Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In section 12.3, we shall again discuss the question of defining the topical
structure - an issue which, as explained in Chapter 5, constitutes a central part of the
thematic structure the analyst uses to describe and explicitize when analyzing the
content of an audiovisual text or corpus.
In section 12.4, we shall come back to the idea of an audiovisual archive's
universe of discourse which, in practical terms, is processed using a library of
descriptive models peculiar to the archive in question.
Sections 12.5 and 12.6 are dedicated to an in-depth discussion of the principles
of the organization of the meta-lexicon of conceptual terms which identify and
represent the analytical objects of the ASW universe of discourse.
Finally, section 12.7 again briefly describes the various stages in the creation of
that meta-lexicon, and of that presented in Chapter 14, devoted to the identification
and representation of the analytical activities in the ASW universe of discourse.
12.2.“Conceptualterm”and“theme”-afewexplanations
Before presenting that part of the conceptual vocabulary which represents the
ASW universe of discourse, let us further specify what we mean by
“conceptual term”.
The conceptual term
expresses
a
concept
or, rather, a
notion
, a
theme
. A theme is
a knowledge space which enables an actor (an
agent
) to recognize and classify
situations, objects or events, interact with them and use them appropriately in
accordance with his interests, needs or desires. In that sense, the great
phenomenologist and sociologist Alfred Schütz defines the theme as a
typical
schema
or a
schema of typification
(
Typisierungsschema
, in the original German
[SCH 03]). For instance, a large number of historical villages in continental Europe
have a typically concentric topography with a central square, often dominated by the
church, the town hall, sometimes the school, meeting places and locations for
economic exchanges, etc. This arrangement (both spatial and social) constitutes a
typical structure which conditions our cultural understanding of a village, of a small
rural community. In a manner of speaking it provides an
implicit definition
- a
definition gleaned from experience
which enables us to classify such-and-such an
agglomeration in the term
village
or the term
Europeanhistoricalvillage
.
However, as we also know, this representation can become an obstacle to our
activities if we find ourselves in an agglomeration with a different spatial (and
social) organization, unclassifiable and therefore incomprehensible, “chaotic”, etc.
in relation to the schema - to the
knowledge space
- which we use
instinctively
,
routinely
to recognize and classify agglomerations and interact with them.
