Metaphors, Frames and Semantic Networks. Approaches to the Study of Knowledge as Content in Knowledge Communication

11 OCTOBER 2016PROF. JAN ENGBERGAARHUSUNIVERSITYAU

METAPHORS, FRAMES ANDSEMANTIC NETWORKS

Approaches to the Study of Knowledge as Content in Knowledge Communication

Perm State University

11 OCTOBER 2016PROF. JAN ENGBERGAARHUS

UNIVERSITYAU

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Due to the nature of human knowledge and its communication, it is important to not lose track of the role of the individual knower when investigating domain-specific discourse (LSP) as knowledge communication

WHAT I LEARNT FROM PREPARING THE TALK –AND WHAT I BASE THIS TALK UPON


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OVERVIEW

u Knowledge Communication – the Aarhus approach

u Knowledge as a multifaceted, complex concept and object of study

u A person-oriented view and the importance of interaction

u Approaches to modelling structured knowledge in the light of this: Consequences for Frames, Semantic Networks, Metaphors


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KNOWLEDGE COMMUNICATION

JOOKC therefore aspires to be a channel for academic discussions of the construction, representation and communication of specialized knowledge within different organizational contexts. The mission of the journal is to frame the emerging discipline of organizational knowledge communication by continually exploring and challenging the ideas of specialized knowledge (e.g., organizational, domain specific, or disciplinary knowledge), the organizational contexts in or between which it arises, evolves, flows, or is transformed, as well as the communicative events, settings and ideologies in which these processes are embedded.

Thomasen, Abell, Kastberg 2014, 3-4


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KNOWLEDGE COMMUNICATION AS FRAMEWORK

The study of Knowledge Communication aims at investigating the intentional and decision-based communication of specialised knowledge in professional settings (among experts as well as between experts and nonexperts) with a focus upon the interplay between knowledge and expertise of individuals, on the one hand, and knowledge as a social phenomenon, on the other, as well as the coping with knowledge asymmetries, i.e., the communicative consequences of differences between individual knowledge in depth as well as breadth.

Engberg 2016, 37 (my emphasis)


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KNOWLEDGE APPROACH - CONSEQUENCES

6

Focus upon knowledge systems, cognitive operations and domain-specific actions centred around individuals’ minds and conceptualisations

Focus upon individual nature of cognition and consequently individual aspects of knowledge

Focus upon interaction between knowledge of individuals and aggregated knowledge of peer group to which individuals belong

Focus upon the interaction between the knowledge of different individuals

Philosophyof knowledge


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Knowledge = justified, true belief (normative approach)

sc: Knowledge is 1) what people believe, 2) which has a positive truth value and 3) behind which there is a justification leading to its infallibility

Important: Distinction between real (true and objective) knowledge and belief; this perspective not sufficient for studies of Knowledge Communication!

TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE: KNOWLEDGE >< BELIEF

Psychology,Neuroscience,1st and 2nd genera-tion Cognitive Studies


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1st Generation: Cognition consists in computations in an inner realm of formal symbols and mental representations2nd Generation: Cognition is embodied3rd Generation: Cognition takes place in the interaction between the individual’s embodied mind and the world (à Constructivism and Distributed Cognition included)4th Generation: Will stress the ubiquitous importance of interactions and contexts. But above all, it stresses the role of others, that is, other human beings who directly or indirectly influence the individual’s sense-making.(Linell 2012, 108-109; my emphasis)

GENERATIONS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE

Knowledgein interactionNext generationsCognitive Studies

Domain Knowledge

Construction of domain knowledge

Politicalscience

Knowledge in society


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TRIPPLE HELIX, KNOWLEDGE BASED ECONOMY

In the Triple Helix model of the knowledge-based economy, the main institutions have first been defined as university, industry, and government (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1995). However, these institutional carriers of an innovation system can be expected to entertain a dually layered network: one layer of institutional relations in which they constrain each other’s behavior, and another layer of functional relations in which they shape each other’s expectations. For example, the function of university-industry relations can be performed by different institutional arrangements such as transfer offices, spin-off companies, licensing agreements, etc. (Leydesdorf, 2010 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.4553.pdf) Gov

Uni

Ind

Post-structuralistapproaches,Critical discourseanalysis


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Foucauld: Concepts in society result of discursive struggles

Thus: accepted knowledge in society not natural, but result of power relations

Patient Information Leaflets may be studied according to how the struggle is represented / visible in them

Purpose: Reveal the mechanisms behind the perceived ’natural’

(Fage-Butler 2011)

EXAMPLE: PATIENT INFORMATION LEAFLETS ANDEMPOWERMENT / DISEMPOWERMENT

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AREAS OF STUDY– KNOWLEDGE

Individual knowers

The Knowledge

Interacting knowers

Embedded interacting knowers

Knowledge of a discipline (terms)(C

ritic

al) D

isco

urse

Ana

lysi

sInnovation and knowledge in knowledge society


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AREAS OF STUDY– KNOWLEDGE COMMUNICATION PACE JE

The Knowledge

Interacting knowers

Embedded interacting knowers

Knowledge of a discipline (terms)(C

ritic

al) D

isco

urse

Ana

lysi

sInnovation and knowledge in knowledge society

Individual knowers


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Basic position (Polanyi 1958, 1966)u Knowledge can be expressed and formalised to a great extent thus allowing us access to this

collective knowledge

u But knowledge has an inherent tacit side – some part of any knowledge will be inaccessible to explicitation

u This is due to the fact that knowledge is always held by individual persons without full insight intothe processes that created the knowledge

OPPOSING THE TRADITION: KNOWLEDGE ASPARCIALLY TACIT AND ROOTED IN PERSON


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OPPOSING THE TRADITION

Example (Polanyi 1966)u Knowledge of world (also of knowledge of others) is based upon perceptual processes in the body

(coherent Gestalt emerging tacitly from discrete characteristics, Polanyi 1966, 18)u But we do not generally have insights into such processes, only of their interpreted outcomeu Thus, the decisive part of the process of achieving knowledge is hidden, thus tacit and inherently

personal (= dependent upon experience)

u ”But can it not be argued, once more, that the possibility of teaching these appearances by practical excercises proves that we can tell our knowledge of them? The answer is that we can do so only by relying upon the pupil’s intelligent co-operation for catching the meaning of the demonstration” (Polanyi 1966, 5) à assessing (= building) the tacit, inexpressed knowledge


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”The declared aim of modern science is to establish a strictly detached, objective knowledge. … But suppose that tacit thought forms are an indispensable part of all knowledge, then the ideal of eliminating all personal elements of knowledge would, in effect, aim at the destruction of all knowledge.”

Polanyi 1966, 20 (my emphasis)

u Formalised knowledge, focusing only on (selected) characteristics cannot fulfil purposeu Necessity of holistic (and complex) knowledge of the studied objectu This will be partly tacit (as cannot in general be explicated) and rooted in person (as built upon

experience)


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”… we consider the way one man comes to understand the skillful performance of another man. He must try to combine mentally the movements which the performer combines practically and he must combine them in a pattern similar to the performer’s pattern of movements. … the watcher tries to correlate these moves by seeking to dwell in them from the outside. By such exploratory indwellingthe pupil gets the feel of master’s skill and may learn to rival him.” (Polanyi 1966, 29-30; myemphasis)

u Understanding the conglomerate of the actions of others is creatively assessing the coherentwhole through putting ourselves in the place of the other from our own point of view àMetarepresentations


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The ability of a person to impute mental states to self and to others and to predict behavior on the basisof such states (Leslie 1987, 421)

”Mind-reading”

Metarepresentations (= representations of representations of others) as guiding construction ofmeaning and knowledge in communication

THEORY OF MIND AS BASIC MOTOR IN HUMANUNDERSTANDING


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The ultimate explanation for how it is that human beings are able to communicate with one another in such complex ways with such simple gestures is that they have unique ways of engaging with one another socially in general. More specifically, human beings cooperate with one another in species-unique ways involving processes of shared intentionality. (Tomasello 2008, 72; my emphasis)

COMMUNICATION AS COOPERATING TOUNDERSTAND


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SUMMING UP

u Polanyi (1966) emphasises that not everything we know may actually be formalised and expressedu This tacitness comes among other things from the personal element of all knowledge, connected to

its reliance upon experienceu Although the tacit dimension of the knowledge may not be expressed, human cognition embedded

in processes of putting ourselves in the place of the other in order to understandu In psychology, this is treated as one of the specially well-developed characteristics of human

cognition distinguishing us from other creatures.u Metarepresentations, mindreading, shared intentionality as wired into human cognition

à inherent potential dynamics from aspects of knowledge and from aspects of cognition


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Modelling knowledgeu Semantic networks: Modelling contributions to interactionu Frames: Knowledge underlying interaction Iu Metaphors: Knowledge underlying interaction II

MODELLING PERSONAL CHARACTER OFKNOWLEDGE IN KNOWLEDGE COMMUNICATION


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u Images of semantic relations between elements in a textu Graphic representations of coherence relationsu Presumed reflections of knowledge structures

u Examples› Engberg 2009› Großmann 2014

SEMANTIC NETWORKS


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EXAMPLE BECKER 1992: 438-439

Some current statutes state that a corporation can have a mens rea. This seems a far stretch of the imagination, but stating that a successor corporation has the mens rea to commit its predecessor's crime is utterly preposterous. […] Even in the general corporate context, it has been argued that corporations cannot have a mens rea. As one academic put it, "The concept of wrongdoer is highly individualistic. It presupposes personal qualities: the capacity to have an intention and to choose." This same author also stated that "the costs and burdens of reformation are placed on the organization, not because it has 'done wrong,' in either a literal or metaphorical sense, for it has neither an intention nor a will...." These arguments have been rebutted with the argument that corporations are capable of intent in the form of corporate policy.

guilty mind /mens rea

some current statutes

statehave

corporationseem

a far stretchof imagination

successorcorporation

have

commit

predecessor’s crime

be

utterlypreposterous

argue

[not have]

one academic

state

[someone]

rebut

argument

be capable

intent

[someone]

corporatepolicy


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u Intent to model the way knowledge is structured in long-term memoryu Further abstraction from communicative effort than semantic networksu Structural perspectiveu Schema-structure, divided into a structure of slots (= aspects), fillers (= standard types of content

about the aspects) and values (concrete content of aspect)u Examples

› Engberg 2009› Engberg 2015

FRAMES


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u Circumstances and Conditions (= what are the requirements and the context for a corporation to becriminally liable)› ’mens rea’ à Example next slide› Causation› Responsibility for agents› Corporations as persons› Public trust› Possible defenses

EXAMPLE: SLOT FROM CONCEPT’CORPORATE CRIMINAL LIABILITY’

9.1 Mens rea

9.1.1 Corporations can have no mens

rea (4 authors: Becker, Bucy, Leary, Reilly)

9.1.2 Courts may impute mens rea to

corporations (7 authors: Bros, Bucy, Edelman Hamilton, Leary, Walt, Welk)

9.1.3 Corporations can have mens rea (6 authors: Bucy, Pitt,

Reilly, Snyder, Stern, Welk) Engberg 2015, 22


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u Mapping characteristics of one cognitive domain on to a second domainu Deliberate or non-deliberate use of metaphors in formulation

u Special interest: › Content of knowledge in a discipline› Content aspects especially focused in a discipline› Demonstrate mechanism for content development (metaphorical thinking processes, competing

conceptualisations, …)

METAPHORS


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u Investigate whether ’corporations are (like) people’ is seen as a metaphor (allowing exception from criminal liability) or as a definition (allowing no exception from criminal liability)

u Leonid Pahomov (talk yesterday): Investigate how teachers of song use metaphors to convey their tacit knowledge to their pupils/students (possible non-terminologic specialised language use connected to disciplinary knowledge)

EXAMPLES OF POSSIBLE ANALYSES


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Due to the nature of human knowledge and communication, it is important to not lose track of the role of the individual knower when investigating domain-specific discourse (LSP) as knowledge communication

WHAT I LEARNT FROM PREPARING THE TALK –AND WHAT I BASE THIS TALK UPON


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REFERENCES

Engberg, J. (2009a). Individual Conceptual Structure and Legal Experts' Efficient Communication. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 22(2), 223-243. doi:10.1007/s11196-009-9104-xEngberg, J. (2009b). Methodological aspects of the dynamic character of legal terms. Fachsprache, 31(3-4), 126-138. Engberg, J. (2015). LSP Studies As a Quest For Meso-Level Regularities. In G. Budin & V. Lušicky (Eds.), Languages for Special Purposes in a Multilingual, Transcultural World, Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, Keynote Addresses, 8-10 July 2013, Vienna, Austria. (pp. 14-25). Vienna: University of Vienna.Engberg, J. (2016). Conceptualising Corporate Criminal Liability: Legal Linguistics and the Combination of Descriptive Lenses. In G. Tessuto, V. K. Bhatia, G. Garzone, R. Salvi, & C. Williams (Eds.), Constructing Legal Discourses and Social Practices: Issues and Perspectives (pp. 28-56). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (1995). The Triple Helix---University-Industry-Government Relations: A Laboratory for Knowledge-Based Economic Development. EASST Review, 14, 14-19.


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Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (2000). The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘ Mode 2' to a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations. Research Policy 29(2), 109-123. Fage-Butler, A. M. (2011). Towards a new kind of patient information leaflet? : Risk, trust and the new value of patient-centered communication. Aarhus: Aarhus University.Großmann, U. (2014). Inkongruentes Verstehen. Zur Textrezeption bei wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Studierenden in DaF. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Linell , P. (2012). On the Nature of Language: Formal Written-Language-Biased Linguistics vs. DialogicalLanguage Sciences. In A. Kravchenko (Ed.), Cognitive Dynamics in Linguistic Interactions (pp. 107-124). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge : towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. London,.Thomasen, U. P., Abell, A. F., & Kastberg, P. (2014). Multidisciplinary points of entry to OrganizationalKnowledge Communication Journal of Organizational Knowledge Communication, 1(1), 3-6. Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.