Cognitive frame theory: an analytical framework for time differentiation in discourse.

Abstract

This article develops an analytical framework for the description of time differentiation in discourse based on principles set out in a previous article (Spruyt, 2000). Language is described as a communication frame within which a speaker and a hearer have to focus their attention on a common theme for meaningful discourse to take place. The discourse between parties is described as a spectrum of speech acts wherein the parties have a shared knowledge of aspects such as place, time, occasion, the intrinsic characteristics of things and processes, the type of event and the semantic features involved in causality and intentionality. This knowledge is made available by the brain in the form of epistemic frames — a speech act frame, a state frame and an event frame. An utterance is constructed by the blending of these frames. Within the epistemic framework the present tense is regarded as man's primary field of experience and the cognitive point of departure from where he metaphorically projects to a past tense mental space and a future tense mental space.