Cognitive analysis

The innovation in the multidimensional methodology lies primarily in the cognitive analysis, which examines the content of the text at a very abstract level. As this aspect of the methodology is original, I have found it relevant to first outline what a cognitive viewpoint can entail for a text analysis. As mentioned above, the methodology at cognitive level is closely related to the theoretical framework intro-duced in the previous chapter. My outline in this chapter, however, will approach matters from the perspective of the author(s) and their collective formation of genre patterns.

3.1.1 Theoretical background

If written texts are viewed from a cognitive viewpoint, they can be seen as reflections of how the authors perceive matters. By studying

the cognitive content of a text we should, therefore, be able to grasp how its author structures the world. This way of looking at things is, however, too simple, as a text undoubtedly also reflects how the author thinks matters should be presented, i.e. his or her conception of the contents required by the actual text type, or to put it another way the author’s stored cognitive genre frame. However, the genre frame is in its turn formed as a reflection of the collective beliefs within the professional community. Genre developments thus reflect developments in the collective belief system, or in other words gen-res have developed as a means of expgen-ressing a professional view of reality (cf. Chapter 2).

A text reflects the beliefs and norms of the professional community to which the author belongs. The cognitive level of the text reflects how the author structures the knowledge he or she wants to present, or at least what the author believes is the accepted way of structuring this knowledge within the school or group to which he or she belongs.

The text can thus be seen as the product of the author’s adaptation to the requirements and his or her own unique way of structuring the subject matter.

Rather than an opposition between belief structure and cognitive genre frame, there exists a mutual correspondence. The cognitive structure the readers can discern in the texts they read influences their way of thinking so that texts are factors in the formation of a collective belief system. On the other hand, the way authors men-tally structure reality is reflected in the texts they write, which means that we can study changes in the collective belief system of a group of people by studying the cognitive content of the texts they produce.

We must also consider that these collective belief systems are formed within society and within subgroups in this society. This means that the cognitive content of texts reflects the contextual framework in which the texts are produced. It also means that changes in the societal framework of a text genre are reflected in the genre patterns.

Genre developments thus reflect developments in sections of society and in society as a whole.

As mentioned in the introductory part of this chapter, the cogni-tive analysis method was originally developed as a means to grasp how contextual factors shape scientific and popular science discourse during different periods. I have therefore found it relevant to also distinguish three frames: a situated frame, a disciplinary framework (cf. environmental framework), and a societal framework. Figure 3.1 gives an idea of the contextual framework for scientific writing within different disciplines.

The inner frame, regarding the actual production of the text, is more or less unique for each text. The production of the text can be seen as a communicative event, or a chain of communicative events. For genre-bound changes, however, the other two frames are the most important, the middle frame showing factors unique to each discipline and the outer showing factors common to discourse during a certain period.

Turning to the middle frame, my claim is that in many respects, each academic discipline has developed in its own specific way.

Theory bases are unique to each discipline, and have certainly not been static in any discipline. Such changes in theory and in method-ology can be assumed to be reflected in the related texts.

Disciplines differ in how long they have been established as sci-ences. Medicine, seen as a whole, is an old science. Technology and economics, on the other hand, are new and part of their evolution into established academic disciplines has taken place since the end of the nineteenth century. The process of becoming established can be seen as a change of worlds from a professional world of work with its rules to an academic world with its rules.

The professional situation is a third factor that is unique to each discipline. The role and status of the main professions in the three disciplines have changed. In 1980, doctors, engineers and economists had a high status in society and played important roles. The picture was, however, somewhat different in the eighteenth century and also

Educational sector

Professional situation Theory base

TEXT Academic

community

Age as established science

Public sector Private life Professional life

Societal sectors

Discipline

Situation

Figure 3.1 Contextual frames shaping writing in the professions (Adapted from Figure 1 in Gunnarsson, 1992a: 208)

at the beginning of the twentieth century, and these changes in the sta-tus and role of the professions are liable to be reflected in the texts.

Texts in each discipline can thus be assumed to follow their own specific courses of development due to their unique histories. In many respects, however, their development may be assumed to be the same, reflecting changes in society as a whole. As the outer frame shows (Figure 3.1), I have chosen to distinguish five sectors within the soci-etal framework: Academic community, professional life, educational sector, public sector and private life. My claim is that these sectors are relevant for variation and change at cognitive text level.

3.1.2 Method for cognitive analysis

I will now continue with a presentation of the method for cognitive analysis. The aim of the methodology can be captured by the following questions: (1) How can we obtain a comparable picture of the content of texts on different subjects, in different languages and from different disciplines and periods? (2) How can we capture the changes that are relevant from a sociolinguistic point of view?

The aim of the cognitive analysis is thus to describe the content, i.e.

the knowledge, presented in the text in a way that makes comparisons possible and relevant. The content in fact varies from discipline to dis-cipline, from subject to subject, from text to text. At an abstract level it can, however, be said to vary with regard to five cognitive worlds: a scientific world, a practical world, an object world, a private world and an external world. These worlds can be related to the different sectors of society distinguished above (Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2 Cognitive worlds and sectors of society (Adapted from Figure 3 in Gunnarsson, 1992a: 212)

Cognitive worlds

Scientific world Object world Practical world Private world External world

Academic community Educational sector Professional life Private life Public sector

Societal sectors

My world concept has similarities with the schema concept which we are familiar with from theories within cognitive psych-ology. There, schema is used to cover quite different types of storing, that of:

1. Specific, situational knowledge. Often the term script is used for situation-bound knowledge (e.g. Schank and Abelson, 1977) and the term domain-related knowledge for sector-bound knowledge (e.g. Spilich et al., 1979, Voss et al., 1980).

2. General knowledge, i.e. prototypical knowledge of a general kind – e.g., knowledge of text types, speech acts, personal-ities and so forth – that can be activated in different types of situation. The term frame is often used for this kind of know-ledge (Bartlett, 1932, Thorndyke, 1977, Kintsch, 1978).

3. Global structuring, meaning that the individual sees reality as a whole from a certain perspective (Schutz and Luckmann, 1984).

My world concept has similarities with the schema concept, in the sense of specific and general knowledge. The five worlds – sci-entific, practical, object, private and external – are possible know-ledge structures, which means that they form a background for idealized authors when they construct texts and for idealized read-ers when they try to build up a mental representation of the text they read. Reading as well as writing is thus seen as a text world production based on a common storage of cognitive and linguistic operations and using similar knowledge (e.g. van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983, Kucer, 1985).

This does not, however, mean that these worlds are equally avail-able to all authors and all readers of professional texts. On the con-trary, one of the purposes of analyzing texts by means of cognitive worlds is to describe the differences between authors belonging to different expert disciplines and specializing in different subjects, between authors from different periods and between authors with dif-ferent pictures of their readers.

In the cognitive analysis, each item of information contained in a text is assigned to one of the five worlds. By means of the world analysis, we thus obtain an overall picture of the knowledge struc-ture of a text. Figure 3.3 shows the five cognitive worlds and their related categories aspect and dimension. I have found it relevant to distinguish between two types of text content (text types): state-descriptive and action-state-descriptive. This distinction is not relevant for a categorization of the texts as a whole but rather of their con-stituent parts.

Within each world, I identify certain abstract categories that are common to different texts. On one level these categories relate to dif-ferent aspects: within the scientific world to theory, classification and experiment; within the practical world to work and interaction; within the object world to phenomenon, part focused and whole focused;

within the private world to experience and personal situation; within the external world to conditions and measures of social, economic and political kinds.

On another level, these categories relate to different (time) dimensions.

For state-descriptive texts, these (time) dimensions are cause, phenom-enon, process and change. For action-descriptive texts, they are prevent-ive measure/cause, phenomenon, measure/process and change/result.

From this general, or invariant, description of the worlds and their subcategories, I will now turn to a more specified one. The worlds and categories also appear in variant forms. We can thus describe one text

Theory

Change

Process

Phenomenon

Cause

Classification Scientific world

Practical world

Object world

Private world

External world

Experiment

Work Interaction Phenomenon Part focused Whole focused

Experience Personal situation Soc. econ. conditions Soc. econ. measures

Figure 3.3 Cognitive worlds, aspects and dimensions: state-descriptive text parts (Adapted from Figure 6.2 in Gunnarsson, 1997a: 111)

universe for the medical discipline, one for the technical discipline, one for the economic discipline, one for legal texts, one for business discourse etc. Figures 3.4a and 3.4b show the object world and its related categories for the medical discipline.

As mentioned above, the worlds and categories appear in variant forms for each discipline. In the medical discipline, the practical world becomes the hospital world and the object world becomes the disease world. As for the categories, cause becomes medical cause, object becomes disease, process becomes disease process and so on.

Figure 3.4a concerns elements of texts that are state-descriptive and Figure 3.4b those of texts that are action-descriptive. The (time)

medical

Figure 3.4a Object world for the medical discipline. State-descriptive text parts (Adapted from Figure 5a in Gunnarsson, 1992a: 217)

Cause Process Change/Result

Figure 3.4b Object world for the medical discipline. Action-descriptive text parts (Adapted from Figure 5b in Gunnarsson, 1992a: 217)

dimension is also present in these figures along the horizontal axis. In state-descriptive texts, disease is central within the dis-ease world. The disdis-ease is preceded by medical cause (to the left in the schemata) and is followed in time by the disease process and the medical change (to the right). In action-descriptive texts (Figure 3.4b), the treatment is central within the disease world.

Treatment is preceded by disease and by prevention of disease (to the left in the schema) and followed by the result of the treatment (to the right).

The vertical axis allows different aspects to be focused on. Disease is described with the focus on the phenomenon, the disease (at the top of the schema), on some part, an organ (in the middle) or on the whole, the patient (at the bottom). Treatment is described with the focus on the treatment as such (at the top of the schema), on treatment of an organ (in the middle) or on treatment of the patient (at the bottom).

To conclude this presentation of the cognitive methodology, I will show some examples of the categorization of the content. The relevant aspect is shown in brackets below each example.

Scientific world

(1) Muscular palsy is a possible explanation, and this has been demonstrated up to six months after subcostal incisions.

(Aspect: Theory)

(2) But pneumothorax is quite commonly regarded as a result of diagnostic or therapeutic measures or as a complication of compli-cated or advanced lung disease.

(Aspect: Classification)

(3) During the period January 1977 until March 1978 29 patients were treated in 36 different cases of pneumothorax using the Heimlich valve (Table II).

(Aspect: Experiment) Object world

(4) Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is caused by a liv-ing organism invisible to the naked eye, the tubercle bacillus, and which occurs not only in human beings, but also in animals.

(Aspect: Phenomenon) Practical world

(5) Insertion of the chest drain was preceded by premedication with pethidine and careful local anaesthesia.

(Aspect: Work)

Private world

(6) For the first few days after the insertion of the drain, many patients feel considerable pain.

(Aspect: Experience) External world

(7) Introducing the simplified method of treatment proposed would result in significant savings.

(Aspect: Measures)