A Cognitive/Functional Model of a Situated Communication Event

James J. Sosnoskithe Society for Conceptual LogisticsProfessor Emeritus of CommunicationUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

Ordinarily, models of communication are based on the sine qua non components of communicating. Harold Lasswell suggested that to describe a communication event you need to ask five questions.

Figure1

The traditional model of communication is often said to have its origins in the Shannon/Weaver (1949; 1949) model which is linear.

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Figure2

The “traditional” model (Figure 3) is usually associated with Wilbur Schramm (1971, ©1954) who modified the Shannon/Weaver model by adding a dialogical aspect (represented by the arrows suggesting changes in roles by the persons involved). He also added “channel” as a component because channels alter messages.1

Figure3

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Though not in Schramm's 1954 diagrams, "effect" needs to be added so that the model would correspond to the tradition emanating from him and Lasswell.2

The developers of this model—Shannon/Weaver, Schramm, and Lasswell—were researchers who used it in their studies of communicative practices. As in the case of these forerunner, models of communication are most often derived from research into the communicating events.

The cognitive/functional model I propose in this essay is related to research using logistical discourse analysis which I developed in order to track the conceptual changes that occur in research publications. Influenced by Cognitive Linguistics,3 I incorporate cognitive components into the traditional model of communication. Thefunctions of the long term memory play a central role in any instance of human communication as the following diagram suggests:

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Figure4

In a communicating situation, the persons involved invariably bring their cognitive frameworks to it (#3 & #9). Two are especially critical, namely, the functions of the semantic and episodic memory systems in long term memory (Reisberg, 2010; Tulving & Craik, 2000).4 The semantic memory stores concepts and the episodic memory stores experiences. Both memory systems are private and not accessible to observers. If a communicator uses a particular concept or refers to aparticular experience, we do not know precisely how she understands the events or experiences them. We only have access to the public symbols in texts which are a combination of semantic content and references to experiences. Fortunately, the symbols used in texts reflect their target audiences’ commonly shared concepts and experiences.

Influenced by Functional Linguistics, in particular by Michael Halliday,5 I re-conceptualized the “traditional” model of communicationfrom a functional point of view. For Halliday, language is a social semiotic system. The components of a communication event have distinct functions within that system. Consider a computer “system”:

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Figure5: A Computer Workstation

The seven components of this system have different functions. A scanner (5) and a printer (6) have distinct functions, one to enter texts or images into the system, another to make it possible to distribute texts in the system to persons who do not have access to it. The desktop computer (1) with its cordless keyboard (3) and it widescreen monitor (4) constitute an effective workstation but one that is not portable. The laptop (7), on the other hand, is a portable workstation. The router (2) connects the two computers to each other and to the Internet. The term, “workstation,” reflects thepurpose of the system and the type of work done with it explains why all of these components are needed.

I renamed the traditional components of communication to reflect theircoordinate functioning in the language system we typically use to communicate.6 The function of communicators is to communicate, that isto construct a text. Conversely, the function of a communicatee in a communicating event is to render the text meaningful. The function of

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a text is to convey symbols in specific patterns so that the communicatee can re-construct the text that the communicator constructed. The function of shared cultural codes and shared experiences is to evoke meaningful symbolic correspondences between communicators and communicatees. The communication event becomes dialogical when the effect of the communication motivates the communicatee to change his or her role to communicator in order to respond. In addition, texts occasion emotions in their audiences— largely through word choices. Owing to the media in which texts are constructed, usually verbal or visual or a combination of the two, their modalities function as “channels” through which their meanings are conveyed. These structural components of the language system function coordinately.

In a generic cognitive/functional view of communication there are several prominent components in the language system used: communicator, communicatee, text, pre-text, context, emotion, mode andeffect (which takes the form of an action, re-action, or interaction).The diagram (Figure6) represents an abstract general model of a communication event. Unlike the model in the tradition of Schramm, this model includes four unconscious and unobservable components: the communicator’s and the communicatee’s pre-textual cognitive frameworksin the semantic memory and the contextual cognitive frameworks in the episodic memory. These elements are represented in the diagram by public symbols: “frames” and “text-world.”7 The diagram also includes alink between word choices in the text and the emotions of the persons in the exchange. The concept of mode replaces the concept of channelsbecause texts are linked to human sensory systems which respond differently to texts that are verbal or visual or multimodal.8

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Figure 6: A linear cognitive model of a communicating event.[shows the components of communication events that are

observable (white textboxes) and those that are not (shaded textboxes)]

Although this generalized conceptual model of a communication event (Figure 6) is the conceptual basis of a cognitive/functional model of discourse, it is not the model that governs a logistical discourse analysis (LDA). Before I present the LDA model, I need to describe the purpose of this analytical tool.

LDA9 is designed to describe the development of research conceptions.  It is a tool for analyzing:

discourse(s), specifically research discourses concerning communication;

the way terms are used, modified, and maintained by researchers;  and

the evolution of the conceptions underlying terms used in different projects over time. 10

LDA tracks the unfolding discursive expression of cognitive activity. Though textbooks may present concepts as stable and unchanging, the discourse analysis of scientific publications reveals the opposite.11  Research is an elaborate and often lengthy process that

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takes scientists from initial hypotheses and routes them toward various re-conceptions to tentative conclusions.  LDA is an analytical tool that describes these conceptual shifts.

The description of a conceptual change can only be accomplished comparatively—a conception named ψ in discourse #1 containing concepts"a," "b," "c," d," and "e" is the basis of comparison for a conceptionnamed ψ in discourse #2 containing concepts "a," "c," "d," "e," and "f." The comparison reveals the changes in the conception ψ from discourse #1 to discourse #2—the omission of concept "b" and the addition of concept "f." Such changes are often undetectable when thediscourses are separated in time, sometimes by years. The retention of most of the concepts ("a," "c," "d" and "e") in discourse 2 often creates the impression that conception ψ has not changed even though the subtraction of “b” plus the addition of “f” clearly constitutes a change. Conceptual changes usually require detailed comparative analyses of the sort provided by LDA.

These comparisons are governed by the texts rather than the situationsinvolved.12 In the case of research publications, texts exist apart from their authors and audiences. This is not to say that the text exists independently from them; only that they most often do not occupy the same space and time. For example the change that Thomas Kuhn made in his 1962 conception of scientific revolutions in his Presidential address to the Philosophy of Science Association in 1990(Gattei, 2008; Kuhn, Conant, & Haugeland, 2000). Kuhn replaced his conception of the role of paradigms in scientific research with a conception of lexicons (See Stefano Gattei, Thomas Kuhn's "linguistic turn" andthe legacy of logical empiricism, 2008). Kuhn’s address appeared posthumously in The Road Since Structure (2000). Kuhn’s death does not prevent a discourse analysis of these two texts. In addition, it would be futile to try to identify his audiences. Thus, the two texts are the only reliable evidence of his conceptual change.

Similar circumstances pertain to most research publications. Researchers are reluctant to admit to changes in their key conceptionsand audiences and would not be reliable judges of conceptual changes in their work if they discussed them.13 Working with the text apart

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from its author(s) and audience(s) makes the most sense and can be done effectively. The main obstacle to discourse analyses that study texts apart from authors and audiences is that the analysts are, inescapably, readers whose readings are therefore inescapably subjective. As a result various coders are hired to duplicate an analyst’s findings. To establish coding protocols for LDA that can bereplicated, I invented “the competent reader.”

During the period when Reader-Response Criticism and Reception Theory were developed (60s-70s], there were many discussions of how best to conceive readers of literary texts in analyses of them.  The discussion swirled around the ideal reader, the model reader, the resisting reader, etc.  Given the emphasis in LDA on the recognition of language functions tied to linguistic devises and the difficulty ofidentifying the characteristics of an ideal reader, I propose the concept of a “competent” reader. By using this adjective, I hope to evoke earlier discussions of "competence" in which competence was distinguished from performance.14

My choice of the “competent” reader is also motivated by the circumstance that LDA focuses on conceptual constants—not only upon the functions of linguistic devices but also upon the general and abstract concepts that exist in our memories and activate the recall of past experiences.  These are the focus of Fillmore’s and his collaborators’ research into semantic “frames” (2006)  They are the way in which concepts are used and are derived from the computation ofa vast body of usage events.  Correlatively, the various words associated with specific frames can be considered synsets (the semantic networks identified by George Miller and his collaborators who have gathered the data used to compile WordNet).15  On the premise that the meaning of concepts cannot be separated from their use, the material available in WordNet and FrameNet serves as “data” about the semantic relations "available" in discourses as "meaning potential."16 Since the data is a description of usage events, the meaning of concepts in a discourse can be considered accessible to a competent reader.17 Competent readers are analysts who rely on reference works such as FrameNet, WordNet, Cohesion in English, and similar collections of

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data about language use. They have access to a large and growing knowledge base.

In order to emphasize the difference between a competent reader and actual readers, I imagine the competent reader as a figure much like C-3PO, the robotic translator from Star Wars. Just as C-3PO when queried returns a translation of an unintelligible language or provides the cultural context of the foreigners who speak it, the competent reader identifies the textual structure that makes the discourse meaningful.

The Competent ReaderFigure 7

The competent reader's capabilities are limited.  To generalize what is in an actual reader’s knowledge base (or pre-texts) is not possible.  Each case has to be profiled in terms of what a reader might know about the text before reading it.  However, because the competent reader’s pre-textual and con-textual expectations (frames) are text-specific, it is possible to determine what is included in the competent reader’s knowledge base from the data sources mentioned. It provides a statistical likelihood of the meanings of texts actual readers derive.

As a human reader, an analyst is a kind of method actor under the direction of the competent reader who draws upon its knowledge base (the numerous data sources). The analyst does not interpret the text,the competent reader, so to speak, does that for him or her by outlining “meaning parameters. In LDA, the analyst identifies textualunits, bracketing out personal responses, and, in effect, submits to the directions of the competent reader. When a personal interpretation occurs to the analyst, he or she yields to the judgmentof the competent reader. In sum, a particular reader, trained for the part, plays the role of an analyst under the direction of the

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competent reader who has comprehensive knowledge of language use. Whatever the analyst believes about the meaning of the text as a reader is irrelevant.

With these parameters in mind, I argue that the following are the mostprominent component functions of communication viewed from the perspective of a textual record of a communication event apart from its communicator or communicatees:

1. the text function 2. its mode3. its implied author4. its implied audience5. its semantic network6. its coordinate text-world framework7. its implied effect

In Figure 8 (below) the communicator and communicatees are absent because the analysts only have access to the text. The various gray arrows indicate that the communicator is the absent source of the wordchoices, cohesive frames (coherent concepts), and a register consistent with the context of situation (text-world). Since the communicatee(s) cannot construct the text, they are not the source of anything in the text.

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Figure 8

The text, itself, is a physical object with boundaries as indicated inthe diagram. Its mode (verbal, visual, multimodal) is self-evident inits physicality and is usually, but not always, chosen by the communicator. It is constructed as a semantic network with multiple structures in its overall architecture. The encompassing textual structure is architectural in that it is made up of many co-related components, each with a function within the whole system much as doors, floors, stairs, windows, and walls each have a function in a building. There are two complimentary parts to a text’s structure which, in the context of clauses, Halliday and Hasan refer to as the “logical” and “experiential” (1976, p. 40). In the context of discourses, I refer to the two complimentary parts as the “semantic network” and the “coordinate textworld.”

The text’s architecture contains numerous components. Two of the sub-structures which form components are the implied author and audience (see below for details). I highlighted these two components in the diagram to reflect the extent to which the traditional components of acommunicating situation are embedded in the text.

Traditional Model of Communication with Correlative Textual Components

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CODE(semantic network)

AUTHOR TEXT CHANNEL AUDIENCE EFFECT(implied) (mode) (implied) (effect)

CONTEXT(text-world framework)

Figure 9

All of the traditional components of Communication are embedded linguistically and marked in the text. Each component has a distinctive function.

In addition to the implied author, audience, and effect, texts have numerous sub-structural units which are linguistically marked. Withinthe semantic network, for example, arguments whose structures usually contain claims, qualifiers, warrants, backing, grounds, and conclusions, all of which can be identified by their functions in the discourse (The Uses of Argument, Toulmin, 1976). Narratives are another sub-structural component that has linguistically marked features—characters, actions, events, initial states, final states, and so on(Prince, 1973). There are numerous other units, for example, rhetorical figures such a metaphors and so on.

Specific to logistical discourse analysis are “conceptions” which are linguistically marked units. A conception is identifiable by semanticconnections to a particular concept, for example, as a repeated topic in a series of sentences.

The previous considerations lead to a model of texts with the following functions:

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Cognitive/Functional Model of Situated Text Figure 10

For Halliday, the structure of a text is “a configuration of functions,” which Figure 10 represents. In his (and Hasan’s) view, “Atext is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards:it is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and thereforeconsistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, andtherefore cohesive” (1976, p. 23). In figure 10 the context of situation is represented by the text-world function and that cohesion is represented by the semantic network function.

In “Text and Discourse Analysis” Halliday acknowledges that texts have an “implied effect”: “A text unfolds in a context of situation,

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and has some identifiable rhetorical function with reference to that context” (Webster, 2009, p. 369). He regards this effect to be the text’s function in the communication and does not distinguish between the functions of the text and its effects. 18 While including “the interpersonal relationships among the participants” in a communicatingevent, Halliday does not consider the extent to which they are impliedby the text. He does consider the mode of the text but, given his research, he only considers verbal texts, largely in the context of speech.

The Function of the Components of Texts.

Texts are carriers of meaning and not meaningful in themselves. A text in a communicating event has to be “activated” by a communicator or a communicatee to make it meaningful. In the case of Logistical Discourse Analysis, the analyst is a reader. However, he or she is displaced by “The Competent Reader,” the knowledge base of linguistic devices and functions who, in effect, activates the meaning of the symbols in the text appropriately. This is a methodological ideal which, admittedly, is not always achieved.19

The Text Function.

Texts are physical objects which have boundaries—beginnings and endings. From an analytical point of view, the function of these textual boundaries is to demarcate the symbolic objects they contain so that one set can be distinguished from another and thus compared toit. For Halliday the function of a text, generally, is to communicate. This function I refer to as the text’s “effect” (see below).

The Mode Function.

An important aspect of texts is their modality. Texts are sensible phenomenon and convey meaning mostly through sounds or images though in some situations smells, touches, and tastes contribute to the communicating event or some combination of these. The conception of amode in my cognitive/functional model approximates the conception of achannel of communication in the traditional model. I borrow this view

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from cognitive linguistics where the text is in itself meaningless apart from conceptualization (Langacker, 2002b, p. 5). Furthermore, texts are multimodal (as are channels) and can be described as verbal,visual, aural or any combination of the sense activating aspects of a channel. A text is no more than transmitted public symbols that, as textual cues, activate semantic and contextual memory systems in communicatees through some medium.

Textual modes modify the meaning of a communication which may be further modified by the media involved. Texts are characterized by the modalities in which they are constructed, or, in the case of communicatees, re-constructed. The typical types of modifications are:

SENSING MODALITIES

COGNITIVE ABILITIES MEDIA

Seeing Visual ReadingViewing

WordsImages, Gestures

Hearing Auditory ListeningSpeaking

Language, MusicLanguage

Touching

Tactile Distinguishing touches as significations

Gestures

Smelling

Olfactory Distinguishing smells as significations

Tasting Gustatory Distinguishing tastes as significations

Table 1: Modality Modifications

The Implied Author Function.

The main function of a communicator is to construct a text by conceptualizing its symbols. In constructing texts communicators leave numerous traces of themselves embedded in them. These traces are usually referred to by the term, “the implied author” (Prince, 1987). They constitute a persona derived from various indicators of the actual author and assembled into a portrait. In the case of a research publications, the authors and their institutions are identified. In the text, there are often explicit references to the author’s life—this research was funded by the National Science

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Foundation; this data was collected during the time I spent at the Coyote Valley Reservation in Redwood Valley, California in the summer of 1982; My long-time colleague, Amos Tversky, and so on. In addition, the bibliography is an outline of the author’s intellectual history with respect to the project discussed.

The function of these traces is to put readers “in touch” with authors. How individual readers respond to such cues is unpredictablebut there is often considerable factual information in them that sets parameters to responses. For example, Amos and I “presented our main findings in … “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” The “I” in this sentence is Daniel Kahneman.”

The Implied Reader Function.

The function of a communicatee in a communicating event is to interpret the text received in order to render it meaningful. In constructing texts authors usually have particular audiences in mind, for example, articles in the Journal of Communication are usually directed at a technical audience in the field whereas articles in Soap Opera Digest are directed at viewers of Days of Our Lives, Young and Restless, or other shows. As in the case of the implied author, this component of texts leaves enough traces of the author’s target audience for an analyst to put together a portrait of it. The word choices in texts are cues to the target audience. A technical vocabulary usually reveals the field in question whereas sentences such as “Maurice Benard renews GH contract” reveal that the viewers in question are fans of General Hospital. The function of these traces is to situate readers in the appropriate contexts.

The Semantic Network Function.

Cultural codes are construed here as semantic frameworks that characterize particular discourse communities. The semantic framework is stored in the semantic memory but is a private cognitive activity that is accessible only in the symbols of the text and their signification. The default assumption is that the persons in the communicating event share the same generic semantic framework.20

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I distinguish the semantic framework from the semantic network. The semantic framework is the repertoire of frames available in the use ofa language. The semantic network, on the other hand, refers to the interconnections among them and is related to the cohesion of the textwhich is supplemented by the context of situation from which the consistency of the register of the texts is derived.

The concept of COHESION can therefore be usefully supplemented bythat of REGI STER, since the two together effectively define a TEXT. A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in thesetwo regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive. (Cohesion in English, Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 23)

Halliday and Hasan’s distinction between cohesion and register is reflected in my distinction between the semantic network function and the coordinate text-world function.

The semantic network function is to connect the elements of the text into a cohesive semantic structure by connecting frames to each other.In “Text and Discourse Analysis” Halliday regards “development” as oneof the text’s “properties” (Webster, 2009, p. 365) and in “The Architecture of Language,” he considers two correlative structures—syntagmatic and Paradigmatic order as “basic concepts for the study of“language” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, pp. 20-24). In the following paragraphs these two basic concepts are linked to the text’s“development” adding the concept of “conceptual integration”(Fauconnier & Turner, 2002, pp. 39-57).

The following five sentences constitute a discourse:

A discourse is a text activated by communicators and/or communicatees.  A text is a sequence of symbols with a beginning and an end.  It is always situated in time and space.  Texts are constructed in ways that provide instructions for their reconstruction.  This discourse is a text I constructed in my study in 2012 as an illustration of discourse structures.

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Readers begin with the first sentence and move through to the fifth.  Technically, readers begin with the first clause and move through to the last.   For readers (including our competent reader), constructingthe meaning of a discourse from the instructions built into the text reflects the text’s “development” property.  While the sequence of sentences consecutively frame each other, the remembered elements of the sentences already read not only frame the sentence being read but are frequently themselves reframed by the connectivity activated in readers minds.  Reading is a continuous process of framing and reframing along the two intersecting axes of the discourse. 

Figure 11 illustrates this dynamic, calling attention to the circumstance that each clause in the reading sequence interacts with elements in the previous clauses re-framing them while being framed bythem. 

Figure1121

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As Halliday notes in distinguishing texts from clauses, “a text is a semantic entity rather than a formal, lexicogrammatical one” (Webster,2009, p. 363). From the perspective of LDA, it is a semantic network of clauses whose development is a continuous sequence of conceptual changes that can be tracked (See Logistical Discourse Analysis, forthcoming from SCLCR).

The Coordinate Text-World Function. Recognizable situations are “cognitive” events in which past experiences—stored in the episodic memory as generic or typical—are evoked by present experiences. They are correlative to the semantic network but are not identical to it. Like cultural codes, they are cognitive activities that are only accessible in the discursive “textworld” (1999)22 drawn by references in the text to typical experiences.

The text world function situates the text in experiences and corresponds to Charles Fillmore’s conception of a “scene.” It is alsorelated to Halliday’s conception of a register consistent with the context of situation.

The Effect Function. The core functions represent a moment in a communication event. The expression “a moment in a communicating event”allows for the circumstance that the persons in the event often changeroles in the process of communicating. This process is not cyclical. It is not a repetition of the same moment over and over. Rather, the moments in communication events are sequential because communicating progresses and results, though not invariantly, in a continuation of the communication. Every text presented to another person has some effect on that person which is perceptible as an action (reaction, interaction, disposition to act).23

The effect function, like the other functions, is embedded in the text. Generally a research article is structured as an argument and, as I mentioned earlier, arguments are linguistically marked. The effect of an argument is to persuade. It may be accompanied by and semantically related to specific charts, statistics, or images whose effect is to reinforce the argument’s claim.

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Sequences of Communicating Events

The “core” communicating event-moment in this model needs to be understood as a module that can be repeated after an interval. In each iteration, the components multiply creating numerous constructs, pre-texts, and contexts in the participants via textualization(Engler, 1991). As communicating events increase in number and expandover time, they have both a sequential and a cumulative dimension. Considering one “turn” in a conversation to be a moment in a communicating event, as the turns are taken, textual choices, structures, content, and text worlds are elaborated upon or new ones are produced. As each new turn takes place, the previous turns frame the participants’ understanding of the new turn.24

An outcome function of a communicating event is the result of the various ways in which the communicatee is affected emotionally as well ascognitively at any given moment in the sequence.25 Though only impliedin the diagram by the concept of an effect, needs to be included in any description of communicating. All of the core functions (communicator, communicatee, pretexts, contexts, texts, and effects) are interrelated—to some extent—in a communicating event and their interrelations are carried through in a sequence of events.26

Concluding Remarks

The title of this paper sums it up: A Cognitive/Functional Model of a Situated Communication Event. The model proposed is not a model of communication. It is a model of the function of texts in communicatingevents that are situated in experiences. It emphasizes the text’s relation to cognition and the text’s functions in communication events. Its components correspond to data in written texts activated by readers. Logistical discourse analysis focuses on conceptions which are identifiable structures in texts. The adjective, logistical, refers to a method of linguistically oriented analysis that describes the text’s intrinsic development.

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Notes

This essay is an appendix in a forthcoming book—Logistical Discourse Analysis, to be e-published by The Society for Conceptual Logistics. (I am indebted to my colleague, Gordon Carlson, for comments on the argument.)

1 In “How Communication Works,” Schramm used several diagrams to show how his modeldeveloped from Shannon and Weaver’s. In my interpretation of his essay, I combinedhis diagrams into one, retaining his spherical configuration.. I omitted his feedback function of a communicator’s message since it has not been retained in models based on his.2 Schramm’s essay appeared first in The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (Schramm, 1954) which he edited and his essay refers to “effective” communication.3 in particular by Ronald Langacker (2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2008), George Lakoff(1987; 1993; 1980; 1989), Gilles Fauconnier (1974, 1994, 1999; 1996; 2002), Mark Turner (2002; 1989; 1991), and Charles Fillmore (1982, 1997, 2006).4 The expressions semantic and episodic memories do not imply two distinct long term memory systems but refer to the retrieval of verbal and visual memories. How our long term memory system is structured is open to debate but the presence of both verbal and visual elements in working memory is not; nor is the difference between visual and oral perceptions.5 The model is based on the general social function of texts—to communicate, which implies communicators, communicatees, etc. In Michael Halliday’s view, the use of language structures its components because language is a system whose functions depend on how it is being used. The function of language in a particular situation determines the structure of language—the organization of the components involved, e.g., agents, processes, goals, etc. The cognitive/functional model I propose contains components common to the social function of language. In his studies of how children acquire language, Halliday identified several specific functions: instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative and informative. Whereas very young children employ one function at a time, adult use of language expresses many functions in the same utterance. In discussing the morecomplex functions of adult language, Halliday proposes that three “macro”-functions—the ideational, interpersonal, and textual which are complexes of the elemental functions—are present in all social uses of language. See ("The Functional Basis of Language," Halliday, 2003, pp. 298-322). See also An Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)6 Since Cognitive and Functional Linguistics are compatible though distinguishable,I joined the two into a cognitive/functional model of a communication event("Cognitive Linguistics and Functional Linguistics," Nuyts, 2007, pp. 543-588). 7 “Frames” refers to Charles Fillmore’s model of “frame semantics” (2006) and “text-world” refers to Paul Werth’s model of text-worlds in his Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse (1999).8 It needs to be noted that Figure6 describes a moment in a communicating event. Iuse the expression “a moment of a communicating event” to allow for the circumstance that the persons in the event often change roles in the process of communicating. This model represents the equivalent of a turn in a conversation where person A is addressing person B. In the next moment, it is B’s turn to address A. The same model applies to the next turn which would be diagrammed as a sequence of communication events.9 The choice of the adjective logistical was motivated by its dual etymology and its current use. Logistic is related to the Greek logízein —to reckon— and légein —to choose, recount, speak— both of which are related to lógos —a word, saying, speech, discourse. Logistics, on the other hand, is related to the French ľart logistique —the art of quartering troops, from Middle French logis —lodging— which

comes from Old French logeis —shelter for an army, encampment. The Greek suffix -istikos was added to the French word for lodging —loge— and rendered as logistics. Thus, in LDA logistical refers to the arrangement and development of a discourse. The current use of the term, logistics, popularized by the TV ads for UPS, refers to the organization, routing, and distribution of materials—in the case of UPS, packages. In the case of LDA, it refers to the processing of packages of meaning.10 Conceptual change is one of the objects of analysis in LDA. Though often of minor significance, some conceptual changes are “revolutionary” as Kuhn establishedin his ground-breaking book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Ironically, Kuhn's re-conceptualization of "scientific revolutions," in his presidential address to the Philosophy of Science in 1990 has been largely unnoticed. His 1962 conception of a paradigm continued to be invoked long after Kuhn reconceived it which points to a common phenomenon. Terms often achieve canonical status because they are articulated in works that have achieved canonical status. Often the canonization ofa term is maintained long after its underlying conception is outdated. Even though Kuhn modified his conception of a paradigm dramatically after 1962, many communication scholars still cite Structure. In the context of Communication Studies, the same can be said for the conception of framing that Entman published in 1983 which he significantly modified in 2003. 11 In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that textbooks disguise the conceptual changes that characterize scientific creativity:

Both scientists and laymen take much of their image of creative scientific activity from an authoritative source that systematically disguises—partly for important functional reasons—the existence and significance of scientificrevolutions. …. As the source of authority, I have in mind principally textbooks of science…. They address them-selves to an already articulated body of problems, data, and theory, most often to the particular set of paradigms to which the scientific community is committed at the time they arewritten. Textbooks themselves aim to communicate the vocabulary and syntax ofa contemporary scientific language. [They] record the stable outcome of past revolutions and thus display the bases of the current normal-scientific tradition. To fulfill their function they need not provide authentic information about the way in which those bases were first recognized and thenembraced by the profession. In the case of textbooks, at least, there are even good reasons why, in these matters, they should be systematically misleading. (1962, pp. 136-137)

I tested his contention in a LDA analysis of 12 editions of an Introduction to Communication (2014). My analysis showed that major concepts in communication research introduced in the 1st edition were not modified (with the exception of adding “channel” in the 4th edition) and their definitions (as well as their descriptions) throughout the 12 editions. The concepts were taken for the most part from Shannon and Weaver with the exception of adding to them a dialogical dimension and changing “transmitter” to sender. There is much more evidence to support Kuhn’s observation. 12 More often than not, an LDA comparison is between texts. Though possible, a comparison of textual structures within a single text is not usually undertaken. 13 At times, researchers will refer to changes they made to the conceptions they employed in earlier publications. However, their accounts, like most autobiographical comments, are not particularly reliable

14 In LDA, this distinction is not used in Chomsky’s sense but in the sense proposed by Dell Hymes (1966).15 http://wordnet.princeton.edu/16 This expression was introduced by Michael Halliday in his studies of language acquisition in children. He describes it as ʺa resource, a network of options each one of which can be interpreted by reference to the child’s model of reality and ofhis own place in it. The reality and hence the meaning potential is constantly

under construction, being added to, differentiated within and modifiedʺ ﴾THE

ESSENTIAL HALLIDAY, ʺFunctional Semantics of Language Development,ʺ 9-10﴿. In my view, reading a text parallels Hallidayʹs delineation of a child’s acquisition of language. Readers, so to speak, acquire the language of the text as meaning potential, the resource from which their acts of reading are derived.17 This is does not imply that the ways in which the meaning of the text is ʺincarnatedʺ in an individual’s working memory is typical.  They are not typical but, rather, individual and personal. However, in the case of the competent reader, they are proto-typical—they fall within the range of the conceptual categories or domains associated with the use of the words in texts (George. Lakoff, 1987; Rosch & B, 1978).18 Halliday does not regard texts as “meaningless” until activated by a person. Thus, in his terminological system a text’s function is to communicate. To maintain my cognitive linguistic orientation, I construe the text as “physical” sets of symbols. However, when activated, cues about the “effects” which the text is designed to have become apparent. The physicality of texts in LDA has a function in a communicating event which is to signal its beginning and ending and preserve the order (sequence) of its symbols. 19 Although the competent reader ideally supplants human coders, the analyst is notinfallible. However, researchers other than the initial analyst can check his or her account of the relation between the textual structures and the data sources I have personified as the competent reader.20 If communication occurs, the communicator and communicatee have to some degree shared cultural codes and experiences. To the extent that they are not shared, communication cannot occur.21 Technically, there are more clauses than shown in the diagram which I wanted to keep relatively simple.22 Paul Werth’s conception of a “textworld” (1999) parallels Fillmore’s “scene” in his frame semantics (2006) in that both are conceptions of “scenarios,” but Werth’sconception favors the textual construction of them as instructions for the reader or listener to re-construct the writer or speaker’s references to experience as an interaction that can be visualized.23 Only an interaction effect implies a continuation of the communication by responding to a communicator in a second “moment” of the event. 24 Sequences of communication events usually have more than two moments in them. To match the exact number of moments in a model would not be feasible. As in the case of modifiers of the participants, the duration of a communication event may be marked by symbols distinguishing among brief, short, long, and lengthy processes. It is rare that the communication researchers study processes in excess of several hours without engaging a more macro view of the connected

events. Few conversations, for example, last for an entire day, much less days, or months. Even in instance where a conversation is about the same topic, other events intervene to bring it to an end, however temporary. Resuming a communication event can be treated as a separate event. Consider, for example, watching a miniseries on TV. The producers are usually careful to provide some kind of closure at the end of each episode. An email exchange may take place overseveral days or even months, but in each case, it is marked by the end of a text, and so on.25 In a series of communicating events, it is usually possible to identify the “instigating or source communicator(s)” and the “target communicate(s).”26 See C. Kaha Waite’s conception of “the communication matrix” (2003).