The Procedure of Free Description of an Audiovisual Corpus - Audiovisual Archives - page 143

Classifying the contextualization of the minimal expression generated by the
analyst is a strategy for resolving the second point, but not the first! The fact of
being able to use the same categories to classify the discursive contextualization of a
theme, or rather, of the linguistic expression of a theme, shows merely that there is
an isomorphy between discourse and metadiscourse (between the discourse which
forms the object of an analysis and the discourse produced on the subject of that
discourse). One of the main differences between object discourse and metadiscourse
is that the latter strives to use as explicit a language (vocabulary, models, etc.) as
possible, based on a vision, a theoretical framework of comprehension of human
discursive activity.
9.5. The activities of [Drafting of a summary presentation] and [Designation of
thereferentintheoriginallanguage]
The third activity of the procedure of free description, [Drafting of a summary
presentation] , is an activity which enables the analyst to write a textual annotation
about his audiovisual object. The standard form associated with this activity is
relatively simple.
As shown in Figure 9.6, it comprises a [Paragraph] field for the analyst to enter
his commentary and a [Title] field which the analyst can use if he wishes to precede
his commentary with a title.
Finally, the analyst is invited to classify his presentation by associating it with
one or more types of textual notices such as <Brief note>, <Supplement>,
<Personal comment>, etc.
The fourth activity [Designation of the referent in the original language] offers
the option - if useful - of providing a conceptual term (or a configuration of
conceptual terms) in the original language, if different from that used by the analyst
during his work. This function is particularly useful if the analyst wishes to
document, in the original language, the name (of a city, an institution, a work of art,
a specific practice, etc.) which he employs as a minimal expression, but in the form
of an expression belong to his own working language. Thus, for instance, if he uses
the toponym <Vienna> as a minimal expression in one of his descriptions, he can
always indicate whether it is an English translation of the original expression
<Wien>, which belongs to the German language.
As Figure 9.7 shows, the standard form associated with this specific activity
invites the analyst to select the original language from a drop-down menu, and in
that language to enter the expression and/or an equivalent or synonymous
expression.