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places or expanses, to moments and periods in time or indeed to abstract (imaginary,
mathematical, etc.) regions. As Figure 12.2 shows, the taxonomy of conceptual
terms in this branch develops around the following two basic categories:
[Object “Spatial region”] and [Object “Temporal region”].
In the next chapter (Chapter 13), we shall look at certain parts of the meta-
lexicon characterizing analytical objects in greater detail.
12.6. Questions relating to the organization of the ASW vocabulary of
conceptualtermsrepresentinganalyticalobjects
Just like any piece of work intended to put a metalanguage of description in
place, this task is dictated by its object (i.e. the corpora forming the experimentation
workshops of the ASW-HSS project) and its objectives (to analyze the content of
audiovisual texts from the aforementioned workshops and use these analyses in the
service of a greater diffusion of the said content).
Thus, the vocabulary of conceptual terms representing analytical objects in the
ASW
universe of discourse*
is, of course,
incomplete
: some of its parts appear to be
solidly developed; others less so. This is the case, for instance, of the domains of
knowledge relating to psychology, law and economics - domains which are not well
represented in our working corpora, although they do of course form part of the
ASW
universe of discourse*
, i.e. the universe of discourse which concerns the
lifeworldofsocialactors
.
Finally, the granularity (the level of descriptive precision) is calibrated in
relation to our project's declared object and objectives. However, there is nothing to
say that it must be pertinent (in its raw state) for other projects. For instance, an
analytical project which concerns only one “sub-domain” in archaeology (i.e. the
archaeology of such-and-such an era, such-and-such an approach to archaeology,
etc.) will probably need more specialized conceptual terms than those currently
available.
Alternatively, let us take the example of the FMSH-ARA archives
7
, which
contain audiovisual corpora on the major processes of the modern world
(industrialization, economic development, migration, globalization etc.), socio-
economic situations (employment, quality of life, wealth and poverty in the world,
etc.), conflict situations (revolts, wars etc.), situations of oppression and denial of
others (marginalization, genocides, etc.), representations and ideologies
7 An early prototype can be consulted on the Web portal of the ASW experimental
workshops: http://semiolive.ext.msh-paris.fr/asa-shs/.
