Frame Analysis

Abstract

The concept of “frame” is a useful tool to explicate how people interpret and at the same time construct their interactions coherently in specific interactional situations. The concept of “frame” is traced back to Bateson, and it gets its theoretical complexity in Goffman's elaboration of “frame” and his notions of “keying” and “footing.” According to Goffman, a “frame” consists of “principles of organization which govern social events . . . and our subjective involvement in them”; that is, through frames, people identify and define social interactions, in order to participate and maintain involvement in them. Admittedly, however, the concept of frame has been used and referred to in various, but complex, ways in different disciplines, such as linguistics, anthropology, sociology, artificial intelligence, ethnography of speaking, and interactional sociolinguistics, to analyze discourses. For instance, while Bateson and Goffman explain frame as interpretational and inferential dimension (interactive/contextual frame), Tannen uses it as expectation and knowledge structure (cognitive/knowledge frame). As the concept of frame and thereby frame analysis are widely applied and adopted in various fields of study, some theoretical and methodological concerns seem to remain: for example, using a consistent definition of frame and making a clear distinction between frame and framing.