A frame-semantic approach to analyzing concepts as complex semantic units of political discourse - Статья

A FRAME-SEMANTIC APPROACH TO ANALYZING CONCEPTS AS COMPLEX SEMANTIC UNITS OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE A. Bogomolov Introduction While analyzing a series of concepts that shape the discourse of the recent Egyptian revolution, we have been long aware of a growing load of methodological concerns, discussion of which we have intentionally postponed until enough material is accumulated. Now it seems to be the right time to approach some of these issues and try to formulate preliminary solutions. We will illustrate our observations here by examples taken from the analysis of the concept of QISAS (RETALIATION), which we described in greater detail in some of our preceding publications. Our overall approach to the analysis of the political discourse concepts is based on frame-semantic analysis1. Each concept may be presented as a frame structure, which includes a set of elements and relations among them, which may presumably be described in terms of semantic roles (deep cases). We use the FrameNet2 project as a model, or rather a point of departure, in formulating frame descriptions that match our Arabic material. A matching English frame can sometimes be found with at least some frame elements corresponding to Arabic. For instance, the closest match to be found on FrameNet for QISAS appears to be Revenge3. The purpose of our study is, however, different from that of FrameNet. The latter takes a holistic approach striving to capture all frames and every detail in the structure of a particular frame, and while FrameNet does show interest in the way frames relate to each other, it does so from the point of view of classification4, while we are interested in how particular frames are functioning in a specific discourse. When traveling across discourses, concepts appear to demonstrate a high degree of variability, which FrameNet does not account for, while it does provide a lot of interesting material for a comparative study. Our points of interest include: (1) the way frames interact with each other in text and how such interaction contributes to creating new meanings and shaping distinctive features of a discourse; (2) how a particular concept varies across different types of discourses with some semantic elements of the frame coming to the fore and others being suppressed; and (3) the idiosyncratic elements in the concept’s semantic structure and function, which point to differences between languages and cultures. In other lay discourses, however, the concept may often be applied to a wider range of Trigger events including those that fall far short of criminal offense, however broadly defined11. An authoritative modern dictionary provides a definition for the noun qisas, which seems to have been deliberately designed to fit both the narrow Islamic and broader lay usages: al-jaza ’ ‘ala danb, an yufala bi-l-fa‘il mitla ma fa‘ala (payment for an offence/misdeed, to be done with the doer the way he did)12.