the approach this paper follows, despite the fruitful approach proposed by Ensink (2003) and its merits regarding the analysis of discourse, it is at the same time an approach that is limited. As in the majority of studies conducted in this or a similar realm, it focuses purely on the analysis of the linguistic aspects of discourse, for example in newspaper articles or in transcripts of political speeches. Ensink (2003) himself states that with his framework, [o]ne important aspect of the way discourse works thus may be captured (2003: 86), namely that it is necessary to distinguish transformational frames from interactive frames proper, and [] that a notation using brackets is useful for describing the general structure of the relation between frames (2003: 86). Additionally, Ensink (2003) argues that media constitute transformational frames by their very nature, and apart from that, they make use of them (2003: 78). He proves this connection with a number of examples of analysis, particularly with that of a radio program (see 2003: 84-86). In general, this analysis offers deep insight into the inner workings of communicative interactions and their dynamic processes. Yet, with the focus exclusively on the linguistic aspects of what is going on between the involved communicators, it does not take into consideration a lot of major aspects of modern media discourse. Thus, in order to show a more complete picture of a possible answer to the basic question of 'What is it that's going on here?' (Goffman 1974: 8), Ensink's (2003) theoretical framework shall be combined with a multimodal approach, as Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003) understand it. Goffman (1974) himself already critiques the basic question of 'What is it that's going on here?' as considerably suspect (1974: 8) and thus shows that his concept of Frame analysis, too, has substantial limitations in terms of focus he states that [a]ny event can be described in terms of a focus that includes a wide swath or a narrow one and [] in terms of a focus that is close up or distant (1974: 8), which led him to proceed by picking [his] span and level arbitrarily (1974: 8). In an attempt to tackle this general problem of focus, van Leeuwen (2003) stresses the fact that communication takes place through a number of modes simultaneously, that speaking, for instance, encompasses, not just spoken language, but also gesture, facial expression, rhythm, and melody (2003: 23), which are all elements that influence discourse. Ensink (2003), in his final and speculative remarks, alludes to possible extensions of his concept of transformational frames, as
the last two centuries have added many technical possibilities for transforming, especially in the form of introducing many new media. Media do not only offer new ways of representing (and thus transforming) behaviours. Media also invite people to create new forms and patterns of behaviour. The possibility of transformational frames thus has an effect on the embedded behaviour. (2003: 87)
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Van Leeuwen's (2003) approach regarding the 'composition' of contemporary multimodal text (2003: 24) can be seen as an apt extension of the framework as proposed by Ensink (2003). As opposed to the 'monomodal' approaches to meaning making, such as those which consider only language when talking about the interpretation of texts and practices (Iedema 2003: 29-30), van Leeuwen's (2003) approach to 'text' here is a broader one. As an example of such a text, he gives the first screen of a CD-ROM that contains words, pictures, stills as well as moving pictures and music (see van Leeuwen 2003). Ensink and Sauer (2003) support van Leeuwen's (2003) general theoretical outlook (Ensink and Sauer 2003: 18) in the introduction to their book Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse, stressing that [s]ince discourse (or '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 understood (2003: 18). The proposition of a multimodal approach as suggested by van Leeuwen to framing analysis in the originally Goffmanian sense, with the basic question of What is it that's going on here? in mind, extended with Ensink's framework of transformational frames, can thus prove to be a fruitful combination of tools for the analysis of modern media discourse. The aim of this paper is thus to answer three basic research questions: RQ1: How do transformational frames operate in modern media discourse? RQ2: How are the aspects of composition considering a multimodal approach represented in modern media discourse? RQ3: Do the aspects of transformational frames and the composition of modern media discourse influence each other? If so, how? For the illustration of these research questions, one example of modern media discourse will be analysed in detail: The example is a television interview that was aired on the 23 rd of February 2011 on the U.S.-American television channel Comedy Central. More precisely, it is a segment in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: the host, Jon Stewart, is a renowned comedian, political satirist and actor. His guest was the politician Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Secretary of Defense to former president George W. Bush between 2001 and 2006, and presented his memoir in the show (detailed information on the data will be given in section 4). After each episode of the show is aired, it is made accessible on the Internet, free of charge and for a limited amount of time. In the case of the interview used in this paper as data, it was additionally made available in three extended parts,
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without the cuts that were made throughout the originally aired interview. However, in order to focus the basic theses underlying this paper on the essential, which is the exploration of a possible combination of two scientific approaches to discourse analysis, only the interview part and two shorter segments of the television show will be analysed qualitatively, not the segments on the internet, using the approach of a combination of both the notion of transformational frames and the multimodal approach to composition. This enables a clearer and more concise structure of argument. Certainly, the inclusion of such a comparative analysis would be fruitful for further research, should the basic theses and the approach underlying this paper be proven useful.
2. Aim and Scope

The aim of this paper is not to try and define a new theory in the realm of 'frame analysis' with new terms and concepts. This has been done exhaustively over the last 40 (or even more) years. Rather, it is the aim to combine two concepts that offer deep insight and seem to have large connection points and common ground, in order to take a step closer towards understanding the complex mechanisms of media discourse. This is what this paper wants to further examine. On the one hand, there is a theoretical approach that has a long tradition and has had a large impact on how discourse is analysed, that has been refined in detail by a large number of scholars the basic concept of frame analysis as suggested by Goffman that was significantly enhanced and substantiated by Ensink. This line of argumentation will be retraced in section 3.1 on 'framing theory', where the continuum from Goffman's groundbreaking work and his theoretical background to more recent scholarly evaluations and criticisms of the field will be shown. The sub-section 3.1.3 will then more elaborately discuss the concept of transformational frames as proposed by Ensink (2003). On the other hand, there is a concept that was born out of the increasing prominence of a more global view on matters, in academic discourse in general and in communication in particular, over the last couple of years the approach of multimodality. The concept in question is van Leeuwen's (2003) approach to composition. While the theoretical framework of composition as suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003), more particularly the three key elements of 'information value', 'salience' and 'framing', are the central tools of analysis, they are crucially for this paper to be understood in a multimodal sense, which proposes a different
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approach to scientific research than the predominant monomodal approach. The key arguments of multimodality will be discussed in section 3.2, followed by an examination of van Leeuwen's concept of composition in section 3.3 and its three main elements information value, salience and framing in the three following subsections. In order to further elaborate the two concepts, their implementation and especially the argument for the combination of them will be demonstrated on the basis of an example from modern media discourse, more precisely a television interview. The particularities of this example of media discourse will be explained in section 4, including a short theoretical background concerning the characteristics of television as a medium. Section 5 will pick up the key concepts and tools for analysis as they have been introduced in section 2, giving clear definitions of the central elements that will serve in the subsequent analysis of the data. Additionally, the transcription method will be discussed. The analysis in section 6 will be done in two parts, reflecting the two first proposed research questions (RQ 1 and RQ 2) and the multimodal approach to the subject. Firstly, excerpts from a transcript of the television interview will be analysed through the lens of transformational frames (section 6.1 Analysis 1). Secondly, the interviews' aspects of composition will be discussed, considering its information value, salience and framing (section 6.2 Analysis 2). The two analyses will then be discussed in section 7, again first separately and subsequently in a combination of the two approaches, as proposed in research question 3 (RQ3). Finally, the conclusion in section 8 will summarize the results in general and discuss its limitations. This paper in no way aspires absolute validity. The realms of linguistic analysis of communication can be said to be as diverse as the subject itself, and they all have their authority it would be overbearing to claim otherwise. Rather, his paper follows two aspects of possible analysis and is concerned with their combination and interrelations.
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3. Literature Review
3.1 Framing theory Before discussing the particular aspects of framing theory that will be used as tools of analysis in this paper, a general overview of the broad variety of academic fields the term 'frame' is used in should prove useful. Such accounts are given in a large number of introductory sections to essays that deal with 'framing theory' in one way or another. The following two lists of fields of research and their most prominent scholars that are concerned with the term 'frame' according to Tannen (1993) and Lee (1997) was compiled by Ensink and Sauer (2003: 3) and constitutes a concise overview:
Tannen (1993: 15-18), as quoted in Ensink and Sauer 2003: 3) Linguistics (Fillmore; Chafe) Anthropology (Bateson; Frake) Sociology (Goffman; Hymes) Artificial Intelligence (Minsky; Schank) Earlier in her discussion Tannen mentioned the field of (Cognitive) Psychology (Bartlett; Rumelhart; Abelson) in which ideas similar to those implied in the term 'frame' are common, but in which different terms are used Lee (1997: 339-340, as quoted in Ensink and Sauer 2003: 3) Linguistics, in particular Cognitive Grammar (Fillmore; Lakoff; Langacker) Anthropology (Bateson; Frake) Sociology (Goffman) Ethnography of Speaking (Hymes; Saville-Troike) Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz; Schiffrin)
Further fields of research and important scholars that should be added here, although a very clear distinction from some of the fields mentioned above is not always possible, include political science (Entman 1993) or (Mass-) communication studies (Chomsky and Herman 1988). As was alluded to in the introduction to this paper, Goffman (1974) was the first to introduce a comprehensive treatment of framing [], which provides a complex and subtly nuanced system of terms, concepts, and examples to elucidate the numerous levels and types of framing that constitute everyday interaction (Tannen 1993: 3). This was in the realm of sociology and not yet specifically concerned with the possible linguistic elements of the theory. Goffman (1974) proposes to use the term frame in the sense that Bateson ([1955] 2006) used it in his essay A theory of play and fantasy, which gained greater prominence when it was reprinted in a collection of his essays titled Steps to
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an Ecology of Mind (1972). Hints of the general usefulness of framing theory in many different academic disciplines can already be seen in Bateson's essay, as [l]ike many of his works, 'A Theory of Play and Fantasy' crosses and recrosses many disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy, communications, and psychology (Salen and Zimmerman 2006: 314). Bateson suggests a number of different characteristics of 'frames' that Goffman explicitly draws on for his conceptual framework. Goffman states that it is in Bateson's paper that the term 'frame' was proposed in roughly the sense in which I want to employ it (Goffman 1974: 7). Thus, a closer look at Bateson's notion of 'frame' is necessary before examining Goffman's theory. Bateson ([1955] 2006), in his essay written in the general realm of psychiatric theory, refers to three basic levels of abstraction in which human verbal communication can operate and always does operate:
The seemingly simple denotative level (e.g. The cat is on the mat); The metalinguistic level, meaning explicit or implicit messages where the subject of discourse is the language (e.g. The word, 'cat,' has no fur and cannot scratch); The metacommunicative level, where the subject of discourse is the relationship between the speakers (e.g. My telling you where to find the cat was friendly). (Bateson [1955] 2006: 315)
It is important to add that the vast majority of both metalinguistic and metacommunicative messages remain implicit ([1955] 2006: 315). Based on this general concept of human verbal communication, Bateson introduced the notion of frame in 1955 to explain how individuals exchange signals that allow them to agree upon the level of abstraction at which any message is intended (Tannen 1993: 18, italics not mine). He formed and confirmed his theory after a visit to the zoo, where he observed two monkeys, interacting with each other:
I saw two young monkeys playing, i.e., engaged in an interactive sequence of which the unit actions or signals were similar to but not the same as those of combat. It was evident, even to the human observer, that the sequence as a whole was not combat, and evident to the human observer that to the participant monkeys this was not combat. (Bateson [1955] 2006: 316, italics not mine)
In other words, the two monkeys were pretending to fight, but were in reality playing with each other. Now, in order for both monkeys to understand that the other was not attacking but merely playing as if attacking, they can be seen to use frames to interpret each other's behaviour, by signalling, for example, 'This is play' (Tannen 1993: 18). Bateson focuses on the characteristics of what he calls 'psychological frames', exemplified with the metaphor of a picture frame. These psychological frames have four main elements that can be connected to Goffman's frame analysis:
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Psychological frames are exclusive, i.e., by including certain messages (or meaningful actions) within a frame, certain other messages are excluded; Psychological frames are inclusive, i.e., by excluding certain messages certain others are included. (e.g. The frame around a picture, if we consider this frame as a message intended to organize the perception of the viewer, says, 'Attend to what is within and do not attend to what is outside.); A frame is metacommunicative. Any message, which either explicitly or implicitly defines a frame, ipso facto gives the receiver instructions or aids in his attempt to understand the messages included within the frame. (e.g. The picture frame tells the viewer that he is not to use the same sort of thinking in interpreting the picture that he might use in interpreting the wallpaper outside the frame.); Every metacommunicative or metalinguistic message defines, either explicitly or implicitly, the set of messages about which it communicates, i.e., every metacommunicative message is or defines a psychological frame. (e.g. such small metacommunicative messages as punctuation marks in a printed message). (Bateson [1955] 2006: 323, italics not mine)
Tannen (1993) transfers Bateson's theory to the realm of discourse analysis, summarizing the key elements mentioned above:
Bateson demonstrated that no communicative move, verbal or nonverbal, could be understood without reference to a metacommunicative message, or metamessage, about what is going on that is, what frame of interpretation applies to the move. (Tannen 1993: 3)
With these basic principles of human communicative interaction as a basis, Goffman (1974) developed his theory of frame analysis. Further background for his theory were concepts of three other scholars, which he links to each other directly, yet not without criticism. Firstly, there is the very basic question posed by the psychologist William James, Under what circumstances do we think things are real? (James 1896, as quoted in Goffman 1974: 2), which implies that [t]he important thing about reality [] is our sense of its realness in contrast to our feeling that some things lack this quality (1974: 2). According to Goffman (1974), James' theme was picked up by Alfred Schutz in 1945, who gave more attention [] to the possibility of uncovering the conditions that must be fulfilled if we are to generate one realm of 'reality', one 'finite province of meaning', as opposed to another (Schutz 1945 as quoted in Goffman 1974: 3). This notion of multiple realities was then further developed by Harold Garfinkel who, according to Goffman, went on to look for rules which, when followed, allow us to generate a 'world' of a given kind (Goffman 1974: 5). Thus, with James' question of what defines reality, Schutz' interest in the conditions of these realities, Garfinkel's search for rules to describe or even generate 'worlds of a given kind', and finally Bateson's notion of frame, all the basic strands of what influenced Goffman's framing theory are visible. The next step will be to elaborate the main elements of his theory.
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3.1.1 Primary frames / Knowledge frames Goffman (1974) first introduces the basic concept of 'primary framework', suggesting that [w]hen the individual in our Western society recognizes a particular event, he tends, whatever else he does, to imply in this response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation that can be called primary (1974: 21). 'Primary' here meaning an interpretation that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful (1974: 21). He defines the general organization of primary frameworks as follows:
Primary frameworks vary in degree of organization. Some are neatly presentable as a system of entities, postulates, and rules; others indeed, most others appear to have no apparent articulated shape, providing only a lore of understanding, an approach, a perspective. Whatever the degree of organization, however, each primary framework allows its user to locate, perceive, identify, and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its terms. (1974: 21)
Goffman (1974) goes on to distinguish two main types of primary frameworks, namely 'natural' and 'social' types:
Natural frameworks identify occurrences seen as undirected, unoriented, unanimated, unguided, 'purely physical'; Social frameworks provide background understanding for events that incorporate the will, aim, and controlling effort of an intelligence, a live agency, the chief one being the human being. (Goffman 1974: 22)
As Janet Cowper rightly remarks, the defining property of a primary framework is that it comprises 'activities and phenomena that involve no transformation from the 'real' or 'physical'' (Goffman 1974: 27) (Cowper 2003: 112)1. Despite the clear definition given by Goffman (1974), for the sake of clarity of argument a different denomination of Goffman's (1974) concept of primary framework is proposed here and used thereafter in this paper. In a large number of subsequent research in the field of framing theory, the term 'knowledge frame' is used instead of 'primary frameworks'. As Ensink's (2003) concept of transformational frames will be central in the argumentative structure of this paper and he proposes that Goffman's primary frameworks may be [r]oughly [] considered to be equivalent with knowledge frames as discerned in this [Ensink's] paper (2003: 68), this suggestion will be followed here. This proposition can be justified with the elaborations of Ensink and Sauer (2003) and
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The quote is here not directly taken from Goffman (1974), as apparently the indicated reference seems to have been effaced in the edition of Goffman's text used in this paper, from 1986. Nevertheless, it stresses an important point that should not be left out. Jan Krattiger
Tannen and Wallat (1993). As Ensink and Sauer (2003) define it, [a] knowledge frame is a cognitively available pattern used in perception in order to make sense of the perceived material by 'imposing' that pattern and its known features on that material (2003: 5). Similarly, Goffman (1974) speaks of primary frameworks rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful (1974: 21). Tannen and Wallat (1993) use yet another term, 'knowledge schema', to refer to the same conceptual idea: We use the term 'knowledge schema' to refer to participants' expectations about people, objects, events and settings in the world, as distinguished from alignments being negotiated in a particular interaction (1993: 60). Furthermore, Tannen and Wallat (1993) stress the fact that all types of structures of expectations are dynamic (1993: 61), meaning that expectations about objects, people, settings, ways to interact, and anything else in the world are continually checked against experience and revised (1993: 61). Here, the similarity to Goffman's (1974) notion of primary frameworks and Ensink and Sauer's notion of knowledge frame is evident.
3.1.2 Interactive Frames The second notion to be considered important for framing theory is the notion of 'interactive frames', as proposed by Ensink and Sauer (2003). According to them, interactive frames are a specific case of knowledge frames (2003: 7), as they are those frames which pertain to our behaviour of what we do whenever we speak with one another in different social situations (2003: 7). Tannen and Wallat (1993) stress that [t]he interactive notion of frame refers to a definition of what is going on in interaction, without which no utterance (or movement or gesture) could be interpreted (1993: 59-60). Furthermore, [t]he interactive notion of frame [] refers to a sense of what activity is being engaged in, how speakers mean what they say (1993: 60). Both Ensink and Sauer (2003) and Tannen and Wallat (1993) agree that Goffman's (1981) notion of 'footing' can be seen as rather similar to the concept of interactive frame (Ensink and Sauer 2003: 8). Goffman (1981) describes the notion of footing as follows:
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. (1981: 128)
Ensink and Sauer (2003) justify their approach by claiming that Goffman's remark that a 'change in our footing is another way of talking about a change in our frame for events' suggests that the concepts frame and footing may be seen as identical (2003: 8). Yet, and this is an important point
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to be made, they distinguish a difference in focus (2003: 8) of the two concepts, coinciding with a strong co-occurrence relation (2003: 8):
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 to the overall picture of what the situation is. (2003: 8)
Tannen and Wallat (1993) summarize that Goffman introduced the term 'footing' to describe how, at the same time that participants frame events, they negotiate the interpersonal relationships, or 'alignments,' that constitute those events (Tannen and Wallat 1993: 60). Ensink and Sauer (2003) additionally draw parallels between their notion of interactive frames and Gumperz (1982) theory of 'conversational inference', which he defines as follows:
Conversational inference, as I use the term, is 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, italics not mine)
In his essay on Contextualization and understanding (1992), John Gumperz defines the notion of 'contextualization' as a central element of his theory of conversational inference:
I use the term 'contextualization' to refer to speakers' and listeners' use of verbal and nonverbal signs to relate what is said at any one time and in any one place to knowledge acquired through past experience, in order to retrieve the presuppositions they must rely on to maintain conversational involvement and assess what is intended. (Gumperz 1992: 230)
With this approach to contextualization, Gumperz (1992) stresses the connection of his theory to the concept of 'inferencing' (see Gumperz 1992: 230), as elaborated by, among others, Sperber and Wilson (1986). Gumperz (1992) links his notion of contextualization directly to Goffman's (1974) notion of frame when explaining that contextualization relies on 'cues', which operate on four levels of speech production (Gumperz 1992: 231):
Prosody (intonation, stress or accenting and pitch and register shifts); Paralinguistic signs (tempo, pausing and hesitation, conversational synchrony, including latching or overlapping of speaking turns, and other tone of voice expressive cues); Code choice (code or style switching, selection among phonetic, phonological or morphosyntactic options); Choice of lexical forms or formulaic expressions (opening or closing routines or metaphoric expressions). (Gumperz 1992: 231)
According to Gumperz (1992), these 'contextualization cues' enter into the inferential process at three degrees of generality (1992: 232), although the separation is an arbitrary one, solely implemented for reasons of analytic strategy, as in everyday interaction, these levels merge (1992:
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232): First, there is the perceptual plane at which communicative signals, both auditory and visual, are received and categorized (1992: 232). The main interaction going on here is that [w]hat is perceived must be chunked into information units or phrases before it can be interpreted (1992: 232). At the second degree, [b]oth direct inferences and indirect or metaphoric inferences that go beyond what is overtly expressed through lexical content are included (1992: 233). The third degree, the one where the connection with Goffman's notion of frame is made, is the more global level of framing, which, to use Goffman's terms, signals what is expected in the interaction at any one stage (1992: 233). Based on these both evident and self-proclaimed similarities, Ensink and Sauer (2003) propose that [a]lthough the concept 'frame' is not used by Gumperz, it is clear that a similar concept is involved (2003: 7). Tannen (1993) supports this claim and even ties them together closer, when she states that
Gumperz' notion of speech activity is thus a type of frame. Indeed, it is in the work of Gumperz and those influenced by him that one finds the greatest justification for Goffman's belief in the ability of linguistics to elucidate the structural basis for framing. (Tannen 1993: 4)
In general, a clear-cut and concise definition of the concept of interactive frame is not as easy to be made as for the notion of knowledge frames, since it is a concept that is concerned with dynamic processes and interactions. This can be seen in Goffman's (1981) notion of footing, where the element of 'change' is the most prominent one Goffman, when talking about footing, is always talking about a change in footing (1981: 128), thus stressing this dynamic element of interactive frames. Similarly, both Tannen and Wallat (1993) and Ensink and Sauer (2003) stress the elements of 'action' and 'activity' in their description of interactive frames, as was shown in the beginning of this section. The most concise, yet also rather broad definition was given by Ensink (2003): 'Interactive frames enable language users to identify the context of language activity, and to produce and recognise coherent sequences of (language) activities (2003: 63).
3.1.3 Transformational Frames Titus Ensink, in his essay on Transformational frames (2003), proposes a further elaboration of the notion of interactive frames which seems to be both logical and fruitful for the analysis of discourse. Ensink (2003) uses the term 'interactional frames' synonymously with Tannen and Wallat's (1993) concept of interactive frames (see Ensink 2003, 66-67 and Ensink and Sauer 2003: 16). For the sake of clarity, the term interactive frame will be used in this paper. Ensink (2003)
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suggests that
we have to divide the category 'interactional frames' [interactive frames] into two subtypes: interactional [interactive] frames proper which indicate the activity plainly, per se, and transformations of interactional [interactive] frames, in which interactional [interactive] frames proper are modified. The latter type I will refer to as transformational frames. (Ensink 2003: 67, italics not mine)
This differentiation is justified with the example of monkeys play-fighting that Bateson (1955) used in his groundbreaking essay (see section 3.1). Ensink (2003) argues that in previous academic analyses, such as that of Tannen and Wallat (1993), both playing and fighting were seen as activities on the same level, as two symmetrical interactive frames a monkey needs to know whether a bite from another monkey is intended within the frame of play or the frame of fighting (Tannen and Wallat (1993: 60). Ensink (2003) however suggests that rather, the relation is an asymmetrical one, meaning that on the one hand, transformational frames may and must contain interactive frames, whereas on the other hand interactive frames cannot contain transformational frames (Ensink and Sauer 2003: 16). This is exemplified with Bateson's play-fighting monkeys. Firstly, Ensink (2003: 66) shows the asymmetries appearing when both playing and fighting are looked at as symmetrical interactive frames (* indicates that the utterance is odd or even impossible): (1) a. b. the monkeys play that they are fighting *the monkeys fight that they are playing
The comparison of these two examples shows that fighting is an activity in its own right which cannot 'contain' another activity, whereas playing behaves the other way around (Ensink 2003: 67). This asymmetry in frames can be showed effectively using Ensink's (2003: 67) suggestion of a system of notation using square brackets to display the frames: [ face ] [ lecture ] indicates that some perception occurs under the influence of the frame for a face. means that we perceive some activities (a person talking to other persons, in a room with a certain configuration of chairs) as being a lecture.
Applied to the example of the monkeys in the symmetrical way that Tannen and Wallat (1993) suggest it, this looks as follows (Ensink 2003: 67): [ play ] [ fight ]. Applied to the example of the monkeys as Ensink suggests, considering transformational frames, it would look like this ( 2003: 67): [ fight ] [ play [ fight ] ]. Consequently, considering that transformational frames may and must contain interactive frames and interactive frames cannot contain transformational frames, as explained above, the following
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frame-constellations are impossible (2003: 67): To summarize, Ensink (2003) states that
*[ fight [ play ] ], or *[ play ].
whenever single brackets occur, we have a knowledge frame or a proper interactional [interactive] frame. Whenever such a frame is embedded within another frame, this other frame is transformational. Transformational frames thus always embed some other frame. (2003: 68)
Ensink (2003) ties his notion of transformational frames to Goffman's concept of 'keys', which he sees as identical with transformational frames as described in [his] paper (2003: 69). He bases this interconnection on the three main characteristics of keys as identified by Goffman (1974):
(a). A systematic transformation is involved across materials already meaningful in accordance with a schema of interpretation, and without which the keying would be meaningless. (b). Participants in the activity are meant to know and to openly acknowledge that a systematic alteration is involved, one that will radically reconstitute what it is for them that is going on. (c). Cues will be available for establishing when the transformation is to begin and when it is to end, namely, brackets in time, within which and to which the transformation is to be restricted. () (Goffman 1974: 45 as quoted in Ensink 2003: 69)
Using the notation method of square brackets suggested above, Ensink (2003) suggests describing the perception of a certain event or object per se as occurring under the influence of their respective primary frames [or 'knowledge frames', see above] (2003: 69, italics not mine) as follows:
[ event ] or [ object ]
The above example shows no transformational frames but simply the knowledge frames at work. Ensink (2003) gives the following examples of an event or object under the operation of a key [or transformational frame, see above] as well (2003: 69). In general, multiple embeddings are possible (2003: 69) and the outermost frame determines what is actually going on (2003: 69):
[ description [ event ] ] [ mimicry [ event ] ] [ rehearsal [ event ] ] ()
Additionally to the notion of key, Goffman (1974) identifies 'fabrications', which are similar to keys, but differ in one respect (Ensink 2003: 70). Namely, the knowledge of their application is confined to only one person or party, whereas the other person is unaware of its operation (2003: 70). Ensink lists [p]ractical jokes, con tricks, secret experiments, etc. (2003: 70) as examples of fabrications. Ensink (2003) makes the important general remark about how [f]or transformational frames to be effective it is [] necessary that people know which frames operate at all (2003: 72). He lists 14
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three main reasons why this is not always the case (2003: 72), thus describing in broad terms the main instances where what he calls 'frame shifts', 'frame embeddings' and 'frame de-embeddings' come into play, which will be discussed in the following section:
People need to learn different (types of) transformational frames and the way they are cued in the course of their childhood (e.g. young children need to differentiate between the fictional, transformed world of stories and the real world). New technological inventions may add new framing possibilities. In general, the possibility of mediation entails a form of transformational framing. As a result, people need to learn in which way new forms of mediation add transformational frames (e.g. stories told about the consternation caused by the first movies at the end of the nineteenth century). In different cultures, different framing practices may exist which may cause difficulties in the understanding of the way in which frames are used in other cultures. (Ensink 2003: 72, italics not mine)
Frame shifts, Frame embeddings and de-embeddings To demonstrate how these transformational frames describe interaction in discourse, Ensink (2003) distinguishes three main processes, namely frame shifts, frame embeddings and frame deembeddings. Frame shifts generally occur when there are frame conflicts, which take place when people initially do not agree on which frame is the appropriate one (2003: 71) or when people are in need of clarification (2003: 70). In Ensink's (2003) formal notation, this would be displayed as: [ A ] [ B ]. Here, [o]ne frame is in operation [Frame A]. One chooses to release that frame and to agree instead on a different one [Frame B]. Hence, the operation is shifted from one frame [Frame A] to another one [Frame B] (Ensink 2003: 71). The two processes of frame embedding and frame de-embedding are described by Ensink (2003) as opposites. The process of frame embedding comes into play when a cue indicating a transformational frame is missed, or ambiguous, and a 'downkeyed' perception takes place. In order to restore the intended interpretation, an embedding process is called for (Ensink 2003: 73) This process is described in formal notation as [ A ] [ B [ A ] ]. Formulated in words, this means a transformational frame [ B ] is added to the frame already in operation [ A ]. The frame which is already in operation is not released (as is the case in a frame shift). Rather, its interpretation is brought under the influence of the now added transformational
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frame [ B [ A ] ] (2003: 71, italics not mine). As a paradigmatic case (2003: 71), Ensink gives the example of a person perceiving an activity as serious and 'real', when it actually is meant to be a played activity (2003: 71-72). The embedding occurs at the moment in which that person realises that he has to perceive the situation as being played (2003: 72). A frame de-embedding is the same process, but reversed. According to Ensink (2003), this process takes place rather less frequently (2003: 73) compared to frame embedding. Here, the transformational frame is [] not intended. In order to restore the intended interpretation, the transformational frame has to be put out of operation (2003: 72). To pick up the example of played or serious activity, this would mean that a person perceives an activity as a non-serious, played, activity, whereas it is meant to be a serious, 'genuine', activity (2003: 72). In formal notation, the structure looks like this: [ B [ A ] ] [ A ]. One further aspect of transformational frames, that cannot be put in the same group as the three elements explained above, is the notion of transformational frames as 'descriptions'. Here, Ensink (2003) stresses that his concept can have pure descriptive value as well (2003: 74), meaning that there is no action per se involved no frame shift, embedding or de-embedding. While frame shifts, embeddings and de-embeddings are most useful for the analysis of misunderstandings (2003: 74) frames as descriptions help with the analysis of more complex (and still dynamic) communicative acts, as shown in an example of a conversation between a 10-year old girl and a researcher (Ensink 2003: 74, example (7)).
The girl tells a story (a transformational frame) about a dream. Now dreaming is an event for which we have a knowledge frame (dreaming occurs during our sleep, normally when in bed, dreaming does not occur at free will, et cetera). On the other hand, a dream may contain events, hence functions as another transformational frame. In this case, about walking while having an urge to pee (an event interpretable with a knowledge frame). (2003: 75)
In Ensink's (2003) formal notation, this would be the structure of this conversation (2003: 75): [ story [ dream [ walking while having an urge to pee ] ] ]. To summarize, in this section, after having established the basic notion of Goffman's (1974) framing theory, the distinction was made between knowledge frames and interactive frames, As suggested by Ensink (2003), the category of interactive frames is further divided into interactive frames proper
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and transformational frames. Additionally, the processes connected to transformational frames were discussed, namely frame shifts, frame embeddings and de-embeddings. In the following section, the notion of multimodality will be further discussed.
3.2 Multimodality In order to extend the scope of analysis of discourse, which can be seen as one of the basic aims of this paper, the concept of multimodality as suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003) needs to be elaborated. He states that [i]n disciplines such as semiotics, linguistics, cognitive science and interactive multimedia design, the term multimodality has become increasingly common (2003: 24). This can be seen as a critical reaction to the fact that [u]ntil recently, the study of [...] semiotic modes has been 'monomodal'. Different disciplines, different terminologies, different methods and different criteria of relevance were used for the study of language, of image, of music, etc. (2003: 24). Ensink's (2003) approach to the study of discourse can be seen as an example of this monomodal method, as he is solely concerned with the study of the linguistic elements of discourse. Yet, as Ensink and Sauer (2003) summarize, spoken discourse does not only contain words, but these words inevitably have volume, melody, and speed; moreover, the speaker of the words has facial expression, and makes different gestures (2003: 15). The lack of detailed analysis in certain approaches implied here can already be accounted for to a certain extent with a refined methodological approach simply by using a more detailed transcript of the discourse in question, as will be suggested in this paper in section 5. However, van Leeuwen's (2003) notion of a multimodal approach focuses on an analysis on a broader level, as proposed with the introduction of a multimodal approach to the notion of composition, which is concerned with three main aspects:
Information value: The way elements are put in space []. Salience: The way elements are designed in order to attract the perceiver's attention to a greater or lesser degree. Framing: The way elements of a composition are connected or disconnected by formal means, such as white space, boundary lines, vectors, and so on. (Ensink and Sauer 2003: 15)
The concept of composition based on these three main aspects will be explained in detail in the following subsection. Before, the method of a multimodal approach to discourse analysis will be explained. As Iedema (2003) summarizes,
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Towards a better understanding of communication [t]he term multimodality was introduced to highlight the importance of taking into account semiotics other than language-in-use, such as image, music, gesture, and so on. The increased ubiquity of sound, image, film, through TV, the computer and the internet is undoubtedly behind this new emphasis on and interest in the multi-semiotic complexity of the representations we produce and see around us. (2007: 33)
Thus, the multimodal approach can be seen as a reaction to the changing reality of how communication takes place in general and in modern media discourse in particular, where new forms of communication via media such as the internet appeared and shaped the way people communicate. Furthermore, Iedema (2003) stresses that
[t]he computational sphere is clearly a very influential engine behind the renegotiation of what different semiotics are made to do, with its ability to digitally represent and thus fuse into a single medium spoken and written language, image and sound. (2003: 38)
In the course of these changes, Iedema (2003) suggests that a re-visiting and blurring of the traditional boundaries between and roles allocated to language, image, page layout, document design, and so on (2007: 33) has taken place. This is what Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) refer to as the changes in the semiotic landscape (1996: 31). The notion of 'semiotic landscape', according to Kress and van Leeuwen, (1996) means that [t]he place of visual communication in a given society can only be understood in the context of, on the one hand, the range of forms or modes of public communication available in that society and, on the other hand, their uses and valuations (1996: 35). In general, multimodality can be seen as being about recognizing that language is not at all in the centre of all communication (Iedema 2003: 39). This is the approach followed most prominently by Kress and van Leeuwen, called 'social semiotics'. As Bucher (2011) summarizes, the goal of social semiotics as professed by Kress and van Leeuwen is a comprehensive grammar for the different modes, that allows the reconstruction of both the meaning and sense of these multilayered communicative practices, as well as the cooperation of the individual modes 2 (Bucher 2011: 132). Kress and Ogborn (1998) summarized the main aspects of multimodality in a concise way that reflects the direction this paper follows: [t]he project of multimodality is an attempt to make the point overtly and decisively that an interest
in representational modes other than speech or writing is essential and not merely incidentally interesting; that it is central to actual forms of communication everywhere, and not simply a kind of tangential or marginal concern which could be taken up or not, but which leaves language at the centre of communication. The proposal rests on the hypothesis that all [practices] are always
2
Translated from German: Erklrtes Ziel der sozialen Semiotik ist eine bergreifende Grammatik fr die verschiedenen Modi, die sowohl Bedeutung und Sinn dieser vielschichtigen kommunikativen Praktiken als auch das jeweiligen [sic] Zusammenwirken der einzelnen Modi rekonstruierbar macht. Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication multimodal, and that a theory has to be developed in which that fact is central, and a methodology produced for forms of description in which all modes are described and describable together. From an occasional interest in other semiotic modes this project moves to a norm where all texts are seen as multimodal and are described in that way. Language is likely to be a part of these semiotic objects though it might not and often it might not be the dominant or most significant mode. (Kress and Ogborn, 1998, as quoted in Iedema 2003: 39)
A further elaboration of the notion of multimodality that incorporates a historical summary of the development of media an their inherent linearity (and non-linearity respectively) can be found in Bucher (2011). The author shows a concise and critical overview of the field, discussing various strands of research apart from the one proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), which are not considered in this paper.
3.3 Composition In order to transfer the general approach of multimodality to a fruitful analysis of communication processes, it is vital to have a concrete set of concepts that can be applied to these processes. Theo van Leeuwen's (2003) multimodal approach to composition is such a concept that offers concisely defined tools for analysis. He suggests looking at communication processes under consideration of the three aspects of information value, salience and framing. Following van Leeuwen's (2003) definition, composition is a semiotic system common to all the spatially articulated semiotic modes of a given socio-cultural domain, in this case, broadly, 'Western' or, to borrow Whorf's term, 'Standard Average European' culture (2003: 24)3. Yet, he stresses that composition is not just a system for integrating different modes into a multimodal whole. It is itself a multimodal system (2003: 24). This means that principles of composition apply within individual modes (and to all modes which involve arranging elements in space) as well as across and between such modes (2003: 24, italics not mine). As an example, van Leeuwen (2003) mentions that the principles of composition apply to the way pictorial elements are arranged in a single picture, e.g. a painting or photograph, and to the way words, pictures and other graphic elements are arranged together in a layout (2003: 25, italics not mine) thus they are applied on two different levels. In the following three subsections, the concepts of information value, salience and framing will be discussed.
For this paper, the notion of 'Western' culture will be considered as inclusive of 'North American' culture, not only 'Standard Average European', as van Leeuwen (2003) also analyses figures from the United States of America and Australia, among others. Jan Krattiger
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3.3.1 Information value Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) define information value as
[t]he placement of elements (participants and syntagms that relate them to each other and to the viewer) endows them with the specific informational values attached to the various 'zones' of the image: left and right, top and bottom, centre and margin. (1996: 177)
They offer a variety of distinctions as to where elements can be placed and what their attached values are, which will be explained in more detail below. In two-dimensional semiotic spaces, they distinguish the horizontal dimension ('Given' and 'New' 4), the vertical dimension ('Ideal' and 'Real') and the placement in the 'Centre' or 'Margin'. In three-dimensional spaces, they distinguish elements that are often similar, but not equal to the ones in two-dimensional spaces: The 'Face', the 'Support' and 'Subsidiaries', the 'Core' and the 'Enclosure' as well as the 'Foreground' and 'Background'.
The horizontal dimension: Given and New According to van Leeuwen (2003), '[l]eft' and 'right' have always been imbued with moral values (2003: 30), yet these values are not always immediately obvious (2003: 31), as he shows with a number of examples such as the variable placement of people and objects in photographs. Still, he identifies two main principles that can be distinguished, namely the principles of Given and New. It is proposed that what is placed on the left is thereby presented as Given, that is, as something the reader already knows, as a familiar and agreed departure point for the message (van Leeuwen 2003: 32). Contrarily, what is placed on the right is thereby presented as New, as something which is not yet known to the reader, hence as the crucial point of the message, the issue to which the reader or viewer must pay special attention (2003: 32). The authors attest to this placement in the horizontal dimension
a movement, a communicative dynamic from Given to New, in which the New is in principle problematic, contestable, or at least the information which is at issue, opened up for debate, while the Given is presented as commonsensical and self-evident, not open for debate. (2003: 32)
Despite the fact that the fixed connection of values to either side of such a continuum seems logical and insightful, it nevertheless seems problematic in the sense that it is arbitrary and thus needs to be contested. As Bucher (2011) rightfully remarks and as will be shown in this paper, it is easy to show empirically that such connections do not exist and that the interpretation of aspects of design cannot be made out of the grammar of the visual means, but that it has to be deduced from a
4
As these concepts are based on van Leeuwen (2003), the tools of analysis will be capitalized in this paper as he suggests. Jan Krattiger
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thorough interpretation of the respective communication 5 (2011: 133). Rather, Bucher (2011) suggests the common knowledge plays a decisive role when, in communication, a decision has to be made about what is new and what is given6 (2011: 134).
The vertical dimension: Ideal and Real As opposed to the distinction between Given and New, the spatial organization in the vertical dimension, between up and down, appears to be less contestable, for it is a fundamental site of difference in our everyday experience. Like most things in nature, the human body is vertically asymmetrical (2003: 37). Van Leeuwen (2003) mentions the division between heaven and earth, between the upper and lower classes in society as further examples. He thus suggests the following distinction:
[W]hen a composition polarises top and bottom, placing different, perhaps contrasting, elements in the upper and lower sections of the semiotic space, the elements placed on top are presented as the Ideal and those placed at the bottom as the Real. For something to be ideal means that it is presented as the idealised or generalised essence of the information []. The Real is then opposed to this in that it presents more specific information (e.g. details) and/or more 'down to earth' information and/or more practical information. (2003: 38)
For the notions of Ideal and Real, van Leeuwen (2003) proposes the consideration of what Bucher (2011) criticized in respect to given and new: No element is ever objectively 'Ideal' or 'Real'. Elements are treated as Ideal or Real, in a concrete context, whether by prescription, out of habit, or because it is the apt choice for a specific, unique communication situation (2003: 34). Centre and Margin Concerning the distinction between Centre and Margin, van Leeuwen (2003) struggles to give a definition that is as clear as with the vertical dimension, as he admits that [i]t is only in specific contexts that this meaning is fully coloured in, so to speak (2003: 43). Nevertheless, he comes up with some general characteristics of the notions of centre and margin:
[I]f a composition makes significant use of the centre, placing one element in the middle and the other elements around it [], the Centre is presented as the nucleus of what is being communicated, and the elements that flank it, the Margins, are presented as, in some sense subservient to it, or
5
Empirisch lsst sich leicht zeigen, dass solche Zusammenhnge nicht bestehen und die Deutung von Designaspekten nicht aus einer Grammatik der vi- suellen Mittel, sondern aus einer sorgfltigen Interpretation der entsprechenden Kommunikation abgeleitet werden kann (Bucher 2011: 133). Dabei spielt gerade das gemeinsame Wissen die ent- scheidende Rolle, wenn entschieden werden soll, was in der Kommunikation neu und was bereits bekannt ist (Bucher 2001: 134).
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Towards a better understanding of communication ancillary to it, or dependent on it. (2003: 43)
Rather than the polarisation of the horizontal and the vertical dimensions, van Leeuwen (2003) attests to the centre-margin model an integrative function. In cases where Centre and Margin combine with Given and New and/or Ideal and Real, he suggests referring to the Centre as the 'Mediator' (see 2003: 43), which fulfils the function of a bridge between the other elements present. As an example, he shows the cover of a magazine, where the centrally placed image serves as a mediator between the surrounding textual elements (see van Leeuwen 2003: 44-45). To sum up all possible dimensions in two-dimensional semiotic space, both Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003) propose a diagram of the zones of two-dimensional space (see Figure 1 below, taken from Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 197 and reused by van Leeuwen 2003: 44), not unlike the viewfinder as it has been designed and is still being used today in most analog and digital cameras. Dividing visual space according to these dimensions results in the figure of the Cross, a fundamental spatial symbol in Western culture (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 197). In the following subsection on three dimensional space, van Leeuwen (2003) adds another level of analysis, which is crucial for the discussion of more modern semiotic spaces such as television.
Figure 1. The zones of two-dimensional semiotic space (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 197)
The third dimension Additionally to the placement in two-dimensional semiotic spaces, elements can also be placed in the third dimension, thus adding another level, adding further choices (van Leeuwen 2003: 46). The basic principle stays the same but is extended with a more refined matrix of analysis:
Again we will assume that these zones of three-dimensional space come with a certain information Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication value, that a given element does not have quite the same function in the whole and does not mean quite the same thing when it is placed on the front rather than the back, or on the left rather than the right, and so on. Each of these sides will of course be itself structured according to Given and New and/or Ideal and Real and/or Centre and Margin. But each will also from part of a larger, threedimensional structure. (2003: 46)
Contrarily to the clear distinction regarding the information value, as van Leeuwen (2003) suggested it for the notions of Given and New, the elements of front and back in three-dimensional space are not always polarised. Rather, there are three different levels of polarisation: First of all, we need to remember that not all three-dimensional objects have a front and a back this is a semiotic choice also (2003: 48). As an example, glass bottles without a label cannot be said to have a front or a back7. Secondly, if an object does have a front and a back, the two sides may not, or not very strongly be polarised. They may both present the 'face', the public identity of the object (2003: 48). Van Leeuwen (2003) mentions modern blocks of flats (2003: 48) as examples of objects that have a front and a back, but that are not strongly polarised. Thirdly, van Leeuwen (2003) identifies objects with a clear polarisation, thus suggesting the notions of 'Face' and 'Support'. The Face presents the information that defines the identity of the object. It is designed for public display, more heavily decorated than the back, and more carefully maintained (2003: 48). For example, the front of a T-Shirt usually contains the information in the form of a logo or the writing on the front. The Support, on the other hand, is not meant for display. It is the side we turn to the wall when we display something. But it is rarely as entirely non-semiotic as in the case of the back of a painting [] (2003: 48). Again, the example of the T-Shirt, where generally there is no additional information on the back, shows that there is still much that communicates: colour, material, overall shape (2003: 48). In general, van Leeuwen (2003) suggests that the front emphasises identity and symbolic value, the back factual information and use value (2003: 48). A further example would be the face/front and the support/back of a book, where accordingly the face usually shows the name of the author and title of the book, both elements that emphasize identity and symbolic value, while the back might show a summary of the contents and an image of the author. Thus, the back is still more functional than the front, still concerned with the use, rather than the identity of the object (2003: 48), which is emphasized on
7
Oddly, van Leeuwen (2003) mentions the distinction between bottles made of clear glass and bottles made of green or blue grass (2003: 48) as an example of objects that make the choice, which speaks of a refusal to polarise, and which favours material, tactile semiotics over visual semiotics (2003: 48). Clearly, the difference between bottles of a different colour is not a tactile, but a visual one. Contrarily, the example of a glass bottle without a label aptly exemplifies objects without polarisation. Jan Krattiger
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the front. Another notion of three-dimensional space to be considered are the sides, which, again, are not very clear-cut and fixed. Van Leeuwen (2003) suggests that
[w]e should see the sides as Subsidiaries to either Face or Support, meaning or function, identity or operationality. And even then, sometimes the use of the sides seems random, a spot for putting things that do not have a clear space of their own but have to be included. (2003: 49, italics not mine)
The sides are often symmetrical rather than a site for the creation of difference, and semiotically poor, featureless, empty spaces between front and back (2003: 49). Despite the fact that van Leeuwen (2003) rightly defines the sides as subsidiaries to the more prominent elements of face or support, he goes a little to far when he calls them semiotically poor or featureless, empty spaces. For example, the sides of a laptop-computer can hold important semiotic information such as slots for the connection of other devices or a battery status light. These can certainly not be seen as the most prominent features, nevertheless they are important subsidiary elements. Similarly, van Leeuwen (2003) ascribes no semiotic value to the bottom side, stating that it is never semiotic. Even when elevated from the ground, as with the underneath of a table or a car, it is purely functional, not designed to be displayed or to communicate (2003: 50). Yet this absolute notion of the bottom side as carrying no communicative elements needs to be contested, as can be exemplified with shoes, for instance. The sole, the bottom of a shoe that is generally not visible unless elevated, can be seen as carrying semiotic value. On the one hand, there might be marginally important information about the brand of the shoe and the size visible when the shoe is elevated or when in use, on the other hand, the design of the sole says a lot about the nature of the shoe. For example, it might be a thick, spiked sole used for hiking or a very flat sole used for dancing. Thus, the sole itself makes a statement about the nature of the whole shoe, apart from its basic functional purpose. Opposed to the bottom, van Leeuwen (2003) ascribes significant value to the 'top', stating that the topside is of enormous symbolic significance (2003: 50), as can be seen with the examples of hats, wigs and hairdos(2003: 50), which are elaborately and richly semiotic (2003: 50) or [t]he lid of the jar or the box, which give access to the contents of a container. From a general perspective on all the aspects elaborated above, van Leeuwen (2003) stresses that
there will always be a Face, and it will usually be the front, but it may also be the top, or both. There will often also be a Support and it will usually be the back, but both Face and Support will also spill Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication over on the sides, to different degrees and with or without polarisation. If there is polarisation, the left side will tend to be a Subsidiary of the Face, the right side of the Support. The underneath, finally, will never be semiotic. (2003: 50)
The way in which van Leeuwen (2003) summarizes the interrelations between the concepts introduced before shows one thing very clearly: There can be no fixed, definite ascriptions of values to all of these concepts, as they are generally highly dependent on their specific context. To complete his grammar of semiotic space, van Leeuwen (2003) introduces two additional pairs of elements, namely the pair of 'Core' and 'Enclosure' and 'Foreground' and 'Background'. The notions of Core and Enclosure can be seen as related to the two-dimensional elements of Centre and Margin, yet [t]he Core is more than just the centre, it is the living heart, the animating principle (2003: 52), characterized by different degrees of openness depending on the particular situation. Generally, Core and Enclosure describe the relation between an interior and an exterior (2003: 51). Van Leeuwen (2003) gives the example of people themselves being a Core, surrounded by the Enclosure constituted by their own home, a restaurant, or the workplace (see 2003: 53). The final pair of analytical concepts is that of Foreground and Background, which can generally be seen as polarizing, since [t]he Background is not only less salient than the foreground and, literally as well as figuratively, more 'distant' from the viewer, it is also a context and an environment for the Foreground (2003: 53). As van Leeuwen (2003) describes, the most obvious example is that of a naturalistic image, where [t]he Background serves as a setting. It shows, in greater or lesser detail, where the things or happenings shown in the Foreground take place (2003: 53). One important, not yet extensively analysed phenomenon of modern media is the fact that
[i]ncreasingly pictures become malleable, signs that can be fit into many different contexts, while words become concrete, three-dimensional objects with a size, a weight, a texture, a colour. This profoundly changes the boundary lines between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional. (2003: 54)
Van Leeuwen (2003) here alludes to the fact that representations of three-dimensional elements in a de facto two-dimensional space, such as graphics on a website, are responsible for the blurring of these boundaries. In general, Bucher's (2011) main criticism of two-dimensional elements described by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003) is also valid for the third dimension, when he states that the element of common knowledge is crucial in the ascription of values to these elements. This is
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especially the case with more complex communicative entities, where elements such as Face, Support, Sides and Top and Bottom interrelate in a particular manner. Van Leeuwen (2003) acknowledges these problematic aspects in some instances and admits that often, the interpretation of specific elements relies heavily on the context. Nevertheless, even when this general criticism is considered, the detailed enumeration of all the different aspects of both two- and three-dimensional semiotic space can be seen as a helpful, applicable matrix for analysis, as it gives a detailed overview of all the elements that have to be considered for a thorough analysis.
3.3.2 Salience Van Leeuwen (2003) stresses that composition not only involves the arrangement of elements in semiotic space, it also involves assigning different degrees of salience to them (2003: 54). Rather than individual theories that can be used to analyse certain elements,
composition itself is a composite of several systems, and these systems may interlock and work in tandem or play contrasting, or even contradictory roles, and create complex relationships among the elements of the composition. (2003: 54)
Thus, the terms elaborated in section 3.3.1 on the information value of elements in semiotic space are always and simultaneously under the influence of the concept of salience, which is another independently variable aspect of composition (2003: 54). Salience is, according to van Leeuwen (2003), not objectively measurable (2003: 55), but judged on the basis of visual cues (2003: 55). The salience of a given element of a composition thus
results from a complex interaction, a complex trading-off relationship, between a number of factors: size, sharpness of focus, or, more generally, amount of detail and texture shown; tonal contrast []; colour contrasts []; placement in the visual field []; perspective []; and also quite specific cultural factors, such as the appearance of a human figure or a potent cultural symbol, which may override purely perceptual salience. (2003: 55)
What considerably weakens van Leeuwen's (2003) notion of salience is the fact that he bases it on the principle of gaining pleasure through balance. According to him,
[t]he pleasure we derive in [sic] composition, in moving elements about until the result feels 'just right', or in arranging things to perfection in front of a camera lens, is directly related to the pleasure of almost losing and then regaining balance which we experience as children when we are lifted up and swung through the air, []. (2003: 55)
Despite surely alluding to a basic driving force behind the human interest in balance, it seems to be overly simplistic of van Leeuwen (2003) to reduce the concept of salience and its consequences for
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the composition of elements in semiotic space to this. For example, a long scholarly tradition discusses the influence of the notion of the golden ratio in the composition of a vast field of different elements, from pieces of art to photographs or geometrical forms, that has a considerable influence on the composition of objects (see for example van der Schoot (2005) for a historical view on the golden ratio). An important factor regarding salience is not discussed in van Leeuwen (2003), but in an earlier book: According to Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), 'rhythm' is very influential in temporally integrated texts (1996: 201), as perception imposes rhythm, waves of salience and non-salience on sound (and movement) even when, strictly speaking, there is none (1996: 201).
Rhythm always involves cycles which consist of an alternation between successive sensations of salience (stressed syllables, accented notes, etc.) and non-salience (unstressed syllables, unaccented notes) and these cycles repeat themselves with the time intervals that are perceived as equal even when, measured objectively, they are not. (1996: 155)
According to Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), the perception of salience, in speech as in music, results from a complex interplay between a number of auditory factors (1996: 201), which are:
The duration of the strong and weak elements of the cycle ('long' 'short'); The pitch of the strong and the weak elements ('high' 'low'); Their loudness ('loud' 'soft'); The vowel colour (vowels may be fully pronounced, or pronounced as a 'schwa'); When objective clues for salience are absent, the first element of each cycle can be perceived as 'stronger': perception imposes rhythm, waves of salience and non-salience on sound (and on movement) even when, strictly speaking, there is none. (1996: 201)
With the introduction of the notion of rhythm according to Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), the methodological approach to the compositional element of salience can thus be said to be more objective with regard to auditory elements, than just with the previously elaborated visual cues, giving the analysis of concrete examples a more usable foundation.
3.3.3 Framing The notion of 'framing' as proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003), as opposed to framing in the Goffmanian sense, is not a metaphorical concept for the description of communication, but more of a literal analysis which is concerned with visual frames as they are discerned in different semiotic modes.
The elements of a composition may either be disconnected, marked off from each other, or Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication connected, joined together. Both are a matter of degree: elements may be strongly or weakly framed, and the stronger the framing, the more the elements are presented as separate units of information the context will then colour the more precise nature of this separation. (van Leeuwen 2003: 56)
A simple example of a strongly framed, or disconnected text might be that of an Asterix comic book, where the single snapshots of what is happening, the panels, are clearly separated from each other through a square frame and the clearly demarcating white space of the paper between them. As van Leeuwen (2003) defines it,
[d]isconnection can be realised in many different ways, for instance by dividers or fences (or their equivalent in layout, framelines), and the strength of the framing will then depend on the thickness or the height of the fence [] or on the thickness and colour of the framelines. (2003: 57)
An example of a weakly framed, or connected text can be found in a different semiotic mode: a painting by the abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, who gained fame with his works consisting of splashes of paint on a canvas where no definite dividers are visible and the splashes of different colours are connected. Thus,
[t]he more the elements of the spatial composition are connected, the more they are presented as belonging together, as a single unit of information. [] Connectedness [] can be emphasized by vectors, by depicted elements [] or by abstract graphic elements, leading the eye from one element to another, beginning with the most salient element, the element that first draws the viewer's attention. (1996: 204)
In sum, the notion of framing can be visualized on a continuum between Disconnectedness (visible frames) on the one hand and Connectedness (invisible frames) on the other hand, without a strict division between the two extremes. 3.3.4 Summary Van Leeuwen (2003) stresses a number of main points concerning his multimodal approach to composition, of which four shall be reiterated here in shortened form:
1. Composition comprises three kinds of principles: (a) principles for arranging things (things which hereby become elements of the composition) in space [information value]; (b) principles for assigning different degrees of salience to these elements; and (c) principles for creating boundaries to separate the elements from each other and/or cohesive ties to suggest connections between them. 2. These principles apply to anything that can be arranged in space, and to homogenous elements [] as well as to heterogenous elements []. In the latter case composition becomes one of the means through which different modes can be integrated in a multimodal text. 3. Mutimodal signs such as those of composition, are ultimately motivated by and derived from (a) basic bodily givens [] and (b) from the way we interact socially []. 4. [] It is by searching for the deeper connections between the structure of sculpture and the pattern of packaging, or the syntax of the streetscape and the layout of the computer screen, that the hidden cultural system of space can be unearthed and made more fertile for creative reflection and production. (2003: 59-61) Jan Krattiger
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4. The Data The data that should exemplify the combination of the two realms of frame analysis (the notion of transformational frames, to be more precise) and a multimodal approach to composition is a television interview, that was subsequently made available on the internet in an uncut and thus extended version. As was mentioned in the introduction to this paper, the analysis focuses only on the television broadcast itself, including the interview and two further fragments from the show that are directly related to it, and not the uncut parts from the internet. The reason for this approach is the need for clearness and conciseness of argument, as it is not per se the data that is in the centre of focus, but the proposition of a new methodological approach that combines two independent theories. The data serves as an example and a test of aptitude of such an approach. In order to flesh out the particularities of the medium under scrutiny, which is television, and more precisely a television interview, a framework for the theoretical analysis of the medium will briefly be discussed, before the actual data is explained further.
4.1 Television as a medium The classification of television as a medium, as it is proposed in this paper, follows the detailed description as elaborated in Holly (2004), a concise but nevertheless comprehensive analysis of all the different aspects and particularities of the medium which gives the subsequent analysis a basic framework of media theory. The following is a summary of the most important elements that serve the analysis of the data this paper is concerned with, thus omitting interesting yet not directly relevant aspects of the large field. Holly (2004) classifies television as an electronic and 'tertiary' medium, since its production, broadcast and reception are carried out in a technical manner. Furthermore, it is an audiovisual, broadcasting one-way medium8 (2004: 3). Referring to the audiovisual aspect, Holly (2004) elaborates:
A lot of media only occupy one sense and are thus monosensual, either visual (e.g. writing media, photography or silent films) or auditive (e.g. sound carriers, radio and the telephone). In contrast, television is bisensual or bimodal, namely audiovisual (e.g. sound film, sound video or DVD).9
8
[V]on tertiren Medien [ist die Rede], wenn [neben der Produktion des Kommunikats] auch die bertragung und Rezeption technisch vorgenommen wird, wie bei den elektronischen Medien (Holly 2004: 3). Fernsehen [ist] zunchst ein audiovisuelles, bertragendes Einwegmedium (Holly 2004: 3). Viele Medien beschftigen nur einen Sinn, sind also monosensuell, entweder visuell (wie Schriftmedien, Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication (2004: 3)
Furthermore, like all mass media, television is a one-way medium, meaning that few communicators produce for an unknown crowd that is as heterogenous and disperse as possible 10 (2004: 8). The characteristics of mass media and unidirectional communication differ from the communication between 'face-to-face'-interactants in every day life 11 (2004: 25) in that whereas the mutual exchange [wechselseitiger Austausch] (2004: 26) that is possible there is impossible in mass media communication.
4.1.1 Products Concerning the products [Produkte] of television communication, Holly (2004) differentiates between three levels of analysis: 'codes and their interaction' [Codes und ihr Zusammenspiel], 'genres' [Gattungen] and 'program structures' [Programmstrukturen] (2004: 38). The level of genres will be considered the most important for this paper, as it allows a general classification of television shows and thus hints at possible constellations of frames.
Codes On the basic level of codes and their interaction, Holly (2004) distinguishes an interplay between static elements (pictures [Fotografien], graphic elements [Grafiken], and writing [Schrift]) and dynamic elements (moving images [Bewegte Bilder], spoken language [Sprechsprache], and sound and music [Gerusche und Musik]) (see 2004: 39). Genres On an intermediate level of analysis, Holly (2004) distinguishes five different general genres of television. A clear attribution of TV shows to single genres is seldom possible, as they often contain elements of a number of them:
The informative genre [Informative Gattung], where the main goal is the dissemination of information in the form of, among others, news broadcasts, news magazines, political magazines or documentaries and reports. (see 2004: 54-58)
10
11
Fotografie und Stummfilm) oder auditiv (wie Tontrger, Radio und Telefon). Fernsehen ist dagegen bisensuell oder bimodal, und zwar audiovisuell (wie Tonfilme, Tonvideo oder DVD) (2004: 3). Wie alle Massenmedien ist das Fernsehen ein Einwegmedium, d.h. wenige Kommunikatoren produzieren fr ein mglichst heterogenes und disperses Publikum, das sie nicht kennen (2004: 8) []face-to-face-Interagierenden im Alltag[] (2004: 25) Jan Krattiger
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The performative [Performative Gattung] genre, where the focus is not primarily to 'inform' or 'report', but on the way in which protagonists [Akteure] do something before a crowd12 (2004: 59). The genre thus ranges from interviews to gameshows or comedy programs. While the primary function of genres such as interviews is seen as close to the goal of information13 (2004: 59), genres such as quiz- or comedy shows focus on the provocation of private follow-up discussion, public discourse, and entertainment. (see 2004: 60-62) The fictional genre [Fiktionale Gattung], comprising TV series, soap operas or feature films. (see 2004: 62-65) The sectors [Sparten], where the main focus is on particular subject areas and target audiences [Themenbereiche und Zielgruppen] (2004: 66). As examples, Holly (2004) mentions music television, sports or religious programs. (see 2004: 65-72) Advertising [Werbung] is, according to Holly (2004), both a genre and an economic factor, which, as a consequence, has changed program structures, program contents and the forms of presentation, and beyond that the whole media market.14 (2004: 72)
Program structures Holly (2004) distinguishes two aspects of program structures: On the one hand, there is the complete range [Gesamtangebot] of programs available, which is regionally influenced (Holly focuses on the complete range of programs in Germany, see 2004: 74-76)). As this paper is only concerned with one specific program, this element can be seen as not significant in the analysis. On the other hand, he elucidates the general program structures of TV channels, based on Hickethier's (1993: 175) characterizations as a continuum, which is classified through a grid of separations15 (Hickethier 1993: 175 in Holly 2004: 74). In summary, Hickethier (1993) mentions
The continuity of broadcast (programs tend to be designed for a sequence of without end); The Periodicity (the constant recurrence of slots that are filled similarly or identically); The structure through temporal fixation of elements and the definition of particular principles of arrangement (program schemata); The composition of the program form different, often even disparate elements [].16 (Hickethier 1993 in Holly 2004: 74)
12
13 14
15
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Unter performativen Fernsehgattungen verstehe ich solche, in denen nicht primr 'informiert' oder 'erzhlt' wird, sondern es darauf ankommt, wie Akteure vor Publikum etwas tun [] (2004: 59, italics not mine) []Interviews, die dem Informationsziel noch am nchsten stehen (2004: 59, italics not mine) Damit hat Werbung Programmstrukturen, Programminhalte und Prsentationsformen, darber hinaus den gesamten Medienmarkt verndert (2004: 72). Hickethier (1993, 175) charakterisiert das Angebots-Programm als Kontinuum, das sich durch ein Gitter von Trennungen gliedert (2004: 74). - die Kontinuitt des Gesendeten (Programme sind tendenziell auf eine Angebotsfolge ohne Ende angelegt); - Periodizitt (die Wiederkehr stndig hnlich oder gleich gefllter Sendepltze); - die ZeitGliederung durch die zeitliche Fixierung von Einheiten und Festlegung von bestimmten Anordnungsprinzipien (Programmschemata); - die Zusammensetzung des Programms aus verschiedenen, hufig sogar disparaten Einheiten, [] (2004: 74) Jan Krattiger
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4.1.2 Summary In summary, Holly's (2004) illustrations of the medium television showed that it is an electronic , audiovisual, and tertiary medium. The particularities of television are that it is a unidirectional mass-medium. Holly (2004) furthermore distinguishes three levels of products: The most general level of program structures helps in the classification of TV programs in the context of the whole channel. The intermediate level genres despite not being able to offer clear-cut distinctions and definitions, helps in classifying programs according to the main distinctions between the informative, performative, fictional, sectors and advertising genres. On the most detailed level, the notion of codes helps in the classification of the audiovisual aspects television into dynamic and static elements.
4.2 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS) Before classifying the data that will be analysed in the next section, which is an interview segment of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (subsequently called TDS), according to categories elaborated by Holly (2004), the contents of the show itself and the selected segment will first need to be described in general. For this description, the extensive article by Geoffrey Baym (2005) is very helpful. Firstly, an introductory self-description of the main elements of the TDS is given on the show's own website:
The Daily Show is an Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning program that takes a sharp, hilarious look at current events, covering politics, technology, trends, pop culture, sports and entertainment. In each show, anchor Jon Stewart and a team of correspondents [] tackle the news of the day, using real news footage, taped field pieces and on-the-spot coverage of important issues. Jon also conducts exclusive in-studio interviews with politicians, comedians, actors, authors and other guests, from the world-famous to the obscure-yet-fascinating.[] No matter whos [sic] in office or which technology politicians are using to embarrass themselves, The Daily Show is there to read between the headlines, rise above the chatter, go below the lowest common denominator and deliver commentary you wont get anywhere else. [] Created by Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg in 1996, The Daily Show was hosted by Craig Kilborn until 1999, when Jon Stewart took over the anchor's chair. (The Daily Show 2011: About)
The description does not mention the fact that TDS is emitted on Comedy Central, a TV channel that shows mainly comic television series and cartoons (e.g. 'South Park') or Stand-up comedy shows and that is owned by the media corporation Viacom. Similarly, yet stressing the elements of political news and comedy, Neacsu (2011) states that [f]or more than a decade, data and scholarly analyses have promoted the view that TDS functions as a
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vehicle of political news for the under-30 college-educated crowd because of its comedic narrative (2011: 36, indirectly quoting Young 2006). Additionally, Neacsu (2011) quotes a poll by Time magazine published on July 22, 2009 (see 'Time magazine poll' in references), which asked for America's most trusted newscaster, where the host, Jon Stewart, was the clear winner with 44% of the votes (in total, 9411 people voted). Despite the questionable representativeness of not even 10'000 votes, this can still be seen as an indicator towards how the show is perceived by the audience. Baym (2005) argues along the same lines when he says that
[f]rom the start [] the program interweaves at least two levels of discourse, borrowing equally from traditions of authoritative nightly news and the entertainment talk show. Although the open[ness] may suggest that a discourse of entertainment supersedes a discourse of news, the two are placed not in binary opposition, but in complementary arrangements. The show functions as both entertainment and news, simultaneously pop culture and public affairs. (2006: 262)
As distinguished by Baym (2005), TDS is divided into three main parts. The first of the program's major content elements the satire news update represents a significant development in the genre of comedic news, building on the introductory monologue common to the late night talk show since the 1950s. [] (2005: 263). Baym (2005: 263) locates this segment of satire news update between what he calls talk show monologues and the fake news Weekend Update, claiming that TDS,
while borrowing from these styles of 'fake' news, offers a considerable advancement over them, more deeply melding approaches of news and comedy. To the standard comedic style, The Daily Show adds more elements common to news, including video clips, soundbites, and [] complete reporter packages. The satire news segment does at times focus on the trivial aspects of the political domain, but it more often tackles national and global issues of unquestioned significance. (2005: 263-264)
The second main part is identified by Baym (2005) as the parody news reports (2005: 269), which he summarizes as follows:
Building on the sketch comedy format familiar to late-night talk, the show's cast of comedians act as news reporters. Often they appear on set with Stewart or in a pretend live shot []. In these, they offer mock versions of the instant analysis common to contemporary news. They also appear in preproduced news packages, here literally traveling around the country to cover real and sometimes substantive stories from the domain of public affairs. (2005: 269)
The third element is the daily interview segment, to which Baym (2005) attests the quality of an alternative model of public affairs programming (2005: 270) and which he characterizes as follows the description of the interview segment by Baym (2005) is granted a lot of space here as it eloquently sheds light onto the central aspects of it:
Running as long as 10 minutes, the studio interview can constitute more than half the show's content. While it is modeled in the tradition of the late-night celebrity interview, the discussion segment differs from its predecessors in important ways. Although the guests at times are the familiar movie Jan Krattiger
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Towards a better understanding of communication stars who frequent the late-night circuit to promote their films, more often they are politicians, journalists, or commentators. [] Stewart's approach is neither purely entertainment oriented nor overly accommodating. The interviews may touch on tales from childhood or other endearing anecdotes, but like the rest of the program, they are a hybrid form that blends laughter and pop culture with a willingness to engage with difficult issues. [] In place of reductionist polemics, Stewart's politically oriented interviews pursue thoughtful discussions of national problems. The goal of the discussions ins not the tearing down of the 'other' side [] or some banal prediction of the shape of things to come, but rather an effort to gain greater understanding of national problems and their potential solutions. (2005: 271)
4.2.1 Genres and program structures of The Daily Show In this section, the descriptive elements of the section above will be connected with Holly's (2004) notions of genre and program structure, as elaborated in section 4.1.1. The notion of codes will be elaborated in the analytical section, according to the framework given by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003).
Genres The interweaved levels of discourses of authoritative nightly news and entertainment talk shows as identified by Baym (2005) can be transferred to two levels of genres as denominated by Holly (2004). Firstly, to the informative genre, which is mainly concerned with the dissemination of information, as in news broadcasts and secondly to the performative genre, which encompasses both interviews that are closely related to the informative genre, and comedy shows that have the main goal of entertainment. On a side note, it is not the focus of this study but nevertheless interesting to remark that the individual segments of TDS are connected (or separated, depending on the viewpoint) by the genre of advertising as identified by Holly (2004). Program structure In terms of the program structure, the different elements of TDS can be transferred as follows: The continuity of broadcast is given since 1999, when the current host Jon Stewart started to present the show. The periodicity, meaning the constant recurrence of slots that are filled similarly or identically, is given in that the show is aired every Monday through Thursday from at 11 pm (EST). The temporal fixation, as Baym (2005) elaborates, is given in the way that the program follows the same schemata for every episode, which is divided into three subsequent parts (the satire news update, the parody news reports and the interview). The disparate elements of the composition are
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given through the same division into three parts that differ on the level of contents.
4.3 The Interview Clayman and Heritage (2005) define their object of study concisely in the introduction to their broad sociolinguistic study titled The News Interview, which contains insightful discussions of all the important elements of news interviews, such as the analysis of the openings and closings, of different modes of questioning or answering. They describe the main aspects of a news interview as follows:
The prototypical news interview involves a distinctive constellation of participants, subject matter, and interactional form. The interviewer is known as a professional journalist rather than a partisan advocate or celebrity entertainer. Interviewees have some connection to recent news events, either as primary actors (e.g., government officials) or as informed commentators (e.g., certified experts). The audience plays no active role in the interaction. The discussion normally focuses on matters related to recent news events, is highly formal in character, and is managed primarily through questions and answers. (2005: 7)
They ascribe an important function to the openings and closings of interviews, when stating that
the processes of entering into and exiting from a news interview, however brief and perfunctory such processes might seem, actually fulfil a variety of important journalistic functions. Openings set an agenda for the interview [,] project the form that discussion will take [and] regulate interviewee's access to the interaction []. Closings are structured in such a way as to allow for the imposition of an inflexible time limit with a minimum of abruptness [] (2005: 93)
In general, all the above aspects are given in the main segment under analysis in this paper. The segment is the daily interview taken from TDS of the 23 rd of February 2011, 8 minutes and 54 seconds in total length. It was recorded digitally at the time of broadcast and subsequently transferred to a computer for analysis. The interviewee is Donald Rumsfeld, the occasion of the interview is the release of Rumsfeld's book Known and Unknown: A Memoir (2011). As Baym (2005) states,
[i]t is noteworthy here that like the movie star promoting a new film, the political guests also appear on the show largely to promote their work or their cause. In this regard, Stewart is happy to play along he begins and ends each segment with an overt pitch for the product. Obviously, the interview is a marketing device, as is The Daily Show to be sure, but it is also the circulation of ideas and argument. The products being promoted usually are some form of political information and commentary a book, documentary film, television program and the interview segment provides a portal into this exchange of discourse. [] To put it differently, the interviews function as an opening to or an extension of a public sphere in the Habermasian (1989) sense a forum for the rational-critical discussion of issues of public importance. (2005: 272).
Additionally, the first minute of the show will be analysed, which comprises the opening credits and
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an overview of the contents of the show, including a preview of the guest, Donald Rumsfeld. As described by Baym (2005), this opening segment already alludes to the different discourses present in the show:
The show begins each night with a full-screen graphic of the date, an American flag, and the globe, accompanied by a music track serious in tone and suggestive of a network newscast. An unseen announcer then pronounces the date, followed by From Comedy Central's world news headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The initial emphasis on the date borrows a technique from broadcast journalism that seeks textual authority through a claim to immediacy. The phrase world news headquarters in New York similarly contains obvious connotations, invoking the power and prestige of the New York-based national news. The connotation, however, is quickly complicated as the graphic gives way to a live camera shot that swings though [sic] studio, a technique of fast motion more common to entertainment than to news. At the same time, the audio cuts to a decidedly more upbeat, rock-and-roll soundtrack, while the studio audience cheers in the background. (2005: 262)
4.3.1 The Interviewer and the Interviewee The role of the interviewer is taken by the host and executive producer, Jon Stewart. He is also the owner of the production company Busboy and a writer. According to the International Movie Database, Stewart started his career in the early 1990s as a comedian and actor, before taking over the job of host for TDS in 1999. Thus, it cannot be clearly said that the interviewer in the segment under analysis is a prototypical interviewer as Clayman and Heritage (2005) define it, as a definite ascription of a role either as professional journalist, partisan advocate or celebrity entertainer is not possible based on the descriptions as Baym (2005) suggested them. The interviewee is Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense under U.S.-American President George W. Bush from January 20, 2001 to December 18, 2006.
Secretary Rumsfeld was responsible for directing the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to include Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Taken from the website of the U.S.-American Government, see References)
Furthermore, according to the official biography (from the website of the U.S.-American Government), Rumsfeld attended Princeton University, served in the U.S.-Navy and was subsequently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served as Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet from 1974-1975, and as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1975-1977. Again, if compared to the notion of the prototypical interviewee as suggested by Clayman and Heritage (2005), it is not possible to say that Rumsfeld as the interviewee in the segment in 36
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question has either some connection to recent news events, apart from the new book that he is promoting. He can, however, still be seen as both a primary actor, as he was a government official, and as an informed commentator, as he is the certified expert concerning his book. In summary, despite the general similarity between the notion of the news interview as proposed by Clayman and Heritage (2005) in terms of the distinctive constellation of participants, subject matter, and interactional form, when compared to the interview segment in question, there are some uncertainties about the roles of the interviewer and the interviewee, respectively.
4.4 General characteristics of the data and limitations For the analysis of the data in respect to transformational frames, a transcript of fragments of the TV show will be used. For each fragment, the lines are numbered on the right side of the transcript. The length of the fragments in question is predetermined by the characteristics of the show, separated along the discernible cuts made by the camera. Fragment 1 is the Introduction to the show and the first minute of talk by the host, Jon Stewart (referred to in the transcript as JS). Fragment 2 is the first part of the interview with Donald Rumsfeld (referred to in the transcript as DR), which is ended by a cut to a commercial break. Due to this segment's longevity of 9 minutes and 5 seconds in total, four exemplary excerpts will be discussed17. Given that such a selection of excerpts is always arbitrary to a certain extent, in this paper as well as in previous research in the field, it will nevertheless be founded to a certain extent through the consideration of Clayman and Heritage's (2005) stress of the particular function of interview openings and closings (2005: 93, p. 35 in this paper). Fragment 2 a) is the opening of the interview, Fragment 2 b) is the following discourse fragment. Fragment 2 c) starts after an omission of 17 lines and Fragment 2 d) is again directly adjacent to the previous fragment. Fragment 3 is a break in the interview, after a cut back from a commercial break, where only the host is present, directly addressing the camera. Fragment 4 is the second part of the interview as in Fragment 2, its relative length necessitates a selection of one exemplary excerpt that will be discussed. Fragment 5 is separated from the previous fragment through a short cut that is marked with a white screen, the interview situation remains the same. It marks the last 41 seconds of the interview and is ended with another cut to a commercial break. For the analysis concerning composition, seven exemplary screenshots will be analysed,
17
For the whole transcript see Appendix II. Jan Krattiger
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described with the corresponding fragment, line number and specific utterance in the linguistic transcript, and the time. For example: Figure 2. Fragment 1, line 5, with, [00:09]. The data used in this paper, one television interview, allows only for limited conclusions, as it is one instant of communication that has its particularities, be it the communicators involved (a talk show host/comedian/political satirist and a former politician and author and not, for example, a radio speaker and a movie star), the setting of a TV show (and not, for example an instance of naturally occurring talk, or communication on a different medium such as radio) or the fact that it is a U.S.American TV show (and not, for instance, a show from a different community). For the linguistic analysis, only one part of the whole TV show was focused on, ignoring all the elements that precede and follow the show, thus missing the opportunity to analyse them in a broader context. For the analysis of the composition, only seven screenshots were chosen as examples. Despite the consideration of the most important visual aspects of the show, such as the main camera angles used and the representation of all the identified fragments, they only cover a fraction of what is going on visually during the whole discourse. All these elements limit the significance of the data selected, yet they also allow for a concise methodological approach. By analysing one particular instant of communication qualitatively, the main question of this paper can aptly be tried to answer. This main question being the possibility of a combination of two scientific approaches to the study of communication, namely framing theory and a multimodal approach to composition.
5. Methodology: Key concepts and tools for analysis

As mentioned above, the methodological approach to the qualitative analysis of the data is a combination of two approaches. First, the transcript of the data will be analysed according to Ensink's (2003) concept of transformational frames, this section will be called Analysis 1. Before collecting the definitions of the main concepts of this approach in section 5.2, the transcription method used will briefly be discussed (section 5.1). Secondly, the data will be analysed using van Leeuwen's (2003) notion of composition. This section will be called Analysis 2. The main theoretical concepts will briefly be defined in section 5.3. For the the Analysis 2, screenshots of the data will be used to visualize the analysis.
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5.1 Transcription method The transcription method used in this paper is based on Jefferson (1979) and was also used by Cowper's (2003) analysis of television interviews concerned with political satire. It is thus an apt method to show the most important aspects of verbal communication, as it shows the most important details of speech, such as speed, pitch, volume, pauses and overlapping talk. A further element is the inclusion of audience laughter. For the analysis in this paper, however, the description of the utterances of the audience was modified. In Cowper (2003), the audience laughter is described with Rows of X s enclosed in brackets ( e.g. (XXXX) ). To add a further distinction, the element of audience applause will be described with Rows of Y s enclosed in brackets ( e.g. (YYYY) )18.
5.2 Tools for Analysis 1: Transformational frames The main notions used to identify frames and their processes as elaborated by Ensink (2003) are: Types of frames Knowledge frames have a content of their own and answer the basic question of what we are perceiving now (see Ensink 2003: 68). Through this, they render what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful (see Goffman 1974: 21). Interactive frames enable language users to identify the context of language activity, and to produce and recognize coherent sequences of (language) activities (see Ensink 2003: 63). Transformational frames always embed some other frame (see Ensink 2003: 68). In transformational frames, interactional frames proper are modified (see Ensink 2003: 67). Processes Frame shifts occur when one frame is released and replaced by a different one (see Ensink 2003: 70-71). Frame embeddings occur when a transformational frame is added to the frame already in operation. The frame which was in operation is not released, but its interpretation is brought
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See Appendix I for transcription conventions used in the fragments. Jan Krattiger
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under the influence of the now added transformational frame (see Ensink 2003: 71-72). Frame de-embeddings occur when the transformational frame at work in a particular situation is put out of operation, in order to restore the previously intended interpretation (see Ensink 2003: 72). The challenge of identifying knowledge frames, interactional frames and transformational frames and the processes at work in discourse lies in their close connection to their specific semantic contents. This is a problem evident in frame analysis in general, where this identification is always made based on the author's own knowledge of the situation, the discourse participants, and the setting. While this problem can not be completely overcome in this paper either, as such an analysis of discourse without the consideration of the semantic level is simply impossible, the suggestion of identifying said frames on the basis of Gumperz' (1992) notion of contextualization cues will constitute an attempt at basing the identification on a more abstract level.Despite there not being a direct link between contextualization cues and transformational frames at work in discourse, they can still be seen as a possible indicator of such a process. The closeness between the notion of frame as it is used in this paper and Gumperz' (1992) contextualization cues supports this suggestion. Thus, the main characteristics of contextualization cues will be defined here: Prosody (intonation, stress or accenting and pitch and register shifts) Paralinguistic signs (tempo, pausing and hesitation, conversational synchrony, including latching or overlapping of speaking turns, and other tone of voice expressive cues) Code choice (code or style switching, selection among phonetic, phonological or morphosyntactic options) Choice of lexical forms or formulaic expressions (opening or closing routines or metaphoric expressions) (see Gumperz (1992: 231)
5.3 Tools for Analysis 2: Composition The second analysis will be based on van Leeuwen's (2003) multimodal approach to composition, where three main elements can be distinguished: Information value is concerned with the placement of elements in space, both two- and
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three-dimensional. This placement endows them with specific values, that are attached to the various 'zones' of an image or space (see van Leeuwen 2003: 29-54). Two-dimensional space Given and New (horizontal dimension) Ideal and Real (vertical dimension) Centre and Margin Face, Support and Subsidiaries Core and Enclosure Foreground and Background
Three-dimensional space
Salience results from a complex interaction, a complex trading-off relationship between the following factors: size, sharpness of focus, amount of detail an texture shown, tonal contrast, colour contrast, placement in the visual field, perspective, rhythm, auditory factors and specific cultural factors (see van Leeuwen 2003: 54-56 and Kress and van Leeuwen 1996: 201-203).
Framing is concerned with the connectedness of elements of a composition. They may either be disconnected, marked off from each other, or connected, joined together. This is a matter of degree, as elements may be strongly or weakly framed. The stronger the framing, the more elements are presented as separate units of information (see van Leeuwen 2003: 56-58).
These are the key concepts and tools of analysis. They will be applied to the data in the subsequent section. In Analysis 1 (section 6.1), transformational frames and the processes connected with them (frame shifts, embeddings and de-embeddings) will be identified in the transcribed data, using the key concepts as illustrated in section 5.2. In Analysis 2 (section 6.2), the key concepts of composition will be applied to the data in the form of screenshots.
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6. Analysis
6.1 Analysis 1: Transformational frames The following analysis of the transcribed television interview is arranged following the chronology of the show and thus the fragments, identifying knowledge frames, transformational frames and their processes for each fragment. The fragments are preceded by a short introductory overview of the situation. In general, the knowledge frame of a television show (implying a mediated, time-dependent one-way communication) can be seen as given, as the whole analysis is focused on such an event of media discourse. Thus, this most basic frame underlying all the other frames will not be specifically mentioned in the detailed analysis.
6.1.1 Fragment 1: Introduction The first fragment contains the first minute of the show, the introduction, which is the same for every episode (1-8). The description by Baym (2005), in section 4.2 of this paper, is thus also reflected in the fragment. This general introduction is followed by the host, JS, starting the show and giving a brief introduction of the guest (10-29), before introducing the next segment (29). Fragment 1 [00:00] [Off-voice speaks, accompanied by music] V: February twentythird (...) two thousand eleven (...) [fanfare] From Comedy Central's world news headquarters in New York (...) this is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (YYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [Title melody plays and fades out] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: <Welcome to the Daily Show my name is Jon Stewart> (.) (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: MAN we have a show for you tonight (YYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: I can't even tell y how excit** I am for tonight's show (.) our guest tonight >Jerry Seinfeld<
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is going to =XXXXX) [JS pretends to read from paper] JS: -m sorry that's Donald Rumsfeld =XXXXX) JS: <yes i feel terrib-> now all my questions are about the contest I don't =XXXXX) JS: I don't think they had one of those =XX) >or did they< =XX) aaah so he'll be on later in the program BUT our top story tonight once again the unrest in the Midwest with our continuing coverage OF [] [cut 1:00] Knowledge Frames In lines 1 to 5, the low off-voice invokes the connotations that are serious in tone and suggestive of a network newscast (Baym 2005: 262). Additional evidence is given by the formulaic expressions used (stating the date (2), the location (4) and the name of the show and the host (5)), and prosodic elements such as stress (2,4,5) and pitch (2-5). Thus, the first knowledge frame can be described as a serious television newscast: [ News ] Frame embeddings In Fragment 1, the process of a frame embedding is hinted at, but cannot fully be proven with the analysis: In line 16, the news frame can be said to be brought under the influence of a newly introduced comedy frame, when JS announces the guest (16). Prosodic elements alluding to this are the stress on the word guest as well as the stress and the reduction of tempo on Jerry Seinfeld. Concerning the contents, JS here deliberately first announces the wrong guest, before pretending to read from paper in a satirical fashion (19), which also points in the direction of a frame embedding through the introduction of a transformational frame. A shift in pitch and tempo in line 27 can be seen as a sign that the embedded frame is maintained until that point. Thus, the situation can be described like this: [ News ] [ Comedy [ News ] ] Frame de-embeddings It can be argued that at the end of Fragment 1, a frame de-embedding takes place, more precisely in
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line 29. On the level of content, JS switches from talking about the guest of the show to talk about the top story (29) and the continuing coverage(29), thus the introductory section is ended an the next segment is introduced. This is also reflected by the shift in register on the prosodic level, from the register of guest to the register of news coverage. The switch is marked with an increase in volume of the word but (29). Thus, the transformational frame of comedy is put out of its operation and the previously established news frame remains: [ Comedy [ News ] ] [ News ]
6.1.2 Fragment 2: Interview opening The second fragment is the main part of the interaction between JS and DR, with a total length of 9 minutes and 5 seconds. In this section, four excerpts from fragment 2 will be analysed. Fragment 2 a) [08:38 Return from commercial break, logo of the show on screen, followed by camera on JS] [Camera slowly moves towards JS] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: <WELCOME BACK MY GUEST TONIGHT> (...) [claps on table] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: >served as< Secretary of Defense in two different presidential administrations (.) <most recently under George W Bush (.) his new memoir> is called >KNOWN AND UNKNOWN< (.) please welcome to the program (...) Donald Rumsfeld [JS stands up from Desk, DR enters studio] SIR (YYYYYYYY) [simultaneous orchestral music] [ ] JS: nice to see you (YYYYYY) [ ] DR: thank you (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: >please< come and join us (...) thank you (...) PLEASE [JS and DR sitting down] Thank you, thank you for being here (.) we appreciate it [ ] DR: thankJS: The book is er (.) the book is Known and Unknown (.) and that's you (.) right there in a vest
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JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: [9:20]
(XXXXX) [Is[In Taos New Mexico In T- <is that> Taos New Mexico [ ] mhm lovely place by the way yah (.)
28 29 30 31 32 33 34
Knowledge Frames In Fragment 2 a), the knowledge frame of the interview is activated in lines 5-22. JS announces the guest (5) and gives a short biographical introduction (8-9). This knowledge frame can be assumed to be mutually known as it is one part of the recurring program structure (see section 4.2). The register of the biographical introduction supports this thesis. Thus, the initial situation can be described as follows: [ Interview ] Frame embeddings and shifts The first frame embedding can be distinguished in line 9, when JS introduces the reason why DR is the interviewee in the show. He introduces the new memoir (9), gives its title (Known and Unknown (9-10)) and the guest and author (Donald Rumsfeld (10)), an overt pitch for the product (Baym 2005: 272, section 4.2 in this paper). On the prosodic level, the reduced tempo and increased volume indicate the introduction of the transformational frame of book promotion. At the same time, the formulaic expressions (nice to see you (15), thank you (18, 21), please (21) hint at the embedded interview frame. Thus, the frame embedding in formal notation would look like this: [ Interview ] [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] This constellation of frames is shifted away from in line 18, where the transformational frame thanking for is introduced. It is maintained until line 26, when a further frame embedding takes place. On the level of content, JS comments on the cover image, which displays DR in a vest, thus he is not directly talking to DR about the contents of the book, but about the exterior features of it. Again, on a prosodic level, this process is supported by the shift in pitch and the stress on you (26), thus focusing the discourse on the cover in a mocking fashion. Similarly to fragment 1, the frame constellation in operation is brought under the influence of the newly added frame of comedy.
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The formal process thus is: [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] [ Comedy [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ]
Fragment 2 b) The next fragment is directly adjacent to the previous one, starting at line 36. The situation is thus still the same as structured above, no new knowledge frames are established. Fragment 2 b) [9:20] JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: E::r (...) obviously er <you know Elephant in the room (.) tension> (...) er betw- er I think >I know why you're here< (...) and let me just deflate the tension (.) right off the bat () [ ] h.h.h. apology accepted h.h.h. (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) [ ] and er now we can mo:ve on (...) have a nice da:y a nice >conversation< eh eh eh (XXXXXXXXXX) I know this has been troubling you for some time no:w eh eh eh eh (...) (XX) e:rm (.) I do thank you for being here (.) e:rm (.) i d- I don't even know (.) where to start (.) so: let's start with Ira:q () okay (XXXX) [ ] What why am I not surprised I don't know (.) I will take your stony silence as acceptance <alright> [ ] [ ] hm eh eh eh (XXXX) There there's an (...) there's an interesting quote (.) that you had in the book (.) about John Ehrlichman who was er in the Nixon White House and you worked with e:r with Ehrlichman (.) e::r (.) and you say to him (.) er about him (.) he seemed to have a high degree of certainty (.) >about his views< (.) that bordered on arrogance (.) >a trait that did him no favours< (.) as he gathered more influence in the White House (.) >certainty without po:wer (.) can be interesting (.) even amusing (...) certainty with power (.) can be dangerous< (...) and I thought (...) boy if there was ever a solid critique of how I felt about (.) the administration you served er under under President Bush= =Mhm= =it would be that (...) certainty with >power< is is dangerous (.) true or false (XXXXXX)
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DR: JR:
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DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JR: [11:10]
If you go to the website that I put up (.) >Rumsfeld dot com< there are hundreds of documents= =Mhm= =thousands of pages= =Right= =and what you will see is the absence of certainty (.) >you will see probing questioning wondering er do we have enough information<= =Ok=
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
Frame embeddings In lines 36-40, JS introduces a new transformational frame. He presupposes tension being in the room and suggests deflating this tension by accepting the apology of DR (36-40). On the level of paralinguistic signs, pauses and hesitation (36-37) hint at the introduction of a new frame. The formulaic expression Elephant in the room further exemplifies this. Thus, it can be said that a frame of apology is added to the situation, thus resulting in this constellation: [ Comedy [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] ] [ Apology [ Comedy [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] ] ] This constellation is maintained until line 49, as indicated by JS in lines 44 and 47, where the patterns of pitch and stress are constantly held high. A further indicator of the acceptance of this frame embedding can be seen in DR's reaction to JS in line 48. Frame de-embeddings A frame de-embedding can be observed in line 50. JS thanks DR for being here (50) and introduces a new subject, Iraq (51). On the prosodic level, this is reflected in a shift in pitch from a higher level in line 47 to a regular level in 50 and a lower level towards the end of lines 50 and 51. Additionally, pauses and hesitating moments are dominant in lines 50 and 51. Despite the fact that these characteristics hint towards a de-embedding of the comedy frame, this frame can be said to be kept in operation due to the sequence in lines 54-58, where DR and JS stay inside the comedy frame. This is hinted at through a raised pitch in DR's sequence in line 54. Thus, the frame of apology is put out of operation, returning the situation to this constellation: [ Apology [ Comedy [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] ] ] [ Comedy [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] ] A second de-embedding is introduced in line 59, where JS starts referring to an interesting quote
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[] in the book (59). In lines 59-66, JS is the only speaker for a relatively long time, including a lot of pauses and hesitations in his talk. Furthermore, single words are explicitly stressed, such as seemed (61), favours 63) or with (64). The pitch stays relatively monotonous, except for a few instances where the pitch is raised, coinciding with the explicitly stressed words. All these elements indicate that the comedy frame is de-embedded and the new constellation can be described as follows: [ Comedy [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] ] [ Book Promotion [ Interview ] ] The comedy frame is briefly reintroduced in line 68 by JS, indicated by a short pause and a lowered pitch (true or false). He finishes his lengthy elaboration of the interesting quote (59) with a harsh critique of DR (certainty with power is dangerous (68), only to weaken that harshness with the reintroduction of the comedy frame. Yet, as becomes clear from lines 70-71, DR does not accept this reintroduction and stays in the previous frame constellation.The acceptance of JS to stay in this previous frame constellation can be seen in lines 72-77, indicated by the latching between the two speakers.
Fragment 2 c) This fragment is preceded by a humorous exchange between JS and DR about media (79-90), before returning to the basic interview frame, which is embedded in the frame of book promotion. The fact that the frame of book promotion is still active can be deduced from lines 98-105, where JS asks DR how he remembers something and in doing so alluding to the written memoir and DR answers the question. The situation can thus be described as: [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] Fragment 2 c) [11:42] JS: Because presented to the American public (.) >was a picture of (.) not just relative certainty< (...) m certainty bordering on on arrogance and (.) and there is a dismissiveness to anyone who would challenge that certainty (...) that not how you remember it DR: I- it isn't (.) er at all really er [ ] JS: Right DR: Er I mean I know what was going through my >mind< and I know the kinds of questions the President would >ask< and the questions that Co:lin Powell or Condie Rice or the Vice
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JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: [13:20]
President would ask (.) and there was a searching (.) there was a er lots of questions A >yearning< if you will Well (.) ts not quite the word I would use h. [starts smiling] (XXX) Do you so you (.) you >disagree< (.) that that the >administration< (.) showed its a face of certainty when it came to the intelligence (.) e:r in the lead up to the Iraq war (.) is that No= =(Cause) now now we're (.) okay [ ] No (.) in that in that respect you're exactly right (.) there is no question but that [ ] Right the intelligence community (.) presented that information (.) >Co:lin Powell< [ ] Right made the presentation at the United Nations (.) he spent (.) he he probably had as much experience dealing with intelligence products as anyone in the govment including the director of CIA Mhm (...) He: spent days on it (.) he worked hard on it (.) he believed every word he said Right And and and yet he: and he presented it that way (.) now (.) er (.) the intelligence always is (.) never perfect I mn it's always questioned= =Right= =you have to question it (.) >Did did you guys know intelligence was never perfect< >Oh my goodness yes< (...) (XXX) I feel like we're just sitting on a porch now >sipping lemonade< (XXXXX)
105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135
Frame embeddings In this fragment, a frame embedding can be identified in line 109, where JS asks another question that can be seen as not directly connected to the frame of the book interview. The lines 109-110 are characterized by hesitation, recurring shifts in tempo and pauses. Furthermore, the subsequent exchange (111-120) is shaped by latching of speaking turns. All these elements allude to the introduction of a further transformational frame, although it can be argued that the frames already in play stay in operation: The basic interview frame is constituted through the given situation, which is an exchange between two people, the interviewer JS and the interviewee DR. The role of JS as the interviewer is constituted through the asking of questions, the role of the interviewee DR through the answering of these. This newly introduced frame can be characterized as a critical discussion.
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On a level of content, this is confirmed by Baym's (2005) analysis, who sees the promotional, commercial frame of the book promotion as a vehicle for what he calls rational-critical discussion (2005: 272, pages 35-36 this paper). The structure of this process in formal notation is: [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ] A further frame embedding can be identified in line 134, where JS reintroduces the previously embedded and de-embedded comedy frame. A shift to a higher pitch and the introduction of a metaphor (I feel like we are []) allude to this frame shift, as well as a shift in register from the previous political register to that describing the image of just sitting on a porch now, sipping lemonade. A comparison between the contents of the frame of critical discussion before line 134 and the newly introduced comedy frame show a clear difference. When before JS and DR talked about the intelligence concerning the situation in Iraq and how it was dealt with, JS now introduces the image of the two participants on a metaphoric level. Thus, the process can be described as follows: [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ] [ Comedy [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ] ]
Fragment 2 d) The fourth excerpt from Fragment 2 is directly adjacent to Fragment 2 c), thus the initial situation regarding the frames can be described like this: [ Comedy [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ] ]
Fragment 2 d) DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: =I said what I shouldn't have said >Oh my goodness< [ ] (XXX) >Oh my goodness< (You w-) 'cause let me say this [ ] You make fun of me talk=XXXX) He makes fun of that but there are a lot of people in the heartland of America who talk like I do=
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JS: DR: JS: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: [13:51]
=No I know [ ] Maybe not on the coast (.) but (.) in the heartland they do [ ] h. (XXX) >Yes (.) on the coast we just curse and have gay sex< (.) that's all we do (.) [ ] eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX We're just >milling around< (...) cursing and (.) gay sexing each other [ ] aha ha ha (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) Erm No let me let me go back to Co:lin Powell Right
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As can be seen in the above fragment, the comedy frame established in Fragment 2 c) is maintained by both speakers, who elaborate on the metaphor introduced by JS (line 134). The choice of register of both JS and DR support this claim (terms such as talk, heartland, curse and gay sex), which is reflected in the contents of the sequence. Frame de-embeddings In line 162, DR signals that the comedy frame will be de-embedded, JS subsequently agrees to this process in line 163. This is reflected on the level of content (let me go back to in line 162, right in line 163, and indicated by the relative normality of the utterances in terms of stress, pauses and pitch compared to the sequence before. This process can be formally described as follows: [ Comedy [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ] ] [ Critical Discussion [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] ]
6.1.3 Fragment 3: Intermission The following fragment is, similarly to Fragment 1, not part of the interview itself, as the interviewee is not present, only JS. There are no clues as to whether it was recorded before, during or after the interview itself. The possibility of it having been recorded during the interview, as the chronological order of the show would suggest, can be seen as impossible, since JS announces to
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the viewer, by looking directly into the camera, what the following segment is going to be about the second part of the interview. Fragment 3 [17:43 cut] JS: (.) Hey (.) (X) [ ] JS: E:r (.) so what you're about to see is part two of the interview (.) er with Don Rumsfeld (.) er >it goes for two and a half days<= =XXXX= JS: =So you're gonna be able to see the rest of it on the web (the- 'll) be a: little bit of a short (.) er edit (.) er >just as he says< (.) YOU'RE RIGHT WE NEVER SHOULDA DONE IT (.) [ ] (XXX) and e:r (.) >so i hope that plays (.) e:r (.) enjoy< [ ] (X) [18:03 cut] Knowledge Frames In Fragment 3, the knowledge frame perceived can be distinguished as an announcement, as JS is informally and directly addressing the camera in line 2 with a formulaic expression (Hey). The informal setting is again signalled in line 5, where JS uses a short form of DR's first name (Don). Subsequently, in line 5, JS announces the second part of the interview with DR. The situation can thus be read as follows: [ Announcement of Interview ] Frame embeddings Right after the announcement frame is established, a further transformational frame is embedded, when JS says in line 6 that it goes for two and a half days. The shift in tempo and pitch (days) mark this process. On the level of content, the exaggeration in terms of the length of the interview can be identified as an indicator of this process. It can thus be described like this: [ Announcement of Interview ] [ Comedy [ Announcement of Interview ] ] This situation is maintained until the end, the announcement frame stays active during the whole fragment, most prominently in lines 5 and 8. In line 5, JS informs about the upcoming fragment, in line 8 he announces that the fragments of the interview that were not broadcast during the TV show
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can be viewed on the internet. The established comedy frame is influencing the interpretation of the announcement frame, as can be seen in line 9. A significant increase in pitch and volume allude to this dominant function of the comedy frame.
6.1.4 Fragment 4: Part two The following fragment is the second part of the interview between JS and DR, which directly follows Fragment 3 after a cut. Fragment 4 [18:04 cut] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: Welcome back (.) we're talking with Donald Rumsfeld (...) I guess my my (.) what I'm trying to get to is this (.) you had a memo of parade of horribles= DR: =Mhm JS: Was two pages or three pages DR: >I don't know< JS: It was about thirty or forty (.) horribles (.) .h e:r (.) but you had a year and a [ ] DR: possi- (.) possible JS: possible horribles DR: Yeah I didn't (.) know= JS: =No: DR: I just said [ ] JS: You dont know if that parades gonna happen it could e::r (.) be e::r= [ ] DR: No (...) That's right JS: =the Puerto Rican day parade (.) nobody knows (.) could be ** parade) (...) but my point= [ ] DR: No (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) JS: =is (.) it seemed that >the effort that the administration (.) exuded was more geared towards(.) making the case of why we had to do this (.) than examining your memo< (.) you say yourself in the book (.) >I gave the memo to the NSC (.) I don't know what happened to it< (...) DR: Not quite (.) JS: You gave the memo to the NSC (.) but they didn't really pay attention (.) DR: The the i- individuals >did< (.) and people did make preparations for some of those things certainly we did -n the department (.) there was- there were not extensive meetings on them (.) it j- it ex-= JS: =But that's my point
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DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR:
Fair enough The White House (Iraq) group met weekly (.) the group >that was assigned the job of coordinating the (.) presentation< mhm about going to war in Iraq (.) >met weekly< (.) >I guess so (.) I don't know (.) b- that woulda been at a different level> (.) the NSC met (.) frequently [ ] Did they tell you anything= =XXXXXXXXXXX) [ ] A::h You poor ma:n No I don't know wha-= =Are you not on the >E-mail list<(.) did they not (.) are you not cc'd [ ] eheheheh (XXXXXXXXXX)
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
Knowledge Frames The knowledge frame perceived at the beginning of Fragment 4 is established in line 4, after a formulaic expression (Welcome back) uttered by JS. This introduces the interview frame, as is shown by the content of line 4 (we're talking with Donald Rumsfeld). The initial setting thus reads as: [ Interview ] Frame embeddings and de-embeddings In the same line, an upcoming frame embedding is signalled by a long pause towards the end (marked as (...)). The shift in register after this pause supports this claim. Based on the content of the lines 4-5, JS reintroduces the transformational frame of critical discussion when talking about the parade of horribles (5). DR supports the establishment of this transformational frame by reacting to JS' question. Thus, the situation reads as: [ Interview ] [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] An additional frame embedding appears only briefly in lines 17-20, signalled by pauses and hesitation in line 17 and a shift in register by JS (the Puerto Rican day parade) in line 20. On the level of content, JS moves away from a serious discussion of the parade of horribles and introduces the notion of day parades that are usually occasions for celebration. The framing constellation can thus be read as: [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] [ Comedy [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] ]
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However, this new frame constellation is rapidly abandoned again by JS in line 20, where after a longer pause he reintroduces the frame of critical discussion with the phrase but my point is. The stress on point further supports this. Thus, the comedy frame is de-embedded again in line 20, which reads as: [ Comedy [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] ] [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] The next transformational frame is introduced in line 26, again by JS. An increased pitch and faster speech compared to previous and subsequent statements of the phrase you say yourself in the book (26) indicates a further embedding process. JS here reintroduces a reference to the book, one of the initial frames at play in the interview. The process can thus be described as: [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] [ Book promotion [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] ] This constellation is again brought under the influence of a further transformational frame in line 42, where JS, interrupting DR's speaking turn, reintroduces the comedy frame. He addresses DR in a mock-condescending manner, with the tone of somebody that talks to a confused old person. A shift to a higher pitch and stressed elements are further indicators of this process. This constellation is maintained until the end of the segment. Regarding their speech production, both speakers remain in this tonality, as is indicated by the frequently raised pitch and the stressed elements. The structure of the process reads as: [ Book promotion [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] ] [ Comedy [ Book promotion [ Critical Discussion [ Interview ] ] ] ]
6.1.5 Fragment 5: Interview Closing The beginning of the final segment of the interview is manifested with a white screen cut. The following fragment constitutes the end of the interview. Fragment 5 [20:21 cut, marked with white screen] =XXX) JS: I (.) I real- (.) I just wanna tell you this (...) I really do appreciate you (.) at least having the conversation and (.) and having er (.) er at least the ability to sit and DR: Why do you say >at least< twice
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(XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXYXYXYXYXY= [ ] JS: Nicely done =XYXYXYX) [ ] JS: e:r (...) >I really do appreciate it< DR: h.h.h. (XXXXXXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYX) [ ] JS: and I know you have to go (.) and and your time is is valuable (.) and I and I do thank you for being here (...) er (.) KNOWN AND UNKNOWN (.) is on the bookshelves now (.) Donald Rumsfeld [music] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: Sir (...) thank you DR: [inaudible] [JR and DR stand up and talk to each other, inaudibly] [21:02 cut] Knowledge Frames After the cut, the knowledge frame that is active can still be described as the interview frame, as the basic situation of interviewer and interviewee sitting opposite each other and exchanging discourse is still given. Thus, the situation reads as: [ Interview ] Frame embeddings and de-embeddings The established interview frame is embedded into a transformational frame in lines 4-5, where JS thanks DR for the conversation. There is only evidence on the level of content for this claim, as no significant shifts on the level of speech production can be distinguished. The structure can thus be described as follows: [ Interview ] [ Thanking for [ Interview ] This structure is again transformed in line 6, where DR interrupts JS' speech and asks him a question. Thus, the distributed roles of the interviewer and the interviewee are inverted. On the level of speech production, heightened pitch and stress (why (6)) initiate this shift. DR asks JS why he said 'at least' twice (6), thus doubting the sincerity of JS' gratitude. DR's laughter in line 13 suggests that these doubts are issued in a joking manner. This transforms the structure as follows: [ Thanking for [ Interview ] [ Jokingly Doubting [ Thanking for [ Interview ] ] ]
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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The transformational frame put in place in line 6 is de-embedded again in line 16. JS puts the frame of Jokingly Doubting out of operation by returning to thanking DR in a serious manner (16-17, 22). This is reflected in the choice of register and the stress on the words that are connected to the realm of thanking for in this particular situation (time (16), valuable (16), thank you for being here (17). This process reads as: [ Jokingly Doubting [ Thanking for [ Interview ] ] ] [ Thanking for [ Interview ] The final frame constellation is established in line 18, where again the transformational frame of the book promotion is introduced. Yet the frame Thanking for is not released, as is visible in line 22. Here, JS again thanks DR for coming on the show. The final transformation can thus be described as: [ Thanking for [ Interview ] [ Book promotion [ Thanking for [ Interview ] ] ] This final frame constellation is subsequently put out of operation with the cut at line 24, which marks the end of the interview. The previously established transformational frame of Thanking for can be seen as an introductory process to this, as well as the music that is beginning to play (line 19) and the reduction of the microphone volume of the two speakers towards the end (line 23).
6.1.6 Summary of Analysis 1 As was shown in the previous section, there are a large number of dynamic, transformational processes at work during a television interview, which constitutes a particular, mediated example of discourse. In general, once established, basic knowledge frames such as the interview frame are not shifted away from (see Fragments 2 a) through d), 3), 4), and 5). Instead, they are embedded into further transformational frames. Apart from the basic interview frame, the most prominent transformational frames at work in the data can be identified as the frame of book promotion in Fragments 2 a) through d), 4) and 5); the comedy frame in Fragments 1), 2 a), 2 d), 3) and 4) (the similar but not identical frame of jokingly doubting is prominent in Fragment 5)) as well as the frame of critical discussion in Fragments 2 c), 2 d) and 4). Transformational frames particular to certain Fragments are the news frame in Fragment 1), the apology frame in Fragment 2 b), the announcement of interview frame in Fragment 3) and the frames of jokingly doubting and thanking for in Fragment 5).
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6.2 Analysis 2: Composition This section is concerned with an analysis of the data based on van Leeuwen's (2003) multimodal approach to composition. Thus, it follows the tools of analysis proposed by him, as elaborated in sections 3.3 and 5.3 in this paper. The focus on a multimodal approach to composition suggests that the visual aspects of the data are central elements. Therefore, single screenshots of the televised interview will be analysed. As mentioned in section 4.4, seven exemplary screenshots of the television interview, classified by fragments as they were identified in 6.1, will be examined here in terms of their information value, salience and framing. The findings will subsequently be summarized in subsection 6.2.4.
6.2.1 Fragment 1: Introduction In Fragment 1, the introduction of the show, two screenshots will be examined: The first screenshot (Figure 2) shows a computer-generated graphic with the name of the show and the image of a globe. In this sequence, both the globe and the written title are dynamic, moving elements accompanied by music and a speaking voice (see Appendix II, Transcript of Fragment 1). Screenshot 1
Figure 2. Fragment 1, line 5, with, [00:09].
Information value In terms of the two-dimensional aspects of the image, the written element (the title of the show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) can be identified as the Centre, the nucleus of what is communicated (van Leeuwen 2003: 43). The size and light colour compared to the other elements
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in the image clearly make it stand out. The second most prominent element is the globe that fills almost half of the screen on the left side. As such it can be seen as representing the Given, selfevident element that is known by the viewer and thus evokes familiarity the shape of the continents and the names of capital cities of the world written in red can be assumed to be mutually known by everybody. The margins in the top left and right corners are occupied by the logos of the TV channel, TV 14 L and cc. It can be argued that they both belong to the domain of the Real, contrarily to their position in the field of the Ideal, as they give the viewer practical information about what TV channel they are watching at the moment. Despite TV images de facto being two-dimensional, most of the time they nevertheless have three-dimensional characteristics, as they show an image of the three-dimensional, real world transferred to a two-dimensional medium. In the case of Figure 2 however, the image is an artificially constructed three-dimensional space. In this context, the elements are placed in a virtual space, the most prominent one is the written title of the show, as it is foregrounded compared to the globe on the left side. The virtual room in the background, characterised through a round, floor-like grey element with a railing and a wall of red and blue rectangles, serves as a backdrop to these two elements, thus fixating them in a defined space. Salience In terms of salience, the analysis of the information value of the screen is to a large part confirmed. The colour contrast between the foregrounded written title and the surrounding backdrop sustains its high salience. The globe is also perceived as more salient due to its basic dark colour and the yellow/brown colour of the continents. The colours of the background are perceived as 'softer' in comparison, only the names of the capital cities on the globe with their bright, saturated red colour, suggest a higher level of salience than their placement on the screen. Similarly, the saturated white logo in the upper right corner suggest a higher salience compared to the transparent logo on the left side, thus giving it more weight in the overall screen. The level of salience of the logo is enhanced by the related colour and brightness of the words the, show and especially the phrase with Jon Stewart in the right half of the written title. The salience of the red capital cities and the globe is strengthened on the auditory level, with the off-voice that introduces the show referring to the world news headquarters (Fragment 1, line 4). Another element that supports the salient context of a show concerned with international news is the theme music that plays during the introduction. The melody and rhythm invoke the
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notion of theme music as it is common in news shows on other channels 19. Framing On the level of framing, the main distinctions made above are confirmed. The title is clearly disconnected from the rest of the screen through its colour and sharp edges. Similarly, the globe is disconnected through its dark colour and clearly distinguishable round shape. The background shows a higher level of Connectedness, the similarities in colour blur the boundaries between different elements. The only element of the background that stands out as more disconnected is the virtual floor, with its railing serving as a frame.
Screenshot 2
Figure 3. Fragment 1, line 7, [00:18] Information value In Figure 3, the Centre is occupied by the host (or anchor as the hosts of television news shows are called), sitting at his desk. The upper left, or Given and Ideal, Margin shows the logo of the TV channel, similar to Figure 2. On the one hand, thus, the characteristic of Given can be seen as fitting, since the logo was already visible before and is thus already known. The element of Ideal, however, as the most prominent and essential visible element, cannot be applied here. Rather, similar to Figure 2, it can be discerned as the Real, giving practical information about the situation. The central Ideal position is occupied by moving, fluorescent letters that display the name of the show prominently, thus establishing a connection to the previous screen and constituting an elementary aspect of Figure 3. Furthermore, the central background just below the fluorescent
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An illustrative example is the theme music of ABC world news, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXfkGM7QKFc. Accessed on 31/10/2011. Jan Krattiger
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letters shows virtual images of a newsroom that allude to the characteristic look of news shows, displaying a large array of TV screens and a small world map. A similar pattern of rectangles can be discerned in the background of the right Margin, although more abstract in comparison the rectangles are all of a similar blue colour with different intensity. The background in the left Margin shows a blue map of the world with red dots. A further prominent element in the screen is the globe in the Real and New position, the lower right corner. The ascription of the values connected to the notion of the Real can be confirmed, as it is a further detail alluding to the previous screen, where the elements of a news show are recalled. Salience With regard to salience, the balance on the screen offers a slightly different interpretation than what the elements' information value would suggest. What Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) refer to as specific cultural factors such as the appearance of a human figure (1996: 202) tilts the balance of attention towards the Centre, where the host is sitting at his desk. The fluorescent letters in the Ideal position still hold a high degree of salience, due to their luminosity and saturation of colour, but cannot be said to be the most salient element. The setting in the background embeds the foreground in a news-room ambiance which is salient to the viewer, but less prominent compared to the other elements. Framing An important framing element can be distinguished in the lower half of the screen. The large desk disconnects the host from elements both to the left and right side and the Background with clear-cut lines. Similarly, the vertical blue lines disconnect the three areas in the Background, the world map on the left, the news-room in the centre and the more abstract news-room on the right. These Background elements again are disconnected by horizontally arranged, curved blue frames that separate them from the Foreground.
6.2.2 Fragment 2: Interview In Fragment 2, the main part of the interview between JS and DR, two screenshots will be analysed. They represent two of the main camera angles used during the interview. The third angle will be examined in section 6.2.3. Screenshot 1 (Figure 4) shows a scene during the interview between JS and DR, where JS
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quotes from the book before him, a copy of Known and Unknown (written by DR). Screenshot 1
Figure 4. Fragment 2 b), line 62, certainty, [10:17] Information value JS, sat on the right side of the screen behind the desk, takes the position of the New as established by van Leeuwen (2003); DR, sat on the left side of the screen, that of the Given. The situation is thus exactly the opposite of how van Leeuwen (2003) describes it concerning television interviews, where according to him, the interviewer is usually placed on the left and the interviewee on the right. The interviewer is after all a familiar face for habitual viewers of the programme, while the interviewee is the special guest who provides newsworthy information [] (2003: 33). The values of the Given can thus be ascribed to the familiar face of JS on the left side and DR accordingly represents the New. Similarly, the Background on the left side shows the title of the book, written vertically, thus further manifesting the left side as the New. On the other hand, the Background on the Given side and in the centre shows the blue world map with red dots, further manifesting the element of familiarity as previously established concerning the news-room characteristics of the setting. Additionally, in the lower right foregrounded Margin, the area of the Real, the title of the show and a globe are discernible, which again supports this interpretation. An element that does not completely fit into this schema is the logo and name (Comedy Central) of the TV channel, which is also placed in the lower right Margin and thus contains contradictory value: On the one hand, it supports the notion of the Given, as it can be assumed that deliberate viewers generally are aware that the show is aired on this channel. On the other hand, the aspect of comedy contradicts the news-room characteristics of the other elements on the Given side 20.
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A minor detail, that can be assumed is only consciously visible when a still frame of the interview is Jan Krattiger
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Salience The most salient elements are the two communicators. As established for the previous screen, the human figures automatically have the most visual weight. Furthermore, the background elements on the left side (the title of the book), in the centre (the world map) and in the bottom right (the title of the show) have about the same level of salience. The similarity in tone of colour (red and blue) and in terms of 'softness' support this claim. Finally, the open book can be identified as a possible Centre through its prominent, white colour-scheme and its position slightly to the left of the middle of the screen, which makes it visually salient. On the level of information value alone, this relatively high degree of salience does not strongly manifest itself due to the dominant salience of the two communicators, but this view is changed when the characteristics concerned with salience are examined. Framing The framing of the screen reflects what the elements' information value and salience already suggested. Here, the most prominent Disconnectedness is given through the sharp lines of the desk: Horizontally, this line is visible above the hips of the communicators. It starts on the right border and reaches up to the hips of DR on the left side. This horizontal line is further highlighted through a similarly styled frame in the background behind JS. Vertically, the desk separates the two communicators and further vertical framings can be distinguished in the background of the left third of the screen. Here, two bright blue vertical lines show Disconnectedness. This is echoed slightly less prominently due to the 'softer' colours in the vertical writing of the book title and the oblong red rectangle to the left of it.
viewed, is the mirroring of the TV channel's logo on the cup on the left side of the table, belonging to DR. Thus, an element of comedy is also introduced on the New side. Jan Krattiger
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Screenshot 2
Figure 5. Fragment 2 b), line 70, hundreds, [10:59] Information value The clearly marked Centre in Figure 5 is DR, who takes up about one third of the screen. In the Foreground, in the area of the Real on the vertical axis and thus giving background information, the name and function of the person on the screen is stated (in this case Author, 'Known and Unknown'). It has to be remarked here that the overlaying text changes once every time it appears on the screen. The function of 'author' is replaced with DR's second most prominent role, namely Former Secretary of Defense. A further element in the Foreground is the logo of the TV channel in the lower right Margin. The position of Given and Real thus gives it the value of general background information. The Background itself does not hold very prominent information value, apart from the first words of the book title on the New side (as it was defined for the situation in Figure 4). Salience It can be argued that in Figure 5, there are two main elements that share about the same degree of Salience. The most central element is in accord with its information value the communicator, who is in focus and clearly placed in the middle of the screen. Additionally, the writing at the bottom of the screen, which is highlighted through its saturated white colour and the fact that it overlaps the Centre, constitutes the second highly salient element of the scene. The logo in the bottom right Margin of the screen can be said to hold relatively little salience as it is less saturated in colour and far from the Centre, despite it being the most foregrounded element. Similarly, the written title of the book to the left of the Centre is less salient due to its 'soft' colour scheme, which makes it blend in with the other elements of the background.
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Framing The elements in the Foreground are clearly disconnected from the background and discernible as separate units of information. The written description is disconnected through sharp, red and blue lines and the Centre through its clear shape, contour and colour. The background is divided into two main parts that are lightly disconnected by a change in colour from red in the left fifth of the screen to blue for the rest of the visible background. The soft, slightly blurry focus reduce the Disconnectedness.
6.2.3 Fragment 3: Intermission Fragment 3 constitutes an intermission between the two main parts of the interview, where only JS is visible on the screen, directly addressing the audience. Screenshot 1
Figure 6. Fragment 3, line 2, hey, [17:43] Information value Figure 6 is composed of a prominent Centre, JS, who directly looks into the camera. The Margins on the screen are broad and close to the Centre: On the Given side in the Background, there is an image of the skyline of a city, presumably New York, by night. This gives the viewer background information of where the communication is taking place in a suggestive manner, as what is perceived is not the actual skyline, but an image of it. On the right side, another element that can be identified as Given is shown: a part of the world map with red dots on it. Previously, this element had different positions: on the left side of the screen in Figure 3 and central in Figure 4, nevertheless the value of Given ascribed to it moves with it. These two main elements of the
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background are mirrored in the bottom half of the image, where the tabletop can be perceived. Thus, the Centre can be said to be surrounded by Given elements. Salience Similarly to the previous screens where human figures are involved, JS is the most salient element in Figure 6. The fact that he looks directly into the camera and directs his left arm towards the viewer confirm this presumption. The Given characteristics of the Background allow for a relatively high salience, yet the images of the skyline and the map are less salient than JS due to their relative similarity in colour tones, that consist of a mixture of red and blue. Considering the balance between the different backgrounded elements, a skyscraper on the left side is more salient due to its bright and luminous colour compared to the other elements. Additionally, two vertical rows of bright blue lights and a red rectangle just on the right side of the Centre are prominent parts in comparison to the other, softer background elements. Framing The main Disconnectedness in Figure 6 can be discerned in the vertical axis, through the middle. The bright blue strips of lights and the red, blue and grey rectangle divide the background clearly. This is echoed in the clothes of JS, where the two sides of the black suit are disconnected through the light blue shirt and red tie. The frames in the upper half of the screen are mirrored in the reflecting tabletop, thus enforcing their effect.
6.2.4 Fragment 4: Interview Part two In Fragment 4, the second part of the interview after a commercial break, one screenshot will be analysed, which shows the third most prominent camera angle. Similarly to Fragment 2, the interviewer and the interviewee are in conversation.
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Screenshot 1
Figure 7. Fragment 4, line 48, cc'd [19:35] Information value In the Foreground of Figure 7, similarly to Figure 4, JS takes the position of the Given and DR the position of the New. The two communicators' heads are in the realm of the Ideal, the ideologically most salient part (van Leeuwen 2003: 38), thus the screen composition underlines the importance of the communication between them. Through the relative weight of the horizontal dimension, the Centre is distinguishable as rather void and the Margins arranged relatively closely around it. The Real is represented by the desk and the visible chair of DR, which can be interpreted as a specific type of background information. The lower right Margin, the Given and Real position, shows the foregrounded logos of the show (with the globe) and the TV channel. Again, as in Figure 4, the position of the Real as the one giving background information to the scene is fitting. Since Figure 7 is a screenshot that is very close to the end of the interview, it can be assumed that they carry the value of the Given, which is familiar and established. The Background shows the world map with red dots and the virtual news-room image, which both belong in the realm of the Given. Thus, unlike in Figure 4, where the Background was divided into two main elements, there is no distinguishable polarisation on the level of information value in the Background of Figure 7. Salience The most salient elements are again the two communicators, both in terms of focus and size. The skin-colour of the heads and hands and the light blue colour of the sleeves accentuate this salience. The hands of JS are given additional prominence through the mirroring effect of the polished desk.
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Less salient, but still prominent elements are the vertical line of blue lights just to the left of JS, the virtual TV screens and the world map in the Given dimension, as well as the horizontal blue and brown elements of the desk in the Foreground and the shining blue bar in the Background. In this screen, the book as a previously central element is positioned closer to the right Margin and is closed, thus less salient. Framing The different elements of the desk constitute the most prominent, disconnecting frames in Figure 7. The tabletop both disconnects the communicators and connects the Background and the Foreground through its mirroring characteristics. The straight horizontal frame of the desk in the Foreground (in saturated blue and brown colour) and the curved blue frame in the Background disconnect the Background from the Foreground on the vertical axis, and at the same time establish a connection between the two communicators. This connection, however, is weakened by the bright, vertical blue line just left of JS that separates both the elements of the Background and the foregrounded communicators.
6.2.5 Fragment 5: Interview Closing The last screenshot under analysis is also from the last Fragment, where JS thanks DR for the interview and sees him off. Screenshot 1
Figure 8. Fragment 5, line 24, [21:01]
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Information value The most foregrounded element in Figure 8 is the overlaid logo and title of the show in the Given and Real section of the screen. Despite the values of Given and New being distributed differently for the rest of the screen, as was already the case in Figures 3, 4 and 7, where the New is on the left and the Given on the right side, in this case another Given element is shown on the left. The value of the Real can, however, be attributed to it, as it gives the viewer practical information about the show perceived. The Background of the image shows the world map and the red dots, as well as a large image of the front cover of the book, again distributed along the axis of Given (on the right) and New (on the left). Additionally, an element already known from Figure 3, the blue fluorescent letters are perceived on the right side of the screen, in the Given field. Salience The salient elements in Figure 8 are similar to the way the information value is distributed in the screen. Unlike previous screens, where the human figures are perceived as the most salient elements, in Figure 8 they are not as well lit, thus darker and not as salient. In contrast, the title of the show in the lower left, Given and Real section of the screen, is the most salient one, as it is clearly in the Foreground and coloured in bright and saturated blue and white. Additionally, the continents on the globe appear in bright red. Another highly salient element is the image of the front cover of the book just above the logo its green colour and the human figure (DR) depicted on it let this element with the values of the New attached to it stand out prominently. On the Given and Ideal side, it is again the fluorescent, moving letters presenting the name of the show that are perceived as relatively salient in comparison to the other elements. Framing In respect to framing, there are two main aspects of Disconnectedness distinguishable. In the vertical dimension, lines lit in bright red and blue disconnect the Given and the New side. This is further amplified through the difference in colour schemes of the two sides: The Given side is mainly coloured in blue and light blue, the New side is characterised through a mix of bright red and darker blue colouring. In the horizontal dimension, the framing function of the desk's blue and brown beams in the bottom of the screen clearly disconnects the Background from the Foreground. Additionally, the read beams in the top part of the background on the New side, the fluorescent blue letters and the darker red, curved beams on the Given side form a direct line that demarcates the elements in the Background.
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6.2.6 Summary of Analysis 2 In sum, the analysis of the data with regard to its composition has produced the following insights. Firstly, the main distinction in terms of the information value of the screens during the interview is between the realms of the Given and the New. In this specific example of a television interview, these values are generally distributed inversely to van Leeuwen's (2003) proposition, with the Given on the left and the New on the right. The roles of the human figures are echoed in the composition of the surrounding elements, mainly in the Background. Secondly, in Figures 2, 3, 5 and 6, there is either one or no human figure present, thus a different situation from the most prominent interview situation can be identified. This is reflected in the way the screens are composed, with a clearly defined Centre around which the Margins are organised. Thirdly, regarding the salience of the composition, two aspects can be considered the most important: On the one hand, whenever one or two human figures are present in the screens, they are considered the most salient visual elements. When no human figure is visible, the visual and auditory elements of the virtual news-room are highly salient. In general, the salience of the visual elements is congruent to the information value they carry, with some exceptions, such as the overlaid logos. Finally, concerning the framing of the composition, the foregrounded and highly salient elements are clearly disconnected from the other elements present in the screens. The human figures, the large desk in the horizontal dimension and the brightly lit vertical lines in the background produce the most Disconnectedness.
7. Discussion
The analysis in two parts of section 6 has helped to reveal a broad spectrum of characteristics of the data, mainly concerning linguistic and visual elements. The aim of this section is to first discuss the findings of the two approaches to Discourse Analysis separately on a general level, before examining possible points of contact in the fusion of both analyses.
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7.1 Analysis 1 based on transformational frames The basic goal of section 6.1, the analysis based on the concept of transformational frames as proposed by Ensink (2003), was to answer the first research question (RQ1: How do transformational frames operate in modern media discourse). The basis for this analysis was a detailed linguistic transcript of five fragments, which displays the most important aspects of oral communication, such as tempo, pitch, pauses and turn-taking. The analysis showed two main realms in which transformational frames and the processes connected to them operate. On the one hand, basic knowledge frames at work can be identified, the most prominent being the interview frame. This frame stays active during the largest part of the discourse (Fragments 2 a) through d), 4, 5, and in slightly modified form in 3) and can thus be seen as a rather static type of frame that is mutually known and agreed upon. The situation in Fragment 1, the introduction, works on a different frame level: Here, the general framing of the show as a whole is negotiated, the basic knowledge frame can be identified as a news frame. Similarly, the frames in Fragment 3, which is not a part of the actual interview, function on a different level. The basic knowledge frame identified is that of an announcement of the upcoming second part of the interview and thus not a part of the interview frame itself. The possible assumption that Fragment 3 has a discernible influence on the following Fragment 4 can, however, not be proven on the basis of the linguistic data and its analysis presented in this paper. The dynamic processes of transformational frames at work in the analysed discourse were made visible through the consideration of frame shifts, embeddings and de-embeddings. The transformational frame most frequently embedding the abovementioned interview frame is the frame of book promotion, which is introduced as the first transformational frame in Fragment 2 a) and as the last one in Fragment 5. It has thus a prominent position during all the parts of Fragment 2, the main part of the interview, and is reintroduced at the end of Fragment 5). Significantly, the book promotion frame is not present in Fragments 1, 3 and 4. Especially the absence of it in Fragment 4, the second part of the interview, is striking when compared to the first part, where it is omnipresent. Instead, in Fragment 4 its place has been taken by the frame of critical discussion, which is already introduced in section 2 c) and d), embedding the book promotion and interview frames. The third most prominent transformational frame is the comedy frame, which is active in all five fragments (in a slightly modified version that still contains the element of comedy in Fragment 5, as the frame of jokingly thanking for). It can thus be seen as the most actively negotiated frame, which is embedded and de-embedded in various instances throughout the discourse.
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In general, the identified transformational frames show the detailed processes at work in the selected discourse. The dynamic, constant renegotiation of how the communicative elements should be perceived, either as an interview, a book promotion, a critical discussion or comedy is clearly visualized through this analysis and thus shows a core element of the way in which discourse functions. However, these transformational processes are based solely on the isolated linguistic aspects of the communicative processes, and as a consequence do not consider important factors that influence these processes, such as the visual composition. The visual aspects of a televised communicative event are one of two basic elements that influence the way these events are shaped and can thus not be neglected. In order to incorporate these visual aspects and in so doing to extend the analysis of discourse, the combination with a multimodal approach to composition can be seen as a fruitful extension.
7.2 Analysis 2 based on a multimodal approach to composition The basic goal of the second analysis presented in this paper, a multimodal approach to composition as proposed by van Leeuwen (2003) and Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), was to answer the second research question (RQ2: How are the aspects of composition considering a multimodal approach represented in modern media discourse?). The basis for this analysis were seven screenshots of a video recording of the television interview analysed in section 6.1. At least one screenshot for each section was examined considering the three main elements of composition, namely information value, salience and framing. Thus, the visual aspects of the data was the main focus point of the analysis, under consideration of some auditory elements in the introduction. In terms of the information value that the different elements displayed on the screen carry, two dimensions can be identified as carrying the most value throughout the analysed data. Firstly, the horizontal dimension, divided into the Given and the New, characterises the Fragments concerned with the actual interview. Fragments 2, 4, and 5 contain screens where this is visible (see Figures 4, 7, and 8). The Given is generally placed on the right side of the screen, exemplified in the Foreground by the host, JS, as seen in Figures 4, 7, and 8. The horizontal polarisation of the Foreground is echoed in the design of the Background, where the virtual space of the news-room is visible on the Given side in Figures 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. Contrarily, the New side is visible on the left side of the screen. In the Foreground, this is exemplified by the guest, DR, as seen in Figures 4, 7, and 8. However, the Background is not
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always composed accordingly: while Figures 4, 5, and 8 support this connection concerning the New, Figure 7 shows an element that carries values of the Given. The second most prominent dimension is the circular composition consisting of the main elements of Centre and Margin: Figures 2, 3, 5, and 7 are composed around a clearly distinguishable Centre. Figure 2 shows the introductory sequence of the show, where the written title (the Given) is the central element. In Figures 3 and 6, the host (the Given element) is the Centre, and in Fragment 5 the guest (the New element) is placed in the Centre of the screen. Thus, it can be observed that during the sequences of the interview part that are composed around a Centre, this place is taken by the guest, or the New, while during the introductory part and during the intermission it is the host, or the Given, that constitutes the Centre. Concerning the overlaid texts (in the case of the data analysed in this paper consisting of TV channel logos, the written title of the show or a description of the guest), the placement on the screens varies. In the introductory part (Figures 2 and 3), the logos of the TV channel are overlaid in the upper corners, which is the inverted domain of the Real (according to van Leeuwen (2003), the Real is generally positioned in the lower part of the composition in the context discussed here, the opposite is the case). During the Fragments that comprise the interview, one of the two logos is displayed in the bottom right, or Given and Real part of the screen. Similarly, the description of the guest in Figure 5 is placed in the Real part, in accord with this domain's function of giving more specific information. The varying degrees of salience of the different elements of the composition are for the most part analogous to their information value. Whenever they are visible, the human figures can be argued to have the highest level of salience, whether they are alone on the screen or not. They are clearly in the focus and in the Foreground, as opposed to the elements of the virtual space of the Background. The exception to this general observation is Figure 8, where the human figures are less salient due to their position in the darker part of the screen. In this example, the overlaid logo has the highest salience, due to its bright and saturated composition. This can be seen as a general rule for the salience of logos and overlaid text: Whenever they are bright, saturated and in focus, they have a high degree of salience. Whenever they are placed in the background or the Margin and the colouring is 'softer', they are not perceived as very salient. The Background generally has a lower level of salience, the different elements (like the virtual news-room or the world map) have more of an embedding function. The softer focus and blurring of less saturated colours support this observation. An exception to this generalization is the
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Background in Figure 6, where the image of a skyline on the left side of the screen has a higher relative degree of salience due to the bright lights of the skyscrapers. Similarly, in Figure 7 the image of the virtual news-room is more salient due to the visible bright squares. An interesting element in terms of salience is the copy of the book, which sits on the desk before the host. In Figure 4, it can be argued to hold a central position in the composition because it is open and thus the bright white pages have a high degree of salience. Additionally, both hands of the host are either touching the book or close to it, thus directing the attention of the viewer to this element. Regarding the framing of the composition, two general observations can be made. Firstly, the desk at which both the host and the guest are sitting is an important element to establish Connectedness or Disconnectedness. As can be seen in Figure 3, it disconnects the host from the surrounding elements, in Figure 4 it establishes a Disconnectedness between the host and the guest, and additionally between the Background and the Foreground. In Figure 7, the desk has a connecting function between the two communicators and concerning the Background, which is mirrored in its surface and thus blurs the boundaries between the different elements. Secondly, the bright, coloured vertical elements establish Disconnectedness between the different elements of the Background, thus reinforcing the prominence of the horizontal dimension in regard to the information value by weakening the vertical polarization. This is visible in Figure 6, 7, and 8. The highly salient written elements are always at the same time clearly disconnected from the other elements on the screen through their sharp edges and clear focus, and thus clearly presented as separate units. Principally, it can be observed that the analysis of the visual elements of mediated discourse with a multimodal approach to composition proves to be very fruitful, as it helps both in discerning the main elements that are perceived and in further characterising them with regard to their most important features and values. Nevertheless, this approach has its limitations concerning the high dependency on context. The individual features of a composition always have to be adapted to the respective data, which in turn allows only a certain amount of objectivity, as this opens up the possibility of subjective interpretation.
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7.3 Fusion of Analysis 1 and Analysis 2 In order to answer the third research question (RQ3: Do the aspects of transformational frames and the composition of modern media discourse influence each other? If so, how?), this section is concerned with a fusion of the two approaches to the analysis of media discourse as they were applied in sections 6.1 and 6.2 (concerning transformational frames) and sections 7.1 and 7.2 (composition). In general, it can be observed that a combination of the two approaches covers a large part of important characteristics of the analysed television interview: The detailed, linguistic analysis with regard to the transformational framing processes at work offers deep insights into the different layers and levels of discourse. With the addition of the multimodal approach to composition, the visual situation is put under close scrutiny and the thread is picked up where the framing approach is limited due to its focus on the linguistic aspects. On a broad level of analysis, this can be seen in the fact that the analysis of the transformational frames has brought to the surface the main frames of the interview and the book promotion on the one hand, and the frames of comedy and critical discourse on the other hand. With regard to composition, the communication between two human figures (viz. interview) and the background of a virtual news-show can be identified as the most prominent elements. If connected, these two realms form a mosaic display of all the crucial elements, that appears much more detailed than the individual analyses. The Daily Show cannot simply be defined as a comedy show, a satirical political news show or as a serious political show in the guise of a comedy show. Rather, these elements are intricately intertwined on both the linguistic and the visual level, the relative importance of the dominant frames or the most salient aspects are constantly being negotiated and dynamically shifted. This claim can be exemplified considering Fragment 1 and the corresponding Figure 3. Here, the frame analysis identifies the frame of a news show as the knowledge frame in play, which is (possibly) embedded in the transformational frame of comedy towards the end. The situation reads as follows: [ News ] ( [ Comedy [ News ] ] ) The analysis of the composition identifies the title of the show as the most salient and disconnected element, which constitutes the Centre of the screen. The news frame is supported in terms of the composition by the relatively high salience of the globe and the names of capital cities written
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around it. Accordingly, in this situation the analysis of both approaches is confirmed. A second example is Fragment 2 b) and the corresponding Figure 4. In this case, the frame analysis identifies the situation in the moment the screenshot was taken (line 62) as follows: [ Book promotion [ Interview ] ] The interview frame is thus under the influence of the frame of book promotion, the context is JS quoting from the book and asking DR a question about it. With regard to composition, the most salient elements are the two communicators, JS in the position of the Given and DR in the position of the New. This can be read as analogous to the interview frame. The open book before JS could be identified as a possible Centre due to its relatively high salience. This again would fit into the pattern of the transformational frame at play. One important element that is not considered in the frame analysis due to its focus on the linguistic aspects of the discourse is the Background of the screen, which is disconnected along the horizontal dimension, reinforcing the sides of the Given and New. On the New side, the transformational frame of book promotion is supported through the visible title in the Background; on the Given side the world map with red dots supports the element of a serious news show, which is not directly represented in the frame constellation. The combination of the two approaches thus effects a clearer picture of the given situation. A third example is the combination of Fragment 4 and the corresponding Figure 7. In this situation, the framing constellation is rather complex: [ Comedy [ Book promotion [ Critical discussion [ Interview ] ] ] The frames of book promotion, critical discussion and interview were embedded in the transformational comedy frame in line 42 and sustained until the end of the fragment. Thus, the dominant frame influencing all the other frames is the comedy frame. Regarding the composition of the Fragment in line 48, the situation is displayed as less complex and with a different focus: The Given side is occupied by the host, the New side by the guest, both human figures are the most salient visible elements (viz. interview frame). The background shows a virtual news-room on the Given side and a world map on the New side, thus both sides stress the elements of a serious news show, which can be read as analogous to the frame of critical discussion as represented in the constellation above. Yet the news-room-background is arguably more prominent in the composition than the frame of critical discussion in the framing constellation. The element of the
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book is only present in the right Margin and is thus not very salient. Contrarily, the frame of book promotion is in a more prominent position, influencing both the critical discussion and the interview frames. Finally, regarding composition, the desk serves as a disconnecting frame between the two communicators, an element that is only alluded to in the framing constellation, namely in the frame of critical discussion. The overall situation thus shows that the basic interview frame is not only confirmed, but valued much higher with respect to the composition, while the frame of book promotion is more prominent than the corresponding characteristics with regard to the composition of the situation. In sum, this section showed that the two different approaches to discourse analysis can influence each other. When combined, they show a much more detailed picture of the situation that is under analysis, thus enhancing the results significantly. This is possible in three different ways: Confirmation: The results of the two analyses combined support and confirm each other, as shown in example one in this section. The analyses identify the same or very similar major processes at work both in regard to the framing processes and the visual elements concerning their information value, salience and framing (concerning the composition). Contradiction: The results of the two analyses contradict each other, the processes on a linguistic level are not reflected in the visual composition of the discourse or vice versa. This can be seen in example two in this section, where the visually salient element of a news-room is not represented in the framing processes. Enhancement: The results of the two analyses combined enhance each other. In this case, there are no contradictions distinguishable between the two approaches, but the results of one analysis enhances the other and vice versa. In example three, the interview frame is not very prominent, but the analogous elements of the composition are the most salient ones. Additionally, the book promotion frame is very prominent in the framing processes and only marginally salient in the composition. The two approaches thus give a more precise image of what is going on in the discourse under scrutiny.
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8. Conclusion
The basic question asked by Erving Goffman, What is it that's going on here?, has come a long way since he posed it in his groundbreaking book Frame analysis in 1974. His basic theoretical foundation influenced an uncountable number of scholars in the most varied academic disciplines. The confusing number of terms that describe the phenomenon of frames in all its facets is only one small indicator of this success. Still, the question that is tried to be answered stays the same, whether in the field of a sociological, linguistics, anthropology or any other field of research. It is this basic question that also underlies this paper, and that has been tried to be answered through the combination of two theoretical frameworks that have been established in recent years. Firstly, the concept of transformational frames as defined by Titus Ensink in 2003 was considered a fruitful approach to the analysis of discourse in general and of media discourse in particular. The introduction of the concept of transformational frames constitutes a new approach which further refined the basic principles based on Goffman's notion of knowledge frames, keys and fabrications. Ensink's definition of the main processes at work concerning framing in discourse, frame shifts, frame embeddings and frame de-embeddings further accentuate the dynamic, interactive element inherent in any communicative event. The two biggest limitations of Ensink's approach however, the lack of objective guidelines to define frames on the one hand and the clear focus on the linguistic elements of discourse, have been attempted to be countered in this paper. The lack of objective guidelines was partly neutralised through the implementation of Gumperz' notion of contextualization cues, which helped in identifying frame shifts on the basis of the defined linguistic characteristics such as prosody, paralinguistic signs, code choice and choice of lexical forms or formulaic expressions. These characteristics were identified in crucial locations of the linguistic transcript that served as the basis of the frame analysis. However, they cannot be considered completely context-independent, objective guidelines and thus the interpretation of the given context still plays an important role in the definition of frames in discourse. Nevertheless, the analysis of transcribed fragments proved to be very insightful in terms of a detailed view on all the dynamic processes that are at work in the communicative context of a television interview. The inner workings of the analysed data, a complex mixture of comedy, serious news show and promotional vehicle, were exposed to a certain extent and the basic Goffmanian
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question of What is it that's going on here? was answered concerning the linguistic elements of the television interview. Secondly, the multimodal approach to composition, as proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and van Leeuwen (2003) was used as a theoretical approach to the analysis of modern media discourse. The clear focus on the more global aspects of discourse in order to come up to the multimodal design of modern media discourse, which has become prominent at the latest since the dawn of the internet age, seemed an apt extension of the approach that focuses particularly on transformational frames. While the approach concerned with transformational frames is focussed on the linguistic elements of discourse, the main object of analysis that composition is concerned with is the visual. Yet, similarly to the analysis of transformational frames, the multimodal approach to composition has one main limitation: The allocation of information value and salience to particular elements of objects of any kind is always highly context-dependent and thus not completely objectively definable. Without at least some basic knowledge of the object under analysis, be it a piece of art, a magazine cover or a television interview, the allocation of these characteristics remains arbitrary. Thus, there is always the problem of subjectivity present when using a multimodal approach to composition. Despite this limitation, the analysis of individual screenshots of the television interview proved to be generally insightful. The numerous concrete tools for analysis allowed for a detailed and precise analysis of the visual (and on one occasion auditory) elements present on the screen during the television show. (One further minor limitation that is given by the medium of a written academic text is the given focus on text and images, which enforced the neglect of the more dynamic visual elements inherent in the medium television). With these two theoretical approaches individually applied to the television interview, the two first research questions posed in the introduction were answered. Yet the central question, the third research question, asked for a possible combination of the two. As the fusion of the two approaches showed in section 7, the combination of these two approaches proves to be illuminating. The results of an analysis comprising both the focus on the linguistic aspects of transformational frames and the multimodal approach to composition allows for a much more detailed answer to the question of What is it that's going on here?. The combination of these two approaches meets the requirements of the complex modern media discourse to a much higher degree than when a
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monomodal approach is chosen. The analysed data is a case in point of this suggestion: The complex, dynamic processes at work during a television interview can only be captured with an approach that is concerned with both the details and the big picture. On a more abstract level, this paper thus proposes that the two approaches combined in such a manner can influence the results of the analysis in respect to three different aspects: confirmation, contradiction, and enhancement. The fruitfulness of such an approach has been proven in this paper with respect to a very particular discourse situation, the results can therefore only be considered in the realm of this limited, specific case of discourse. Additionally, the two approaches chosen here for combination have inherent limitations mainly concerning their dependency on the subjective interpretation of given contexts that this paper has not been able to eliminate. Further research in the field could without a doubt prove to be fruitful. Approaches that focus on other forms of discourse (natural or mediated), a broader analysis considering more contextual information or a consideration of other aspects of the discourse, such as music, gesture or the dynamic element of film, could confirm, contest or elucidate what this paper has been trying to show.
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References
Bucher, Hans-Jrgen 2011 Multimodales Verstehen oder Rezeption als Interaktion. In: H. Diekmannshenke et al. (eds.), Bildlinguistik. Theorie Methoden Fallbeispiele (pp. 123-156). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Neacsu, Elena-Daniela 2011 Political Satire and Political News: Entertaining, Accidentally Reporting or Both? The Case of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (TDS). Dissertation at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Rumsfeld, Donald 2011 Known and Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Sentinel. Time Magazine poll 2009 Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster? Available at: http://www.timepolls.com/hppolls/archive/poll_results_417.html. Accessed on: 31/10/2011. Baym, Geoffrey 2005 The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism. In: Political Communication 22(3): pp. 259-276. Clayman, Steven and Heritage, John 2005 The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van der Schoot, Albert 2005 Die Geschichte des Goldenen Schnitts. Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog. Ensink, Titus and Christoph Sauer (eds.) 2003 Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Ensink, Titus and Sauer, Christoph 2003 Social-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation: The role of frame and perspective. In: T. Ensink and C. Sauer (eds.), 1-22. Van Leeuwen, Theo 2003 A Multimodal Perspective on Composition. In T. Ensink and C. Sauer (eds.), 23-62. Ensink, Titus 2003 Transformational Frames: Interpretative Consequences of Frame Shifts and Embeddings. In T. Ensink and C. Sauer (eds.), 63-90.
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Cowper, Janet 2003 Footing, framing and the format sketch: Strategies in political satire. In: T. Ensink and C. Sauer (eds.), 109-145. Iedema, Rick 2003 Multimodality, Resemiotization: Extending the Analysis of Discourse as Multi-semiotic Practice. In: Visual Communication 2(1): pp. 29-57. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre 2002 Relevance. 2nd ed. Communication & Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Kress, Gunther and Ogborn, Jon 1998 Modes of Representation and Local Epistemologies: The Presentation of Science in Education. Subjectivity in the School Curriculum (Working Paper 2, Institute of Education). London: University of London. Lee, David A. 1997 Frame conflicts and competing construals in family argument. Journal of pragmatics 27: pp. 339-360. Kress, Gunther and van Leeuwen, Theo 1996 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge 2008. Hickethier, Knut 1993 Dispositiv Fernsehen, Programm und Programmstrukturen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In: K. Hickethier (ed.), Geschichte des Fernsehens in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Vol. 1, Institution, Technik und Programm. Rahmenaspekte der Programmgeschichte des Fernsehens (pp. 171-243). Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Tannen, Deborah (Ed.) 1993 Framing in Discourse. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tannen, Deborah 1993 Introduction. In Tannen (Ed.), 3-13. Tannen, Deborah 1993 What's in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations. In Tannen (Ed.), 14-56. Tannen, Deborah and Cynthia Wallat 1993 Interactive frames and knowledge schemas in interaction: Examples from a medical examination/Interview. In Tannen (Ed.), 57-76. Entman, Robert M. 1993 Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. In: Journal of Communication (43:4): pp. 51-58.
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Gumperz, John 1992 Contextualization and understanding. In: A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking Context. Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 229-252). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, Jrgen 1989 The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward S. 1988 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon 2002. Goffman, Erving 1981 Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gumperz, John 1982 Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jefferson, Gail 1979 A Technique for Inviting Laughter and its Subsequent Acceptance Declination. In: G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp.76-96). New York: Irvington. Bateson, Gregory 1955 A Theory of Play and Fantasy. In: K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (eds.), The Game Design Reader. A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 314-328). Cambridge and London: The MIT Press 2006. The Daily Show About the Show. Available at http://www.thedailyshow.com/about. Accessed on: 31/10/2011. Website of the U.S.-American Government Entry on Donald Rumsfeld. Available at http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/government/rumsfeld-bio.html. Accessed on: 31/10/2011.
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Appendix I Transcription conventions (modified, and adapted from Cowper 2003) : (colon) <> >< WORD .h.h.h.h h.h.h.h. Word (.) (....) (XXXX) (YYYY) (XYXY) Word [ ] Word [ Word** (Word) Word= Wo[Text] Stretched syllable or consonant. Number of colons = impression of length Utterance or utterance part perceived as being produced with greater speed than the surrounding talk Utterance or utterance part perceived as being produced slower than the surrounding talk Raised arrows enclose items perceived as being produced with lowered pitch Arrows pointing downwards enclose items perceived as being produced with lowered pitch Items transcribed in uppercase letters (excluding conventions of punctuation) indicate increased volume Items enclosed by degree signs indicate relatively reduced volume Indicates an audible intake of breath. Number of '.h's = impression of length Indicates an audible exhalation. Number of 'h.'s = impression of length Underlined syllables indicate extra stress A dot enclosed in brackets indicates a micropause Several dots enclosed in brackets indicate longer pauses (untimed) Rows of X's enclosed in brackets indicate audience laughter Rows of Y's enclosed in brackets indicate audience applause Rows of X's and Y's enclosed in brackets indicate simultaneous audience laughter and applause Square parenthesis between items produced by different speakers indicates overlapping tal. A single square bracket at the beginning of utterances produced by different speakers indicates a simultaneous start Asterisks indicate unclear speech (each asterisk represents one syllable) Items enclosed in round brackets indicate a tentative transcription Equal signs occurring at the end of one speaker's turn and the beginning of another's indicates 'latching', through which turn exchange occurs with no audible gap or overlap Incomplete words followed by a dash indicate a cut off Situational or interpretative information
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Appendix II: Transcript Speakers Off-Voice: Referred to as V (appears only in Fragment 1) Interviewer Jon Stewart: Referred to as JS Interviewee Donald Rumsfeld: Referred to as DR Fragment 1 [00:00] [Off-voice speaks, accompanied by music] V: February twentythird (...) two thousand eleven (...) [fanfare] From Comedy Central's world news headquarters in New York (...) this is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (YYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [Title melody plays and fades out] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: <Welcome to the Daily Show my name is Jon Stewart> (.) (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: MAN we have a show for you tonight (YYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: I can't even tell y how excit** I am for tonight's show (.) our guest tonight >Jerry Seinfeld< is going to =XXXXX) [JS pretends to read from paper] JS: -m sorry that's Donald Rumsfeld =XXXXX) JS: <yes i feel terrib-> now all my questions are about the contest I don't =XXXXX) JS: I don't think they had one of those =XX) >or did they< =XX) aaah so he'll be on later in the program BUT our top story tonight once again the unrest in the Midwest with our continuing coverage OF [] [1:00] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
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Fragment 2 [08:38 Return from commercial break, logo of the show on screen, followed by camera on JS] [Camera slowly moves towards JS] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: <WELCOME BACK MY GUEST TONIGHT> (...) [claps on table] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: >served as< Secretary of Defense in two different presidential administrations (.) <most recently under George W Bush (.) his new memoir> is called >KNOWN AND UNKNOWN< (.) please welcome to the program (...) Donald Rumsfeld [JS stands up from Desk, DR enters studio] SIR (YYYYYYYY) [simultaneous orchestral music] [ ] JS: nice to see you (YYYYYY) [ ] DR: thank you (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: >please< come and join us (...) thank you (...) PLEASE [JS and DR sitting down] Thank you, thank you for being here (.) we appreciate it [ ] DR: thankJS: The book is er (.) the book is Known and Unknown (.) and that's you (.) right there in a vest (XXXXX) JS: [IsDR: [In Taos New Mexico JS: In T- <is that> Taos New Mexico [ ] DR: mhm JS: lovely place by the way DR: yah (.) JS: E::r (...) obviously er <you know Elephant in the room (.) tension> (...) er betw- er I think >I know why you're here< (...) and let me just deflate the tension (.) right off the bat () [ ] DR: h.h.h. JS: apology accepted DR: h.h.h. (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) [ ] JS: and er now we can mo:ve on (...) have a nice da:y a nice >conversation< DR: eh eh eh (XXXXXXXXXX)
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I know this has been troubling you for some time no:w eh eh eh eh (...) (XX) e:rm (.) I do thank you for being here (.) e:rm (.) i d- I don't even know (.) where to start (.) so: let's start with Ira:q () okay (XXXX) [ ] What why am I not surprised I don't know (.) I will take your stony silence as acceptance <alright> [ ] [ ] hm eh eh eh (XXXX) There there's an (...) there's an interesting quote (.) that you had in the book (.) about John Ehrlichman who was er in the Nixon White House and you worked with e:r with Ehrlichman (.) e::r (.) and you say to him (.) er about him (.) he seemed to have a high degree of certainty (.) >about his views< (.) that bordered on arrogance (.) >a trait that did him no favours< (.) as he gathered more influence in the White House (.) >certainty without po:wer (.) can be interesting (.) even amusing (...) certainty with power (.) can be dangerous< (...) and I thought (...) boy if there was ever a solid critique of how I felt about (.) the administration you served er under under President Bush= =Mhm= =it would be that (...) certainty with >power< is is dangerous (.) true or false (XXXXXX) If you go to the website that I put up (.) >Rumsfeld dot com< there are hundreds of documents= =Mhm= =thousands of pages= =Right= =and what you will see is the absence of certainty (.) >you will see probing questioning wondering er do we have enough information<= =Ok= =>Are there more things we ought to know< it's quite (.) exactly the opposite If you would go to my >Tivo< (XXXXXX) He doesn't think I know what that means [ ] what I what I think what I think you (...) you said Rumsfeld dot com you're way ahead of me brother [ ] eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh (XXXXXXXXXX) I'm still licking stamps and putting them on envelopes and hoping it gets to wherever it's goin (...) [ ] eh eh eh eh eh eh Erm (...) I think there is I'm I guess I'm drawing a distinction (.) perhaps between (.) the i>internal deliberations< Right (...) a:nd what was presented to the American >public<
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>Mhm< Because presented to the American public (.) >was a picture of (.) not just relative certainty< (...) m certainty bordering on on arrogance and (.) and there is a dismissiveness to anyone who would challenge that certainty (...) that not how you remember it I- it isn't (.) er at all really er [ ] Right Er I mean I know what was going through my >mind< and I know the kinds of questions the President would >ask< and the questions that Co:lin Powell or Condie Rice or the Vice President would ask (.) and there was a searching (.) there was a er lots of questions A >yearning< if you will Well (.) ts not quite the word I would use h. [starts smiling] (XXX) Do you so you (.) you >disagree< (.) that that the >administration< (.) showed its a face of certainty when it came to the intelligence (.) e:r in the lead up to the Iraq war (.) is that No= =(Cause) now now we're (.) okay [ ] No (.) in that in that respect you're exactly right (.) there is no question but that [ ] Right the intelligence community (.) presented that information (.) >Co:lin Powell< [ ] Right made the presentation at the United Nations (.) he spent (.) he he probably had as much experience dealing with intelligence products as anyone in the govment including the director of CIA Mhm (...) He: spent days on it (.) he worked hard on it (.) he believed every word he said Right And and and yet he: and he presented it that way (.) now (.) er (.) the intelligence always is (.) never perfect I mn it's always questioned= =Right= =you have to question it (.) >Did did you guys know intelligence was never perfect< >Oh my goodness yes< (...) (XXX) I feel like we're just sitting on a porch now >sipping lemonade< (XXXXX) =I said what I shouldn't have said >Oh my goodness< [ ] (XXX) >Oh my goodness< (You w-) 'cause let me say this [ ]
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You make fun of me talk=XXXX) He makes fun of that but there are a lot of people in the heartland of America who talk like I do= =No I know [ ] Maybe not on the coast (.) but (.) in the heartland they do [ ] h. (XXX) >Yes (.) on the coast we just curse and have gay sex< (.) that's all we do (.) [ ] eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX We're just >milling around< (...) cursing and (.) gay sexing each other [ ] aha ha ha (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) Erm No let me let me go back to Co:lin Powell Right E- e- every= =Powell was not the only one >to be fair (.) everybody came out< [ ] Course not course not (.) the President the President made the decision (.) Co:lin Powell made the presentation (.) there was no one in the NSC who disagreed with that (.) Well I I would I would take issue wi- wi- with some of that (.) before (.) for instance the er linkage between (.) e::r (.) Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida in terms of (.) er the the (.) intelligence= =there wasn't much of a linkage at all (...) er thank you (XXX) >We didn't hear that though< (.) what we heard was (.) >there is a direct link you cannot talk about< <the war on terror> (.)you you even came out and talked about ho:w (.) e:r this this fella <you didn't mention his name> but Al Libby (.) had >described< training that had been occurring (.) e:r (.) from Iraq to Al Kaida for for er (chem-) [ ] There had been training camps (.) and an there was an Al Kaida connected group called >(A:nsr Al Isla:m) up in (Krama:l) .h that was actually (.) preparing chemicals and we found traces of Ricin (.) and Potassium Chloride there after (.) after major combat operations< .h and Saddam Hussein was giving twenty five thousand dollars to the families of suicide bombers (.) and he'd been on the State he been on the S- he'd been on the State Department terrorist [ ] No no question he was doing that list (.) for years [ ]
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No question he was on that list= =Right= =I think my my (.) my ultimate point (.) is is and I guess I'm I'm somewhat getting to it (.) is (.) there was no real >momentum for a war in Iraq< (.) we had to: (.) focus the country on that= =mhm= =Afghanistan didn't take much convincing= =mhm= =People (.) I think (.) were behind that (effort) [ ] That's that's fair (.) So (.) the White House (.) and the Defense Department and the State Department had to coordinate a pretty extraordinary effort (.) >to gather information< and convince America (.) >that this was in our best interest< (.) >to do so< (.) and would it be fair to consider that (.) in the effort that it took (.) to sell us this (...) Tha that's that's a l- tha- that's a a (...) a little strong little strong= [ ] that we lost our (.) se- sell is the word =Let me back up (.) in the effort it took the administration to: (.) present (XXX) I'm just trying to help ya Thank you I appreciate that (XXXXX) >Oooh if only I had talked to you before<= =ehehehehe Aaah (.) ok not sell I wouldn't say present because they did not present they they gave us again (.) they were pretty certain when it came out all the (.) deliberation had been done (.) so it wasn't (.) >they were< Y you wanna know what I did at one point >Yes< I- In the book I talk about it er (.) er I sat down and prepared a list of >all the things that could go wrong< The parade of horribles= =Exactly= =Mhm And one of them was (.) th- there might not be weapons of mass destruction= =That's right (.) And another one was (.) it might last six or eight years (.) Mhm And (.) others others [ ] Did you (.) >did you star those< (.) No (XXXXXXXXXX= =No I didn't [ ] Yeah
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DR:
And and I didn't believe them but I just knew that one rational person had to sit down and say (.) what are the things that could go >wrong< JS: Great (.) now we're getting somewhere [ ] DR: And and I presented it to the President and and to the National Security Council JS: Right (.) DR: Could I give you a little background JS: No (XXXXXXXXXX) [ ] JS: A RATIONAL (.) but wouldn't a rational person [DR pretends getting stabbed] (XXXXXX) JS: So you presented (.) I guess what im saying is (.) DR: Please= JS: =The effort on presenting us the information of certainty (.) that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat (.) that had weapons of mass destruction capability (.) and was in the process of disseminating that (.) to Al Qaida operatives (.) the effort to present that= DR: =Y- you've overstated JS: Mmmhm DR: Yeah (.) promise (X) DR: Goodness gracious JS: Do you wanna (.) do- does the does the: (.) alright (.) we're gonna go to commercial (.) we'll come back and I will finish (.) I will try and recalibrate (X) DR: Me (.) JS: Yes= DR: =Ehe he he he (XXXXXXXXXX) JS: We'll be right back with more with Donald Rumsfeld (everybody) [ ] DR: ehe he he (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [17:41 cut]
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Fragment 3 [17:43 cut] JS: (.) Hey (.) (X) [ ] JS: E:r (.) so what you're about to see is part two of the interview (.) er with Don Rumsfeld (.) er >it goes for two and a half days<= =XXXX= JS: =So you're gonna be able to see the rest of it on the web (the- 'll) be a: little bit of a short (.) er edit (.) er >just as he says< (.) YOU'RE RIGHT WE NEVER SHOULDA DONE IT (.) [ ] (XXX) and e:r (.) >so i hope that plays (.) e:r (.) enjoy< [ ] (X) [18:03 cut] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Fragment 4 [18:04 cut] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: Welcome back (.) we're talking with Donald Rumsfeld (...) I guess my my (.) what I'm trying to get to is this (.) you had a memo of parade of horribles= DR: =Mhm JS: Was two pages or three pages DR: >I don't know< JS: It was about thirty or forty (.) horribles (.) .h e:r (.) but you had a year and a [ ] DR: possi- (.) possible JS: possible horribles DR: Yeah I didn't (.) know= JS: =No: DR: I just said [ ] JS: You dont know if that parades gonna happen it could e::r (.) be e::r= [ ] DR: No (...) That's right JS: =the Puerto Rican day parade (.) nobody knows (.) could be ** parade) (...) but my point= [ ] DR: No (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) JS: =is (.) it seemed that >the effort that the administration (.) exuded was more geared towards(.) making the case of why we had to do this (.) than examining your memo< (.) you say yourself in the book (.) >I gave the memo to the NSC (.) I don't know what
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happened to it< (...) Not quite (.) You gave the memo to the NSC (.) but they didn't really pay attention (.) The the i- individuals >did< (.) and people did make preparations for some of those things certainly we did -n the department (.) there was- there were not extensive meetings on them (.) it j- it ex-= =But that's my point Fair enough The White House (Iraq) group met weekly (.) the group >that was assigned the job of coordinating the (.) presentation< mhm about going to war in Iraq (.) >met weekly< (.) >I guess so (.) I don't know (.) b- that woulda been at a different level> (.) the NSC met (.) frequently [ ] Did they tell you anything= =XXXXXXXXXXX) [ ] A::h You poor ma:n No I don't know wha-= =Are you not on the >E-mail list<(.) did they not (.) are you not cc'd [ ] eheheheh (XXXXXXXXXX) I was in the National Security (...) of course there was [ ] there was a whole White House >Iraq group< No wha- (.) I'm telling you (...) Did you know= [ ] I kno- no I know tha:t (.) you don't need to tell me (XXXXX) =you created a whole o:ffice (.) to deal with intelligence within the Pentagon (.) called the office of Special Plans (.) did you know that (.) you recommended it= [ ] Er er I didn't create it (.) yeah I did he told me (Doug Doug F-) (XX) =>I did no:t< You didn't recommend that office [ ] No::: [Did you have any power over there [(The) (the) (.) sure a lot (.) (X) You did have a lot of power= =Sure **= =So -f they said t-you can we create a special o:ffice called the office of Special Plans (.) to deal with intelligence (.) you couldave said (.) I don't think that's a good idea
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[ DR: DR:
There were three million There were three million people >in that operation< (.) and and e- everyone did not ask me [ ] JS: Right DR: everything they were gonna do there were delegated >large chunks of responsibility<= [ ] JS: ah (ok) JS: =Your undersecretary Doug Feith though was [ ] DR: and and (.) they were (.) >very good people< (.) JS: [I would (.) agree with that DR: [and (.) and they did a good job JS: We:ll (.) let's not get crazy (XXXXX= [20:21 cut]
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Fragment 5 [20:21 cut, marked with white screen] =XXX) JS: I (.) I real- (.) I just wanna tell you this (...) I really do appreciate you (.) at least having the conversation and (.) and having er (.) er at least the ability to sit and DR: Why do you say >at least< twice (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXYXYXYXYXY= [ ] JS: Nicely done =XYXYXYX) [ ] JS: e:r (...) >I really do appreciate it< DR: h.h.h. (XXXXXXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYX) [ ] JS: and I know you have to go (.) and and your time is is valuable (.) and I and I do thank you for being here (...) er (.) KNOWN AND UNKNOWN (.) is on the bookshelves now (.) Donald Rumsfeld [music] (YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) [ ] JS: Sir (...) thank you DR: [inaudible] [JR and DR stand up and talk to each other, inaudibly] [21:02 cut] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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University of Basel Department of English Licentiate thesis in Linguistics

Towards a better understanding of communication:

Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Aim and Scope 3. Literature Review

5. Methodology: Key concepts and tools for analysis

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

2. Aim and Scope

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

*[ fight [ play ] ], or *[ play ].

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication (2004: 3)

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

For the whole transcript see Appendix II. Jan Krattiger

Towards a better understanding of communication

5. Methodology: Key concepts and tools for analysis

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

JS: DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: [9:20]

Towards a better understanding of communication

DR: JS: DR. JS:

Towards a better understanding of communication

DR: JS: DR: JS: DR: JR: [11:10]

Towards a better understanding of communication

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Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Towards a better understanding of communication

Figure 2. Fragment 1, line 5, with, [00:09].

[ fight [ play ] ], or [ play ].