This chapter basically deals with conceptual representations, which, unlike narrative representations, concentrate on presenting relatively stable attributes of objects, events or situations (participants). The writer divides such representations into “classificational,” “analytic,” and “symbolic” processes.
Classification refers to the presentation of participants in terms of a class. All the objects or people belong to the same class in terms of certain characteristics. They are of same kind. Classification is often shown through the use of tree structure. The main item comes at the top and that is divided into subclasses, and that is further categorized into smaller classes. For instance, we can see any organizational structure.
“Analytical processes relate participants in terms of part-whole structure.” There one participant stands for the whole and the others are its parts. If we compare it to language, we can say that it conforms to descriptive kind of writing where we find a certain object described in terms of its parts and individual attributes. Analytical representation allows us to scrutinize the participants in terms of their possessive attributes.
Another process is symbolic. “Symbolic processes are about what a participant means or is.” It can be of two types: symbolic attributive and symbolic suggestive. In the first one there are two participants, one carrier and the other related to it. In the second one there is only one participant.
No comments:
Post a Comment