Common Ground or Conceptual Reframing? A Study of the Common Elements in Conflicting Positions in French Interactions - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 137

8.3 The Connective Concepts Framework

If semantic content is not made up of pieces of information, what is it made up of?
I will say that it is made of “concepts”. But I will give to this term a definition that
is noticeably different from usual ones. In my vision, a concept is a specific kind
of link between linguistic forms that can function as lexical meaning, the semantic
contents of utterances and the units of social thought (i.e. what is usually treated as
“stereotypes”, “common sense”, “social representations”, etc.). Let's address the
idea of “link”. In her theory about linguistic meaning, which is an outcome of
Anscombre & Ducrot's “Theory of argumentation in language” (Anscombre and
Ducrot 1983 ), Carel supposes that some utterances link terms together by way of a
normative link, link defined on a linguistic basis: A and B are normatively linked in
an utterance U, if U can be paraphrased by using a causal or a consecutive connector,
like so, hence, thus, therefore, if ::: then , because, etc., that links A and B (Carel
2011 ). Utterance (9) would then express a normative link between to be a boy
and not to cry , since (10) could be an acceptable paraphrase of it in a particular
communicative situation:

(9) Boys don't cry.
(10) You're a boy, so don't cry.
Carel suggests that this kind of link between terms constitutes an “argumentative
predicate”. Something like Peter doesn't cry because he is a boy expresses the same
normative link between boy and cry as (9) and (10). Carel notes this predicate by
marking the link with the letters “DC”, which is an abbreviation of the French
connector donc , but we will use instead, for clarity's sake, the English word
THEREFORE. We could say that both (9) and (10) express predicate (11):
(11) to be a boy THEREFORE NEG to cry

One of the most important features of Carel's view on linking is that normativity
is complementary to another kind of link: transgression . Similarly to normativity,
transgression is defined on a linguistic basis: two terms A and B are transgressively
connected in an utterance U if U can be paraphrased by connecting A and B thanks
to an “oppositive” connector like however, yet, although, despite, even if, etc. For
example, sentence (12) allows the expression of the argumentative predicate (13),
where HOWEVER marks the fact that it involves a transgressive link (Carel notes
this link with the letters PT, abbreviation of pourtant ):
(12) Peter cries (all the time), even if he is a boy.
(13) to be a boy HOWEVER to cry

In our vision, a concept (hence the units of lexical meaning, the semantic content
of utterances and the units of social thought) have the same semantic structure
as Carel's argumentative predicates: a concept is a normative or a transgressive
connection of signifiers. It's in this sense that we can say that a concept is a
connective entity.
But concepts are not free atoms. For instance, as it can be noticed, concepts
(11) [to be a boy THEREFORE NEG to cry] and (13) [to be a boy HOWEVER to