Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
description of the individual positions per se. In particular, we have seen that a
possible strategy in replying consists in reinterpreting the other speaker's position
by encompassing it in a more abstract concept, strategy which we have referred
to using the term
reframing
. This idea rests upon the hypothesis that in a given
conceptual space, two concepts can enter into a relation (
specification
) in which one
of them appears as a specific version of the other one, which functions as its frame,
and hence participates in the interpretation of the more specific concept.
We have identified two main kinds of reframing, one in which the reply keeps
the original frame, i.e. the most abstract concept, of the opponent's position as the
higher level frame (internal reframing), and one in which the higher level frame is set
by the replier (external reframing). The latter case has been illustrated by two of its
possible sub-kinds: in the first one, the frame set by the replier replaces the one that
belonged to the opponent's position (substitutive reframing) and the second embeds
the opponent's frame into a new one (comprehensive reframing). This is obviously
not the whole catalogue of every possible reframing strategy, but the heterogeneity
between the cases we have analysed suggests that the reframing strategy might be a
generalised phenomenon that manifests itself in a variety of procedures.
To accept the existence of a strategy like “reframing” challenges the idea of
conflicts as opposing contrary contents, as well as a conception of discursive
interaction as an exchange of pieces of information accompanied by propositional
attitudes. To reframe is to modify the way that the position defended by the
interlocutor must be interpreted. In other words, two conflicting positions may have
in common the precise element that defines their most specific item, while they differ
in their most abstract component. This has nothing to do with a picture in which the
two speakers are opposed in believing one that P is true and the other that P is false
(or that non-P is true). The conception of the discursive interaction that the strategy
of reframing depends on sees speakers' interventions as performing operations
within a collectively elaborated conceptual space. This space is not comparable to
Stalnaker's common ground on several counts. Firstly, it is not composed, at any
level, of pieces of information. Secondly, its elements are not determined by what
the speakers believe to be mutually accepted, but by whatever concept is set by the
utterances of the interaction, even when it is explicitly shown to be an unshared
position. Thirdly, it is an organised space, in which elements are not isolated items
on a list; the specification relationship is just one of its possible organisational
principles. Thus, a conflicting interaction seen from this angle appears as a struggle
to set the final form of the resulting conceptual space, hence—if we recall that
concepts are productive in what concerns discourse, thought and action—to enlarge
or maintain the productivity of certain concepts, as well as diminishing or ceasing
the productivity of others.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search