The Meta-lexicon of Activities Involved in Analyzing the Textual Object - Audiovisual Archives - page 243

presentation of the library of indexing schemas which we were able to develop
during the ASW-HSS project.
14.2.Fourcategoriesoftextualanalysisactivities
Remember our discussion in Chapter 13: every model of description* (accessible
to the analyst via a specialized working interface) is made up of one or more
sequencesofdescription* , each one being functionally specialized in the progressive
elucidation of the subject* , the theme of an audiovisual discourse (i.e. a discourse
expressed and communicated essentially through image and sound). A sequence, in
turn, is made up of at least two schemas of definition* , i.e. two small generic
configurations, one of which specifies the object of analysis* in a descriptive
sequence* and the other the proceduresofanalysis* .
We are aware of two basic procedures for analyzing an audiovisual text or
corpus: the so-called freeprocedure* and the so-called controlledprocedure* . In the
so-called free procedure, the analyst freely (as indicated by the appellation
“free description”) “fills in” the fields making up his working interface. These fields
depend directly on the structure of the descriptive model being used, and the analyst
is invited to fill these in order to produce a concrete description of the object of his
analysis. In the case of the controlled procedure, a thesaurus* (or rather, a micro-
thesaurus* interpreting the range of possible values for a conceptual term* or
configuration of conceptual terms) enables the analyst to choose one or more values
(standardized expressions or descriptors) which best represent the specificity of the
object of his analysis - hence the expression “controlled description”. Throughout
this topic, we have seen concrete examples which illustrate these two procedures
(see Chapters 3, 9 and 10, for instance).
That said, the main analytical tools which we have created and which we
currently use to work concretely on the content of an audiovisual text or corpus are
divided as follows:
‒ linguistic tools (lato sensu) grouped around the explicitation, description and
indexation of the content of an audiovisual text or passage therein;
‒ audiovisual tools grouped around the explanation/illustration of the content
using visual or acoustic expressions such as icons, emoticons , jingles , etc., which in
this particular case thereby acquire the status of metalinguistic data describing (or
rather, illustrating) an object of analysis;
‒ tools grouped around the translation/adaptation , explicitation, etc. of a textual
object in a target language different from the one used to produce the object in
question;