Week 2: frames

Cognitive discourse analysis

Don’t think of the elephant!

You did, didn’t you

You did, didn’t you

It is, of course, a directive that cannot be carried out — and that is the point. In order to purposefully not think of an elephant, you have to think of an elephant.

don’t feel badmuch like this picture of a trunk makes you think of an elephant, every word makes you think of a frame related to that word

What is a frame?“Frames are the mental structures that allow human beings to understand reality – and sometimes to create what we take to be reality. [T]hey structure our ideas and concepts, they shape how we reason, and they even impact how we perceive and how we act. For the most part, our use of frames is unconscious and automatic – we use them without realizing it.”

George Lakoff

FramesFrames are like simulations or mental models of the real world:

• what a particular situation is

• how we expect things to work

FramesFrames are like simulations or mental models of the real world:

• what a particular situation is

• how we expect things to work

For example, we expect to find certain things in a dollhouse – miniature stoves, cats, people, etc.  If we found a nuclear reactor we’d be surprised – it doesn’t belong in the model!

Frames inform opinions

Frames inform opinions

How we expect things to work depends on the mental model we use.  For example, conservatives use the mental model of taxation as a burden to describe taxes they don’t like.  Any and all discussion within that model revolves around reducing burden or adding burden, and thus no tax can be a good thing.  However, change the model to one of an investor and the narrative changes and a cost/benefit analysis is put in play. 

Conservatives use the frame of taxation

as a burden

• lower taxes = lighter burden

• bigger taxes = heavier burden

This frame sets the tone for discussions about taxes.

taxation can also be discussed in terms

of investment

• higher taxes = bigger investment (bigger potential payout)

• lower taxes = smaller investment (slower, smaller gains)

what about facts, tho?

Many still believe, that if you just present people with the facts they will come to the correct conclusion.

objective realism

objective realism

When you assume that there is one way to objectively present facts. As a result, you might think that meaning making is manipulative.

frames vs facts• it is impossible to perceive

objective facts

• everything gets filtered through our perception and cognition

• there is no way to perceive reality that is divorced from our conceptual structure

• if the facts don’t fit the theory - too bad for the facts

(Lakoff 2010:73)

„Facts must make sense in terms of their system of frames, or they

will be ignored”.

4 lessons about frames

Every word evokes a frame

elephant

Every word evokes a frame

elephant

A frame is a conceptual structure used in thinking. The word elephant evokes a frame with an image of an elephant and certain knowledge: an elephant is a large animal (a mammal) with large floppy ears, a trunk that functions like both a nose and a hand, large stump-like legs, and so on.

Words defined within a frame evoke the frame

trunk

Bob picked up the peanut with his trunk.

„Bob”

Negating a frame evokes the frame

elephant

Bob is not an elephant!

Negating a frame evokes the frame

elephant

Bob is not an elephant!

You may have crossed out the elephant in the picture, but you still totally see there’s an elephant underneath the red lines.

Negating a frame evokes the frame

elephant

Bob is not an elephant!

Even if we explicitly say we don’t want to evoke the thing we are still mentioning the thing. An once we use a word it is going to set off a frame. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s preceeded by negation or not.

Evoking a frame reinforces that frame

Bob

Bob isn’t an elephant!Bob isn’t an elephant!Bob isn’t an elephant!Bob isn’t an elephant!

Exercise

Read the text „Tax relief” and answer the following questions:

• What is the frame invoked by the TV host?

• What are the consequences for the guests?

• How should the Senator react?

“tax relief”

On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words tax relief started appearing in White House communiqués to the press and in official speeches and reports by conservatives. Let us look in detail at the framing evoked by this term.

The word relief evokes a frame in which there is a blameless Afflicted Person who we identify with and who has some Affliction, some pain or harm that is imposed by some external Cause-of-pain. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, and it is brought about by some Reliever-of-pain. The Relief frame is an instance of a more general Rescue scenario, in which there a Hero (The Reliever-of-pain), a Victim (the Afflicted), a Crime (the Affliction), A Villain (the Cause-of-affliction), and a Rescue (the Pain Relief). The Hero is inherently good, the Villain is evil, and the Victim after the Rescue owes gratitude to the Hero.

The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. Taxes, in this phrase, are the Affliction (the Crime), proponents of taxes are the Causes-of Affliction (the Villains), the taxpayer is the Afflicted Victim, and the proponents of “tax relief” are the Heroes who deserve the taxpayers’ gratitude. Every time the phrase tax relief is used and heard or read by millions of people, the more this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced.

Now we’re hearing the slogan “Tax relief creates jobs.” Looking at the Relief frame, we see that afflictions and pain can be quantified, and there can be more or less relief. By the logic of framing (NOT the logic of economics!), if tax relief creates jobs, then more tax relief creates more jobs. That is just how the president has been arguing for increasing tax cuts from $350 billion to $550 billion. The new frame incorporates the old Tax Relief frame into a new “Tax Relief Creates Jobs” frame.

Now suppose that a Senator goes on a news show in which a conservative argues with a liberal. The way these shows work is that the conservative host states an issue using a conservative framing of that issue. The conservative host says: “Some say that more tax relief creates more jobs. You have voted against increased tax relief. Why?”

End of week 2