Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
4)
How does the author (the enunciator) “frame” the referential domain which
forms the subject of his discourse?
It is a question on the
focus of attention
which is
being asked here - that is, which raises the issue of identifying and explicitizing
particular aspects of the object being dealt with in the discourse which the author
(enunciator) wishes to bring forward, highlight, prioritize and finally transmit to,
share with his audience, and have them accept it. The
discursive framework
of a
topic, similarly to the visual framework, organizes that topic into different specific
regions such as the
foreground
(i.e. the aspects to which the attention of the author
or enunciator of the discourse is dedicated) and the
background
(i.e. all the other
aspects which constitute a reservoir which the author-enunciator can exploit
throughout his discourse). Another distinction, which is crucial here, is that between
the
theme
and the
rheme
which plays a central role in the development and
progression of the discourse. The
theme
is the part (or aspect) of the topic which is
taken for granted
by the author-enunciator of the discourse, and the rheme is that
part which forms the argument that the author-enunciator wishes to develop (the
rheme is what is considered
new
for an audience; it is that which the author-
enunciator wishes to make his audience understand, and for which he seeks their
agreement).
For instance, in two different audiovisual texts which speak about the same
person, the information given about that person will not necessarily be identical. To
put it very simply, in the first text, the author may concentrate on the social
relationships of the person to whom his discourse refers, whereas in the second, the
author may concentrate on that same person's professional career. The same
underlying topical structure (the same conceptual model of the referential domain
which, here, is the knowledge object “person”) is exploited differently in the two
texts. This exploitation consists of choosing the theme or themes which, on the one
hand, constitute the foreground of a discourse about a particular person and which,
on the other hand, serve the author-enunciator of the discourse to develop his
argument, his “message”. Thus, even if two audiovisual texts produce information
about the professional career of the same person, the argument (technically
speaking, the
rheme
) may differ greatly: the aspect of the topic “a person's career”
constituting the
discursive theme
selected in two different discourses, may serve the
author of the first text as a theme for developing an argument (a rheme) with
moralizing content
and serve the author of the second discourse to develop a
purely
chronological or biographical argument
. This is a highly simplified illustration of
an otherwise richer textual reality, but which demonstrates what we mean when we
speak of the
discursive framing
. It is the author (the enunciator) who - consciously
or otherwise - selects certain aspects (to the detriment of others) of a topical
structure to approach his subject in order to fulfill his intention of communication
depending on the context of the communication in which he is engaged, and
depending on his skills as an author. Taking account of this procedure may help us
