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referent chosen by the analyst to expand on the concept [Civilization] is the
expression <Chavín civilization>);
- or carrying out a controlled selection of one or more descriptors from a
thesaurus (in our case, selecting the descriptor <Technical culture> to indicate the
value of the concept [Cultural construct]).
5.3.Thematicstructure,topicalstructureandreferentialobjects
Analysis of the content of an audiovisual text or corpus - the subject(s)
thematized and developed therein - is performed, as we know, using
predefined
thematic structures
. Such a predefined thematic structure is represented by a
conceptual term or rather, a
configuration of conceptual terms
. Each conceptual
term must be defined in the ASW meta-lexicon. Remember that we distinguish
between two main types of conceptual terms:
- those which represent the
objectsofanalysis*
,
- those which represent the
activitiesofanalysis*
.
As we shall see in greater detail later on, for each of the two types we have
defined a conceptual vocabulary, a
descriptive ontology
which covers the
ASW
universeofdiscourse
(for further explanations see Part Four of this topic).
A thematic structure represented by a single conceptual term (CT) is said to be
condensed
; a thematic structure which is represented by a collection of conceptual
terms is said to be
expanded
(or rather, expanded to a greater or lesser extent). A
thematic structure which is expanded to its full extent is that which is constituted by
an aggregation of local configurations which each define one of the five major
sequences of the model of description which serves for carrying out the specific type
of analysis called
thematicdescription(ofthecontent)
* (see Chapter 4).
A
thematic structure*
which is condensed to its full extent is that which is
reduced to
twoconceptualterms
:
- the first represents an
objectofanalysis*
;
- the second represents the
activity of description*
to be used to specify the
object of analysis.
Figure 5.1 shows the main local configurations which make up the
thematicstructure*
through using which we specify a
subject*
developed (be it
verbally, visually or by purely acoustic means) in an audiovisual text. The figure
also illustrates the fact that only the topical configuration forms an integral part of
