Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2. analysis of the
point of view
adopted by the author of the discourse to speak
about an author of 18
th
Century French literature. With this task, the analyst may - if
he so desires and if it is applicable - specify whether the information produced about
a writer in an audiovisual text comes from the author of that text, from another
source (cited by the text's author), from several other sources, and so on; and finally,
3. analysis of the
genre
or
typeofdiscourse
chosen by the author of the discourse
to speak about “his” writer. With this sub-task, the analyst can further specify
whether the information produced relating to a writer is provided in the form of
narration, description, a series of examples, testimonies, etc.
The procedure of description as such to “technically” carry out one or other of
the three sub-tasks is, again, fairly simple. The performance of each of the three sub-
tasks relies on a procedure of
controlled description*
, i.e. on the use of specialized
micro-thesauruses which offer the analyst the chance to choose one or several
appropriate values to expand upon the conceptual term defining a “strategy” of
discourse production.
Thus, in our example (Figure 7.3), the analyst signals the point of view
according to which the subject <Technical culture of the Chavín civilization in the
4
th
Century B.C.> is treated in his text. Using the appropriate micro-thesaurus to
explicitize that strategy of discourse production, the analyst selects the statement
<The subject is dealt with from several points of view> (Figure 7.4). If the analyst
wishes to further refine his description, e.g. by explicitizing each of the different
points of view or the author's position as regards these different points of view, he
can also add a short explanatory note (Figure 7.3).
It is plain to see that we are nearing one of the current limits of our approach to
description, namely that of not being able to produce a meta-linguistic framework
which is capable of further structuring and explicitizing the identity of a point of
view, the “orchestration” between different points of view, the possible relationships
between the author of the discourse and the different points of view he solicits, etc.
Finally, Figure 7.5 shows an extract from the micro-thesaurus made available to
the analyst in order to allow him to explicitize the type or genre of discourse
employed by the author to develop his subject. In our case, the analyst has ticked the
genre <Narration> and the description genre <Descriptive portrait>, thereby
indicating that the subject, <Technical culture of the Chavín civilization…> is
developed in the form of a recounted story (here, chronological) and a description
(a “portrait”) showing the most salient aspects of the technical culture of this
civilization.
Here, we see another limit of our approach to the description of audiovisual
corpora, which lies in the fact of not being able to offer the analyst the option of
