Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 685705 www.elsevier.

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Frames revisitedthe coherence-inducing function of frames

Monika A. Bednarek
Department of English Linguistics, Augsburg University, Universitatsstrae 10, D-86135 Augsburg, Germany Received 20 September 2003; received in revised form 2 September 2004; accepted 19 September 2004

Abstract The subject of this paper is the hearers1 application to discourse of frames mental knowledge structures that capture the typical features of a situation in order to secure coherence. Having established a working denition of frame, the paper will focus on the relation between text, context, world-knowledge and coherence. Different types of frames (linguistic as well as non-linguistic) and their coherence-inducing functions are discussed with reference to authentic examples. It is shown that the hearers (re-)constructed coherence of texts is the result of a complex interplay of linguistic (con)text and non-linguistic (frame) knowledge. # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Discourse; Coherence; Cohesion; Frames; Scripts; Schemas

1. Introduction: the relevance of frame theory in linguistics After the cognitive turn in the 1980s, modern linguistics has increasingly favored an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it, i.e. the cognitive linguistic approach (cf. Ungerer and Schmid, 1996: x). Some of the key concerns of this branch of linguistics are prototypes, categories, metaphors, metonymy, and the topic of this paper frames. Broadly speaking, frame theory deals with our knowledge of the world. In a rst denition, a frame can be regarded as a mental knowledge structure which captures
1

In this paper, hearer refers to hearer(s)/reader(s) and speaker refers to speaker(s)/writer(s).

0378-2166/$ see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2004.09.007

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Fig. 1. Overview of the use of the term frame.

the typical features of the world. Ever since its introduction, the frame concept has interested researchers from various elds and backgrounds (cf. Tannen, 1993a: 3; 1993b: 15). Pioneers came from philosophy and psychology (cf. Konerding, 1993: 8), but their concepts were developed and reinterpreted by researchers in articial intelligence (Minsky, 1975, 1977), and sociology (Goffman, 1974, 1981) to name but a few elds and authors.2
2

For a discussion of a large number of elds and authors, cf. Tannen (1993b: 15-21) and Konerding (1993: 20-

77).

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Fig. 2. Overview of linguists terms.

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Despite the fact that there is no unied frame theory with specic terms and denitions, frame theory has also, in some way or other, gained widespread acceptance by linguists, who concentrate on various aspects of the frame phenomenon: Raskin (1984) and Konerding (1993), for instance, are interested in lexicography and the relation between frames and meaning. Indeed, frame semantics plays a major role in linguistic frame theory. The Round Table Discussion of frame semanticists (published in Quaderni di Semantica 1985 and 1986) counts among its participants such leading researchers as Fillmore, Hudson, Raskin and Tannen (see e.g. Fillmore, 1985, 1986). The frame concept has also been applied in discourse analysis (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983; Muller, 1984). Chafe (1977) is primarily concerned with frames and verbalization, i.e. those processes by which nonverbal knowledge is turned into language (Chafe, 1977: 41) and Shanon (1981) deals with linguistic indicators (Shanon, 1981: 35) of frames. Unfortunately, but maybe inevitably, the result of this has been a terminological confusion: frame became a term associated and linked with different, though related phenomena. At the same time, a range of other expressions (script, schema, scenario) were chosen to refer to these notions. Figs. 1 and 2 provide an overview of these developments. It seems to me as if the competing terms (scenario, schema, script) usually differ only in emphasis and cannot easily be distinguished, and that, considering the examples used in their elaboration, they may be seen as particular instances of frames. I will hence follow Fillmore in regarding frame as a general cover term for the set of concepts variously known, in the literature on natural language understanding, as schema, script, scenario, ideational scaffolding cognitive model, or folk theory (Fillmore, 1982: 111). This paper is concerned with the relationship between frames and discourse, in particular, the coherence-inducing function of frames. It will be seen that the hearers application of frames is of crucial importance in enabling him/her to create coherence. Having established a working denition of frame, I will then outline the various ways in which such coherence-inducing frames may work in discourse.

2. A working denition of frame Despite its roots in philosophy and psychology, frame theory is generally associated with Minskys work in articial intelligence (AI). In his research, Minsky takes up a notion introduced by the psychologist Bartlett as early as 1932: [. . .] the past operates as an organised mass rather than as a group of elements each of which retains its specic character. (Bartlett, 1932: 197).3 Being a researcher in AI, Minsky is,
3 It is indeed a bit surprising that most of the relevant linguistic literature refers to research undertaken in AI rather than to research undertaken in psychology and psycholinguistics (my thanks go to one of the reviewers of this article for pointing this out), although much experimental research in these areas has focused on the role of (schematic) knowledge in learning, understanding and remembering (Barsalou, 1992). Building on research by Bartlett (1932) and Piaget (1969) as well as AI research, such experiments (e.g. Bransford, 1979; Bransford and Johnson, 1973) often use linguistic data, and have shown how essential (frame) knowledge is to effective comprehension, inferencing, elaboration, construction, recall, indeed virtually every cognitive task (Barsalou, 1992: 163).

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however, rst and foremost concerned with the question of how to equip computers with the world knowledge they would need in order to perform certain otherwise impossible tasks. But he also claims to be interested in a theory of human thinking (Minsky, 1975: 215), and his denition of frames is now quite famous and an often-cited reference in linguistics (e.g. Konerding, 1993: 24; Brown and Yule, 1983: 238): Here is the essence of the frame theory: When one encounters a new situation [. . .], one selects from memory a structure called a frame. This is a remembered framework to be adapted to t reality by changing details as necessary. A frame is a datastructure for representing a stereotyped situation like being in a certain kind of living room or going to a childs birthday party. Attached to each frame are several kinds of information. [. . .] Some is about what one can expect to happen next (Minsky, 1977: 355). According to Minsky, then, a frame can be considered a mental representation of our knowledge of the world, a data-structure that is located in human memory and can be selected or retrieved when needed. A frame is thought of as a certain structure; it is a network of nodes and relations (Minsky, 1977: 355) which seem to be structured as different levels. There are the xed top levels, representing those components of a situation that are always true, and there are the lower levels, which have many terminals, slots that must be lled by specic instances or data (Minsky, 1977: 355). Those specic instances, or assignments, can themselves be smaller sub-frames, and usually have to fulll certain conditions given by the terminals through what Minsky calls markers. Concerning the terminals, Minsky highlights the fact that [a] frames terminals are normally already lled with default assignments. [. . .] The default assignments are attached loosely to their terminals, so that they can be easily displaced by new items that t better the current situation. [. . .] Once a frame is proposed to represent a situation, a matching process tries to assign values to each frames terminals, consistent with the markers at each place (Minsky, 1977: 356, original emphasis). Apparently, some of these assignments are mandatory, others optional (Minsky, 1975: 239). Basically, this means that in our memory, knowledge is stored in a very large number of frames and frame-systems (collections of related frames, Minsky, 1977: 355). For instance, we might possess something like a [BED-ROOM]4 frame, a [HOSPITAL] frame, a [SCHOOL] frame and so on, each of which is comprised of certain typical features such as BED, LAMP, BED-SIDE TABLE, etc. in the case of the [BED-ROOM] frame. When we encounter a new situation (e.g. on entering a particular bed-room), a selecting and matching process begins: rst, a frame is evoked on the basis of partial evidence or expectation (Minsky, 1977: 359). Then, we compare the new experience (the particular bed-room) to this selected frame ([BED-ROOM]) and nally, we assign features of this new experience (a particular bed, lamp, bed-side table, etc.) to the
4 Following Ungerer and Schmid, frames will be indicated typographically by small capitals in brackets. Frame features or cognitive categories will be indicated by small caps only (Ungerer and Schmid, 1996: 206).

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frames terminals (depending on whether the features satisfy the conditions governing their assignments). One of the problems with Minskys frame theory is its fuzziness. That is to say, most of the time, he relies on the power of his hypotheses as well as on the readers power of imagining the cognitive actions he proposes. As Minsky himself admits, his theory is incomplete and fragmented: [t]he schemes proposed herein are incomplete in many respects. First, I often propose representations without specifying the processes that will use them. Sometimes I only describe properties the structures should exhibit. I talk about markers and assignments as though it were obvious how they are attached and linked; it is not (Minsky, 1975: 213). Despite its shortcomings, however, Minskys frame concept remains a helpful one, if its specics are disregarded. On the whole, a frame concept derived from the one Minsky developed helps explain a number of linguistic phenomena and proves a useful tool in discourse analysis. As mentioned above, Minsky considered a frame a cognitive phenomenon, a structure that is stored in the mind. In linguistics, it was at rst regarded as a linguistic concept by Fillmore, but experienced a cognitive reinterpretation in the course of the years; nowadays, most linguists agree in their denition of frame as a mental phenomenon, as a knowledge structure (e.g. Yule, 1996: 85, Tannen and Wallat, 1993: 60, Stubbs, 2001: 3). Such knowledge structures are not innate but acquired through socialization, constructed out of experience (out of our own experience or accounts of experiences by others etc.), and are hence both diachronically and culturally dependent. The importance of cultural dependency has been shown by Tannen (1993b) and Yule (1996: 87); as to diachronic dependency, it is one of the logical consequences of socialization (e.g., before the invention of the computer and other technical innovations, people did not possess any associated frames). Once established, frames are rather stable (cf. Stubbs, 2001: 5), with some frames seeming more stable than others, i.e. not as prone to change. It seems probable that such stable frames usually concern situations or objects which have exhibited the same features for centuries and are unlikely to change in the near future, for instance a [BED-ROOM] frame. Other frames, dealing with more uid situations or concepts (for example role-related frames) are more likely to change. Socialization is always both individual and social. We experience life individually and subjectively, but we also possess certain innate perception patterns that we use to interpret the world, and we have more or less the same social experiences depending on our respective culture (cf. Muller, 1984: 57). Inasmuch as they are relevant to communication, frames appear to be conventionalized and capture the prototypical features of a situation.5
5 This does not mean that frames may not additionally include idiosyncratic features, but that these are, in general, irrelevant to communication. This has been emphasized by Clark (1978), who argues that hearers, on hearing an utterance such as hes crazy, may indeed associate this utterance with the fact that they have a mad Uncle Harry. But, he says, they set aside this association, knowing that it cannot be relevant as far as the speakers original intention is concerned. This suggests that the hearers idiosyncratic properties of frames are not usually called up for the interpretation of the discourse at hand.

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As far as the structure of frames is concerned, there is hardly any linguistic evidence for frame structure (and no simple way to observe frame structure in detail). This is probably why linguists often do not touch this matter and if they do, they usually refer back to Minskys frame structure (e.g. Brown and Yule, 1983: 239). Ungerer and Schmid (1996: 212 f.) see a frame as being constructed out of categories and their specic interrelations (e.g. X has a Y, X is on Y, X is a part of Y); the categories provide default assignments (by supplying prototypes) and associated expectations. It does seem reasonable to adopt such a more general view, since we cannot directly observe the structure of frames.6 Some of the features/components in a frame seem to be more central to a frame than others. In a [BED-ROOM] frame, for example, one would always expect something like a bed. This would only change in the unlikely case that reality as we know it, has become radically altered (for example, if no more beds could be found in bedrooms because everyone sleeps on the oor). The BED feature seems to be a feature which is very central to the [BED-ROOM] frame and associated expectations are very high. In contrast, other features of the frame such as TV, or MIRROR, might not necessarily be expected in a bedroom, but are still considered part of the frame. Minsky differentiates between obligatory and optional features (cf. Minsky, 1975: 239), but I would prefer to speak of central and peripheral features, the features being situated on a scale, simply because it is not easy to discover which features are really obligatory: a bedroom, for example, might still be considered a bedroom, even if there is no bed in it (e.g., when someone has just moved in and sleeps on the oor); in this case, the function of a bed-room is the central feature. Quite often, a feature is itself a sub-frame. Consider the [FLYING ON A PLANE] frame, which consists, according to Ungerer and Schmid (1996: 212), of various components such as PILOT, FLIGHT ATTENDANT, LIFE VEST etc., as well as of sub-frames which stand for more specic situations of a ight, e.g. [EATING], [WATCHING THE MOVIE] and [GOING TO THE TOILET]. This would be a (static) default hierarchy. It is also possible to classify frames in different ways. Frames differ greatly in respect to complexity and specicity: they have more general and more specic forms (going on holiday versus going on a cheap last-minute package holiday to Spain). (Stubbs, 2001: 5). Moreover, Tannen distinguishes between frames that refer to events ([PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS], [CONFRONTATION], [ACCIDENT], [THEFT]) and those that refer to objects ([PEAR TREE], [ROAD]) (Tannen, 1993b: 35ff.). Probably, frames can also refer to persons, actions, places, types, roles etc. Scripts or scenarios are, of course, also terms for frames which refer to events (see above). To sum up, in my working denition (derived from Minskys and Ungerer and Schmids), a frame consists of cognitive features/components and their relations. A feature/ component can itself be a sub-frame. The features seem to exist on a scale ranging from central to peripheral and provide default assumptions by supplying prototypes. Associated expectations are higher with regards to central features than with regards to peripheral features: if a feature is central to a frame, a speaker will most certainly expect an actual instance of this feature when its respective frame is activated.
6

However, instead of categories, I shall speak of frame features or components.

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3. Frames and coherence The effort to establish a working denition of frame has shown that there are certain drawbacks and shortcomings regarding frame theory (in particular, that the nature of frames must remain highly speculative). Yet, as will be seen in the following, its application provides an interesting angle on the relation between text, context, world knowledge, and coherence. Like the frame concept, coherence is a rather fuzzy notion in linguistics and there is as yet no generally accepted denition or theory of coherence (cf. Bublitz, 1999:1). Here, I shall not discuss the notion in detail, but will restrict myself to some observations concerning the difference between cohesion and coherence. Cohesion is a property of texts and refers to the linguistic means that provide texture (i.e., link the sentences of a text), such as Halliday and Hasans (1976) reference, substitution, ellipsis, reiteration, collocation and conjunction, Hoeys (1991) patterns of lexis, etc. Coherence, on the other hand is best described as the semantic, logical, or cognitive connections that underlie a text (cf. de Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981: 4; Bussmann, 1996: 80; Thompson and Zhou, 2000: 121). Rather than assuming that these connections exist independently of the speaker or hearer, coherence is nowadays clearly dened in relation to the hearers contribution: [. . .] coherence is only measurable in terms of a readers assessment (Hoey, 1991: 11). Thus, we may come up with a simple distinction between coherence and cohesion: coherence is not a text-inherent property; it concerns the logical relations in a given text which are established by hearers. In other words, it refers to the extent to which hearers nd that this text holds together and constitutes a unied whole. Cohesion, on the other hand, is a text-inherent property; it concerns the explicit textual means by which potential logical connections are signaled. In other words, it refers to the way in which sentences are connected in a text by lexical and structural means (cf. also Bublitz, 1999). Thus, I shall assume that it is the hearers who establish coherence, and not the texts, although the cohesive means of texts play a large role in helping hearers to establish coherence. In general, we operate on a default principle of coherence (cf. Brown and Yule, 1983: 66 f.; Bublitz and Lenk, 1999: 156 f.), assuming that a text is coherent (and that the speaker adheres to the principles of cooperation (Grice, 1975) that are taken for granted in conversation). This is why we go to great lengths in order to create coherence, drawing on all possible cues. Consider (1), which I have taken from Vuchinich (1977): (1) S:

C: S:

Well unless youre not a member; if yer a member of TM h=Transcendental Meditationi people do, ah simply because its such a fucking high price to get in there (1,0 sec) its like thirty ve dollars its like water polo (2,0 sec) Why, is it expensive (Vuchinich, 1977: 246)

In this example, Ss assumption of coherence leads him/her to interpret Cs remark its like water polo as relevant and coherent, although, in fact, C wanted to test the reaction of

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his partner by deliberately uttering a non-coherent utterance (cf. Vuchinich, 1977: 235). Thus, S tries to look for a way to make sense of this comparison, coming up with the most likely explanation, namely that TM is like water polo because both are expensive. One might argue that S takes into account two frames here: the established [TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION] discourse frame with an emphasis on the feature EXPENSIVE and a default [WATER POLO] frame. Induced by Cs statement, S tries to establish an analogy between these two frames on the basis of the prominent feature EXPENSIVE. However, as his/her default [WATER POLO] frame does not automatically include the feature EXPENSIVE, and because s/he is not certain of this [WATER POLO] frame, i.e. s/he is not certain of the fact that EXPENSIVE is not included in WATER POLO, s/he has to question C about it.7 In the following sections, I shall give some more examples in which hearers resort to frames in order to establish coherence. It has been shown that frame breaks may cause misunderstanding (Falkner, 1997: 115117), a disturbance in communication, or more precisely, disturbed coherence (Bublitz and Lenk, 1999: 162 f.; 170 f.). The emphasis in this paper, however, will be placed on the way in which hearers apply a certain frame to a piece of text in order to create coherence, and on which grounds they do so. In this respect, I will discuss both frames about non-linguistic phenomena in the world and frames about language and communication. It is especially the latter that are often neglected in linguistic research on frames. 3.1. Specialized frames: [RUGBY], [CRICKET] It is quite obvious that our frames for non-linguistic phenomena in the world contribute much to the coherence of discourse. This is also the reason that frameconicts trigger lengthy explanations and cause contradictions or questions (Tannen, 1993b; Tannen and Wallat, 1993). The importance of frames for understanding a text becomes more than obvious in examples of highly specialized language use, such as in (2): (2) Rugby [...]The world champions [Australia] outscored the Maori in Saturday [...] ve tries to two but did not seal victory until replacement winger Graeme Bond went over to score right on fulltime. [...] The Wallabies looked to have the match under control when Larkham intercepted a loose pass from replacement David Hill and sprinted half the length of the eld to score untouched and give his side a 31-19 lead with 15 minutes to go. But the Maori pulled back to within two points with less than ve minutes to go with Spencers try and two penalties from Hill. [...]Walker went past four defenders to score a wonderful solo try. This example shows the signicance of the existence of specialized frames in the hearers mind. In (2), rugby induces the hearer to apply his/her [RUGBY] frame to the
7 A speaker certain of his/her [WATER POLO] frame, because s/he is, for instance, active in this sport, might have answered something like Why, water polo isnt expensive instead.

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text, and there are manifold expressions in the text which relate to this frame, for instance ve tries to two, replacement winger, to score right on fulltime, intercepted a loose pass, to score untouched, to score a wonderful solo try, and so on. As Brown and Yule point out, unless the reader has specialized knowledge about the [mentioned] entity [...], this type of expression will create a potential discontinuity in the readers interpretation and require inferencing. (1983: 267). The text itself guides the hearer to make certain inferences about the actions and entities in question. Thus, the hearer may assume that ve tries are better than two, that to score untouched is a good thing, that in rugby you score a try etc. The hearer might, in addition, apply related [SPORT] frames to the text; in this case, linguistic expressions such as penalty and score may be interpreted in reference to known frames with which they are also associated. Penalty would then be seen as something negative, score as something positive, a desired goal of the game. Hearers will generally try to establish coherence in this text both through the text and through the application of other, related frames. In (3), this seems much more difcult because of the high frequency of expressions which do not allow the application of related frames, so that hearers have to rely on the context alone to infer meaning. (3) Cricket [...] But Australia set off in hot pursuit and were barely put out of their stride when Shoaib did Adam Gilchrist for pace with a ball which bowled the wicketkeeperbatsman between bat and pad from round the wicket. (http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/ 010609/4/buk19/html) In both (2) and (3), readers with the respective [RUGBY] and [CRICKET] frame, however, would not have any difculty in creating a perfectly understandable and coherent interpretation of these texts. They would know for instance, that in (2) a try refers to the games GOAL of getting the ball over the line at the end of the playing-eld and touching it down without being touched and that you SCORE 5 POINTS by doing so. They would know wingers are players whose position is on the side of the pitch, that fulltime refers to the END OF THE GAME and that scoring untouched means that no one even tackled the player, whereas a solo try refers to a player not passing the ball to anyone else in scoring. Readers with the relevant background would also apply their frame knowledge about [CRICKET] to (3), i.e. that there are two TEAMS (of 11 men), who are alternatively BATTERS and FIELDERS. They would know that when it is a teams turn to bat, two batsmen go in the eld and try to hit the CRICKET BALL as far as possible and get as many RUNS as possible (by running the 22 yards between the two wickets (a set of three stumps topped by a pair of bails)), while the elders try to catch the ball. And that the BOWLERS GOAL is to hit the wicket, while the wicketkeeper (who squats behind the wicket) tries to catch the ball to get the batsman out. They would hence know the signicance of what is described in the text: the bowler (Shoaib) bowled a very fast ball which was too fast for the batsman (Adam Gilchrist) to play against (did [him] for pace), and which went between his bat and his pad (the wooden club and protective clothing for his legs with which he defends his wicket). This ball was delivered by Shoaib with his non-bowling arm closest to the

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wicket (from round the wicket) and bowled Gilchrist (hit his stumps causing him to lose his wicket).8 While examples like these are full of specialized language use, more generally (as conrmed by the ndings of Tannen and Wallat, 1993) frame-conicts are a considerable source of disturbed coherence, and are responsible for translation problems as well as cross-cultural misunderstandings. There seems to be an interaction between frame instigating words and expressions (which guide the application of a certain frame to a given piece of discourse), the frames existing in a hearers mind, and the creation of coherence. 3.2. Frames about communication Frames about non-linguistic phenomena are not the only type of frames that contribute to coherence; frames about communication, too, may create coherence. In the following, I shall look at the establishment of coherence through communicative frames for text types, genres, and communicative principles. 3.2.1. Frames about communication I: [TEXT TYPES], [GENRES] [TEXT TYPE/GENRE] frames may play a certain role in creating coherence, for instance where literature is concerned. Here is an example from a contemporary text (text source follows at later point). (4) [Mrs. and Mr. Smith discuss the death of Bobby Watson] Mrs. Smith No, its his wife Im thinking of. She was called Bobby. Like him, Bobby Watson. Since they had the same name, one could not distinguish between them when one saw them together. Only after his death could one really know who was the one and who was the other. Still, even today there are people who mix her up with the deceased and offer her their condolences. You know her? Mr. Smith. Ive only seen her once, by chance, at Bobbys funeral. Mrs. Smith. Ive never seen her. Is she beautiful? Mr. Smith. She has regular facial features and yet one cannot say shes beautiful. She is too tall and too big. Her features are not regular and still one can say that she is very beautiful. She is a bit too short and too thin. She is a voice teacher. [. . .] Mrs. Smith. And when are the two planning to get married? For any reader who approaches this text without any prior information, this extract certainly seems incoherent and absurd, being full of contradictions and frame-breaks. There do not seem to be any linguistic cues in the text that automatically would evoke a frame in which this piece of discourse was coherent. Most of the time, however, readers know in advance what type of text they are dealing with: a newspaper article, an 18th century novel, a poem, a contemporary novel, a drama etc., and thus, the respective frame is evoked simply because of the situation.9 Now, if a reader knows that what s/he is dealing
I would like to thank David Oakey for his help with these examples. There may also be features in the text typical of a certain genre and allowing hearers to identify it as such, but often readers know from the beginning what they are dealing with and they expect a piece of discourse consistent with their frame for the text type/genre in question.
9 8

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with in (4) is indeed an extract from Ionescos La Cantatrice Chauve (Ionesco, 1984: 11; my translation, MB), a piece of absurd theater, s/he may nd it in a way coherent within this frame. The application of an [ABSURD THEATER] frame may render the text coherent because that frame includes features such as ABSURDITY OF LIFE, INSURMOUNTABLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SIGNIFIE AND SIGNIFIANT, or INSUFFICIENCY OF 10 LANGUAGE. 3.2.2. Frames about communication II: [JOKE] Example (4) has already shown how [TEXT TYPE/GENRE] frames can be applied by hearers to establish at least some degree of coherence for an otherwise completely incoherent piece of discourse. A similar, if slightly different example is (5): (5) Jacob:

Theres a guy driving his car down the road, okay? He was driving along. And hes driving a nineteen-fty-seven convertible, T-bird. And he sees uh Jay Leno jogging along the side of the road. And he goes, I hate talk show hosts. He swerves over and he runs him over, kills him. And hes driving, and he turns a corner, driving down the road a bit. And he sees ah ah Johnny Carson. And he says, God, I hate talk show hosts. He swerves over and he kills him. Then he- then he sees the uh his minister hitchhiking on the side of the road. {tsk} And he stops and he says, Hows it going father, do you need a ride? Hes like Yes, my son, yes, could you take me to the uh church? And they start driving along he sees Oprah Winfrey driving along- yknow jogging along on the side of the road. And he goes, God, I hate talk show hosts, but Ive got a minister here, its kind of risky to swerve over and kill her, yknow? {tsk} So he goes, Heres what Ill do: Ill

10

Here is the original French text: ` Non, cest a sa femme que je pense. Elle sappelait comme lui, Bobby, Bobby Watson. Comme ils avaient le meme nom, on ne pouvait pas les distinguer lun de lautre quand on les voyait ` ` ensemble. Ce nest quapres sa mort a lui, quon a pu vraiment savoir qui etait lun et qui etait lautre. Pourtant, aujourdhui encore, il y a des gens qui la confondent avec le mort et lui presentent des condoleances. Tu la connais? ` Je ne lai vue quune fois, par hasard, a lenterrenment de Bobby. Je ne lai jamais vue. Est-ce quelle est belle? Elle a des traits reguliers et pourtant on ne peut pas dire quelle est belle. Elle est trop grande et ` trop forte. Ses traits ne sont pas reguliers et pourtant on peut dire quelle est tres belle. Elle est un peu trop petite et trop maigre. Elle est professeur de chant. Et quand pensent-ils se marier, tous les deux?

Mme Smith.

M. Smith. Mme Smith. M. Smith.

[...] Mme Smith.

The early criticism, or misunderstanding of Ionescos play is equally explicable by frame-theory. People did not yet possess an [ABSURD THEATER] frame, only a [DRAMA] frame which they applied to the piece. Because of what they saw on stage was not included in their frame, they could not make any sense of the play; in a way, this was a case of disturbed coherence. (This also applies to other forms of art, for instance abstract art, or performance art.)

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pretend like I uh I sneeze and Ill swerve by mistake. So he is driving along. When she comes up, he sort of sneezes, and he swerves over, and he has his eyes closed, and he goes, Oh, my God, I heard a thud. Did I hit her? And the minister goes, No, you missed her, but I got her with the car door. Erik: Hehheh. Jacob: I got a laugh. (SBCCN: Two jokes, my emphasis) In (5), there is a clear instance of a frame-break which could supposedly lead to disturbed coherence. Minister evokes a default [MINISTER] frame in the hearer which should include such features as PEACEFUL, LAW-ABIDING, NOT AGGRESSIVE etc. Thus, the fact that the minister actually kills someone and the way he talks about it present clear frame-breaks. But this does not lead to disturbed coherence, or indeed any miscommunication because of the superordinate [JOKE] frame which is applied to this piece of discourse. In jokes, things do not have to be probable, or realistic, nor do they have to conform to our knowledge of what things typically are like in the world. Indeed, frame-breaks are an important feature in jokes, and they often give rise to humorous effects. This becomes quite clear in the following example: (6): Ralph: Mary: Ralph:

You ever hear that joke? No. {laughing} Well, it was just one woman wanted a telegram? She always wanted a singing telegram? Guy says, Maam I dont think you want this as a singing telegram. Yeah, go ahead. Fred and the kids are dead. {singing and clapping} Mary: {laughs briey} I didnt get it. Ralph: You dont get it. You dont sing a telegram about death or anything bad news. (SBCCN: Singing Telegram, my emphasis) To explain why the joke is funny, Ralph simply resorts to stating the framebreak: You dont sing a telegram about death or anything bad news. The frame-break may thus be seen as the very cause of laughter, the essence of the joke in this case as well as in (5). The application of the [JOKE] frame by the hearer to both (5) and (6) leads to unproblematic coherence of both pieces of discourse. In contrast to (4), the Ionesco example, [JOKE] frames are usually triggered by the text. In all of the SBCCN examples of jokes, the [JOKE] frame was either triggered by the context (i.e. people were talking about jokes in general and then told a joke), or, more often, by introductory remarks by the speaker such as:  You know that joke?  Have you heard the drunken Irishman one?/You ever hear that joke?  Did I tell you my lumber joke?

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 Didnt you tell the one about the the guy in the bar who who suddenly uh starts hearing these very nice things said about him?  Ive got a joke for you./Ive got a pretty a pretty topical joke, pretty uh current joke, pretty important joke for the country to hear.11 With these introductions, speakers successfully guide hearers creation of coherence and help them to apply the right frame to what follows. 3.2.3. Frames about communication III: communicative principles Other frequent instances of the way in which frames about language help to establish coherence are found in [COMMUNICATION] frames. These seem to be particularly called for whenever no explicit cohesive means are present in the text. This is the case in the much quoted example (7): (7) A: Theres the doorbell. B: Im in the bath. (Brown and Yule, 1983: 196) as well as in the following example: (8) A: Wheres Bill? B: Theres a yellow VW outside Sues house. (Levinson, 1983: 192). In both cases, one might argue that the rst pair part of the exchange opens a frame which allows to treat the second pair part as an answer. Apart from the application of what one might term a [QUESTION] frame, other communicative principles may also play a part in the coherent interpretation of these utterances. However, because communicative principles/maxims have been treated so extensively in pragmatics I shall not discuss them further in this section. Moreover, it seems as if texts which exhibit no cohesion whatsoever are relatively rare (Bublitz and Lenk, 1999: 165). 3.3. Reference resolution So far, we have seen how the application of linguistic and non-linguistic frames may help hearers to establish the overall coherence of texts. The focus will now be on the hearers application of frames in order to identify the referents of referring expressions. As Bublitz and Lenk (1999: 165) point out, unclear reference can lead to different degrees of disturbed coherence. Conversely, resorting to frames for reference resolution may be regarded as a special case of establishing coherence. In the following, I shall discuss the identication of referents of NPs with
11

All examples are taken from the SBCCN (now called the SCoSE, Saarbrucken Corpus of Spoken English).

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de nite/indenite articles, pronouns, and vague category identiers (Channell, 1994:128). 3.3.1. Reference resolution I: denite/indenite article One of the most important aspects of how frames contribute to coherence is the way they help the hearer to understand the reference of items introduced by a denite article. Frames help to create coherence by allowing the hearer to identify the correct (intended) referent of both denite and indenite NPs, as seen in the following extract (denite NP): (9) He slammed the door of his building behind him; in wet weather, the lock tended to stick, and only violence would get the massive door to close or open. He shook his umbrella a few times, then furled it and stuck it under his arm. With his right hand, he grabbed the handrail and began the long climb to their apartment. (Donna Leon, Acqua Alta, 207, my emphasis) In this example, both the lock and the handrail are denite NPs whose interpretation depends on frame-knowledge. The use of the denite article here does not correspond to its three basic functions usually described in traditional grammars (e.g. Quirk et al., 1973: 72 f.):  It does not presuppose an earlier mention of the item introduced by the denite article such as in He saw a man on the street . . . The man wore a dark coat.  There is no postmodication specifying the referent such as in He slammed the door of his building behind him.  The item introduced is not unique such as in the sun, the moon, the stars.12 Frame theory, however, may explain this specic use of the denite article quite clearly. One might argue that the door of his building opens up two frames: a [DOOR] frame and a [BUILDING] frame, with the [DOOR] frame probably constituting a sub-frame to the superordinate [BUILDING] frame. The [DOOR] frame allows the hearer to take for granted several likely features of the frame: that a door may be opened, that you enter or exit a building/a room through a door, that a door has a handle, that a door has a lock, and so on. Similarly, the [BUILDING] frame might include such features as PLACE WHERE PEOPLE LIVE, PLACE IN WHICH APARTMENTS MAY BE SITUATED, and the sub-frame [STAIRS] comprising the likely existence of a
12 The use of the denite article may be closely related, however, to one case of specic reference mentioned by Quirk and Greenbaum only in passing:

Even more covert are the presuppositions which permit the denite article in examples like the following: John asked his wife to put on the kettle while he looked in the paper to see what was on the radio. No prior mention of a kettle, a paper, a radio is needed, since these things are part of the cultural situation (Quirk et al., 1973: 73; original emphasis). As in this constructed example, in (9) also, the lock and the handrail may, broadly speaking, be said to be part of the cultural situation, but I feel it is more fruitful to analyse these NPs in terms of frame theory.

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This is why the hearer will have no problems to understand the rst reference to the lock and to the handrail, even though there is no antecedent. The hearer simply takes the speakers instructions (the use of a frame-instigating expression) and infers an interpretative frame to which to relate the following text.13 Thus, frame-instigating expressions/frame key-words and their associated default frames help the hearer to understand discourse, in other words, to create coherence. Indenite NPs may sometimes also be employed with specic reference. Indeed, it is a well-known property of indenite NPs such as the one in the much quoted example, Hes going to marry a Norwegian, that the NP may be used both with specic reference (referring to a specic Norwegian) and with generic reference, (referring to any Norwegian in general). This potential ambiguity is, however, usually resolved in discourse. Consider now the following example: (10) It is strange that the present centurys greatest hero is likely to remain Winston Churchill. For much of his life, respectable people regarded him as a reckless adventurer. As a wartime leader, he was accused of terrible crimes, and of mistakes which cost the nation dear. [...] That Churchill should continue to symbolise the defence of freedom is partly because of a coincidence in timing. [...] Reading Martin Gilberts spare, lucid and sensitive biography, Churchill: A life, one is reminded yet again of Churchills messiah-like quality arriving, God-given, in the nick of time to raise the spirits of those who still believed in a political system which had everywhere been reviled, corrupted and duped by the totalitarians. [...] Of Hitler and even Roosevelt there have been revisionist accounts a-plenty, but attempts to replace the propaganda newsreel images of Churchill have so far been rare and unconvincing. That Gilberts account of Churchill, the product of more than three decades of meticulous research, reinforces the classic versions is probably inevitable. [...] Gilbert makes no apology for being the ofcial biographer par excellence, and as such he has performed an inestimable service. The author tells the famous story of how Parliament misguidedly expressed its gratitude to an ageing premier by commissioning Graham Sutherland to paint his portrait with a result so brutally candid that Clementine ordered its destruction. (Ben Pimlett on: Churchill: A Life, by Martin Gilbert, The Guardian Weekly, 21 April 1991, my emphasis) In the above extract, an ageing premier has a specic reference: Winston Churchill; however, establishing this reference, or coherence, seems to be rather complex. On the one hand, an ageing premier is used anaphorically, referring back to Churchill. On the other hand, a) it does not refer back to the same Winston Churchill as in the previous text, but to a Winston Churchill at a certain period of his life, and b) there is no mention in the text

13 Quirk et al. (1985: 267ff) explain this use of the denite article by reference to general knowledge and ellipsis, but also note that this explanation does not [. . .] apply to all such cases (Quirk et al., 1985: 268).

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whatsoever that Churchill was once prime minister of Great Britain. It is possible to argue that the rst mention of Winston Churchill in the text opens up a frame allowing the hearer to take for granted the fact that he was prime minister, that he is an important gure in British history and that his wife was called Clementine. If one knows these details and even better if one knows the famous story of the painting, then one will have no trouble at all to treat this text as coherent and identify the correct referent for an ageing prime minister. It is equally probable, however, that the hearer does not possess all of this knowledge and that s/he is only certain of the fact that Churchill was once prime minister of Britain. In this case, the identication of the intended referent is still possible on the basis of analogy and the expectation that an abrupt change of topic is not likely. Operating on the default assumption of coherence, the hearer might make the following inferences: if the text mentions Churchill, and if I know that Churchill was prime minister, it is likely given the text type that an ageing prime minister does refer to Churchill. Thus the hearers knowledge, both about Churchill and about certain text-specic principles, enable him/her to establish coherence. These frames might even allow the hearer to infer that Clementine was in fact the name of Churchills wife and thus permit the identication of this referring expression as well.14 3.3.2. Reference resolution II: pronouns Pronouns as stated by Halliday and Hasan (1976) constitute important cohesive devices in that they create coherence. In unproblematic examples, the co-reference relation between antecedent and anaphor is clear, the pronouns form a cohesive chain (cf. Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 15) of co-reference and may thus be said to create coherence by virtue of their reference property alone. This, however, is not always the case. Brown and Yule (1983: 216 ff.) give a number of examples in which the antecedent-anaphor relation is more problematic and in which the identication of the intended referent depends upon the hearers knowledge and their correct inferences.15 In the following, I shall discuss two examples, (11 and 12): (11) Theres a car going up the road and he comes to a crossroads (Brown and Yule, 1983: 217) Apparently, (11) presents a mismatch in terms of gender agreement, he referring to a grammatically human antecedent, where there only seems to be a non-human antecedent. The hearer is thus required to resolve this mismatch to create coherence. It seems plausible that a car and going up the road (i.e. moving) combine to instigate a [DRIVING A CAR] frame in the hearer, who then may assume the existence of a driver as part of the default frame, and conclude that the he is used to refer to this driver. Thus, the apparent mismatch between antecedent nominal and subsequent pronoun is solved to a sufcient degree of satisfaction. Again, it is the default assumption
14 Note also that this use of the indenite article (an ageing prime minister rather than the ageing prime minister) is not easily explicable by reference to the criteria in Quirk et al. (1985: 272f.). 15 They do not analyze these examples in terms of frame theory, however.

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of coherence, together with what seems a deviation from the norm of gender agreement in co-reference, which prompts the hearers inferences and his/her creation of coherence. In other instances of pronoun use, too, no direct antecedent nominal exists in the text; but here, the text instigates a frame in the hearer which, in turn, provides the basis for determining the intended referent of the pronoun. The use of the pronoun she in the following example provides an example: (12) [Talking about the First World War] I used to go about with a chap I dont know whether hes still alive now or not but there was nine ten eleven in the family altogether two girls and nine boys and she lost eight sons one after the other (Brown and Yule, 1983: 218) Brown and Yule point out, there is no linguistic expression which could be treated as the direct antecedent for she (Brown and Yule, 1983: 218). However, this is not a case of exophoric reference in the way Halliday and Hasan (1976: 32 ff.) understand the concept: the pronoun does not refer to the context of situation. But neither can it be said to be strictly anaphoric, referring to another item within the text (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 32). Instead, she relates to a frame feature. The key-word family seems to trigger a [FAMILY] frame and, together with the mentioning of another frame element, namely SONS, permits the hearer to treat she as referring to the frame element MOTHER. In a broader sense, this use of the pronoun is anaphoric, because the preceding text is the source of the evocation of the frame.16 Thus, it does relate to the text as well as to the frame. Linguistic cues given by the speaker are the reason for the application of a certain frame by the hearer; without these cues and their associated frame, the hearer could neither identify the referent nor create coherence. 3.3.3. Reference resolution III: Vague category identiers Frames may also be applied in order to help hearers identify the referents introduced by vague category identiers, i.e. structures consisting of exemplars of categories and tags such as or something/anything, and things, and things like that, and that (Channell, 1994: 131), for instance: (13) There was no kind of social contact there was no coffee room or anything (Channell, 1994: 119). The function of such structures is to direct[. . .] the hearer to access a set, of which the given item is a member whose characteristics will enable the hearer to identify the set (Channell, 1994: 122). Channell has carried out tests with native speaker respondents in order to nd out how hearers identify the respective category of such vague expressions and points out that both linguistic and world knowledge are drawn upon in reference resolution.
16 Schwarz calls this type of anaphor-antecedent relation indirect anaphors (Schwarz, 1997: 449 f.). Compare also Quirk et al., 1985: 267ff).

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For instance, for the test sentence She said they eat rice and that, didnt she, one respondent called up the following categories: Respondent a. vegetarian context: rice, beans, dried vegetables Chinese context: rice, chicken, green vegetables, sweet and sour Greek context: stuffed pepper, pilaf (Channell, 1994: 127) What is called context here could equally well be called frame. Frame theory would then suggest that such vague category identiers in fact call up associated frames (rice could be associated with a [VEGETARIAN FOOD] frame, a [CHINESE FOOD] frame or a [GREEK FOOD] frame) and that these frames alongside other information (e.g. that Chinese food is eaten with chopsticks) include information about typical foods involved, which enables hearers to identify the relevant category. One might argue that some sort of bottom-up top-down interaction is involved: eat rice and that activates a [CHINESE/VEGETARIAN/GREEK FOOD] frame, but the context instantiates only one of its frame features (the category TYPICAL CHINESE/VEGETARIAN/GREEK FOODS) the one that is necessary for the identication of the referent (other possible frame features being, e.g., [EATING WITH CHOPSTICKS], [PREPARING CHINESE FOOD], [CHINESE RESTAURANT]). Other frame features are activated, but not instantiated by the sentence, though they might be by additional discourse (e.g. if the sentence above were followed by So, theyve got a wok, chopsticks and that or Oh, I hate eating with chopsticks). The problem with the sentence above is that the respondent does not know who they are, what preceded the sentence, and so on. Because the example sentence does not give any additional information concerning which frame is involved, the respondent comes up with the typical (zero-context, default) frames with which eating rice is associated ([VEGETARIAN FOOD], [CHINESE FOOD], [GREEK FOOD]). Naturally, in a real conversation. sentences are not uttered out of context and there will be many cues which help hearers to guess which specic frame is involved. Thus, the only way to nd out more about how frames are activated is to look at utterances in a wider context. It is also necessary to explore in more detail the relationship between frames, superordinate categories, and (proto)typicality.

4. Conclusion Frames are indeed an important factor for the creation of coherence by hearers. Frameconicts may lead to disturbed coherence, although they need not necessarily do so: the application of a superordinate frame may override deviations from the norm and thus create coherence. The examples given above have strengthened my assumption that coherence is indeed based on cohesion (if we consider the lexical items, expressions, and phrases that activate frames as cohesive devices). In almost all of the texts, frames were triggered in the hearer through the text. Even in cases such as [TEXT TYPE] frames, one might argue that certain topoi17 would lead the hearer to infer the correct interpretative frame even if s/he
17

Such as the list of the cast given at the beginning of a play, the text alignment of poems, etc.

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came to the text without prior knowledge or expectations. Decoding and inferring thus seem, in fact, to be complementary actions (Bublitz, 2001: 7) helping the hearer to understand a given text.

References
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