Historical frame analysis

Abstract

In this article, I am concerned with the historical dimension of frame analysis, aiming at an appraisal of the general significance of this method if applied to historical linguistic data, in particular instances of oral or written discourse transmitted from the past. In order to demonstrate how frame analysis can be employed as a means of reconstructing the multiple meaning structures of earlier cases of linguistic communication, I shall examine the opening scene of a seventeenth-century Dutch theatrical play, i.e. Constantijn Huygens’s ribald farceTrijntje Cornelis. The analysis is preceded by a brief outline setting forth some fundamental issues and dilemmas of historical pragmatics. Arguing that there are (at least) two notably distinct ways of approaching the data, I will distinguish between two types of historical pragmatic enquiry, i.e. exostructural and endostructural analysis. As to the question of how these different perspectives can be integrated, I will claim that by and large frame analysis as conceived by Goffman is an effective device. Considering that this sociological theory has its limitations too, the final section will review the extent to which, and in which ways, the application of the notions and techniques of frame analysis enhances our understanding of verbal communication in historical contexts. My analysis of Huygens’s play is thus exemplified within a wider “frame” of scientific interest.

Civil rites

“…At first, the victim is incredulous; but due to the trickster's verbal subterfuge, she eventually becomes convinced, unfortunately for her (for she gets robbed and raped), that it concerns a fortunate coincidence after all. As argued elsewhere (Bax, 2001), the transformation of reality is the play's leitmotif, and what is supposedly entertaining about the frame-up -from the audience's perspective, that is -is how the impostor succeeds in pulling the wool over the victim's eyes. Considering that Huygens' farce is anything but a one-off case in seventeenth-century Dutch drama (Hooft's plays Granida and Warenar are two other cases in point), we believe that contemporary theatregoers must have relished plots featuring mistaken identities, double games, fraudulent practices, and so on and so forth, especially so if verbal cunning is brought into play.…”

“…Colie, 1959;Warnke, 1961;Streekstra, 1994), were preoccupied with ingenious stylistic techniques such as "witty analogy", "paradox", and "metaphysical conceit". Inasmuch as early modern society, most notably the cultural elite, can be said to take delight in multiple meaning devices like word play, double entendres, and ambiguities, the abovementioned concept of playing on epistolary conventions -a kind of "pragmatic pun making" (Bax, 2001:57) -relates to a not at all anomalous linguistic practice.…”

21 Old English: Pragmatics and discourse

“…Studies like these call attention to Bax's (2001) suggestion that comparative frame analysis as conceived by Goffman (1974) may be an effective device for an analysis of the "otherness" of distinct medieval speech events such as ritual challenging. Yet until now very little use has been made of the historical dimensions of frame analysis, such as the recognition of "scripts" or "frames", i.e., pre-existing knowledge structures for interpreting event sequences with a fixed static pattern (see Yule 1996: 85-89).…”

Mining foreign language teaching manuals for the history of pragmatics

“…Within Dutch language history, Van der Wal's 1992 language history is, in essence, a history of language standardization, and Rutten & Vosters (2011) still more or less equate linguistic norms with spelling norms. Recent years have, however, seen work on the history of politeness in Dutch, including the work of Marcel Bax and his colleagues (Bax 2001, Bax & Streekstra 2003, and a special issue of this journal, Bax & Kádár 2011).…”