Configural Analysis of VI-Sites |
ABSTRACT Websites are comprised of words and images. Both combine to form a text. If we understand texts to represent our experiences of the world, then a configural analysis of them is appropriate. Though they are not often considered "texts" in the sense just mentined, websites are comprised of words and images in varying proportions. It is common to speak of "navigating" the Internet--websites linked to other websites. Taken together as representations of experience, they form virtual worlds. In analysizing a particular virtual world, it is helpful to extrapolate from the metaphor of a world. Discourses authored by different persons can be understood to be the voices of figures in the world. As one travels through the world, one is positioned in specific ways depending on the pathways one takes. At every turn on the path, travelers are positioned in ways that govern their perspectives on the virtual world. Each journey through a virtual world has an effect on the perspectives one maintains in the "real world," however miniscule. |
Websites are comprised of words and images. Both combine to form a text. 
Though it is not common, discourse analysis is an appropriate analytical tool to analyze web sites because it includes the relations between the discourse and the accompanying graphics.
The term, which is from the Latin cum (with) and figura (figure), refers to the ways in which figures are combined to form cognitive maps or blends of experience (configurations). Many forms of discourse analysis focus only on the verbal elements in a “text,” without explicit attention to the graphical elements.
websites as virtual worldS & TEXTS
Configural analysis begins with the premise that language directly or indirectly expresses our relations to experience. This premise is derived from Cognitive Linguistics.
The concepts introduced in this chapter do not constitute an arbitrary set. Their interrelationship stems from the central role in Cognitive Linguistics of the notion of construal. The notions of perspective, highlighting, and framing constitute different aspects of that process, while metaphor is an important medium through which a particular 'imaging' (Langacker 1990: 5) is imposed on a given scene. In interaction with each other, these notions have significant implications for an understanding of the nature of communication. In particular, they suggest that meaning is not a property of utterances but a product of the interaction between an utterance and a human being's `knowledge base'—an idea that introduces an important relativist dimension to the process of interpretation. This view of language and interpretation brings linguistic theory much closer to related disciplines such as ethnography and cultural studies than do formally based approaches. Lee, Cognitive Linguistics, 2004. 12)
Given that we understand our experiences by the cognitive process of mapping past experiences onto present ones, in effect we draw upon our cognitive frameworks (our worldviews) to guide us in understanding our activities. Hence linguistic expressions are cognitive maps of our experience of our world. Even when we articulate a minute element in the/our world, the implied WORLD is invariably the CONTEXT of that experience. Thus signification is invariably an expression of some element of a virtual world.
In semiotic theory, a "text" is any signifying system. From this point of view, a website is a TEXT that constitutes a virtual world.
In his A Theory of Semiotics, Umberto Eco puts this issue into a sharp focus. In his first chapter he describes a very simple communication situation in which a engineer receives signals from a transmitter about the water level of a dam to inform him whether the watergate needs to be opened or can remain closed.
Since there are at least three codes, a denotative one and two connotative ones, if all three are ferred to when interpreting the sign-vehicle, the engineer has got three messages, namely: (i) «the water has reached danger level»; (ii) «you must activate the evacuation lever»; (iii) «there is a flood ». Thus, a single sign-vehicle, insofar as several codes make it become the functive of several sign -functions (although connotatively linked), can become the expression of several contents, and produce a complex discourse such as: «Since water has reached the danger lvel, you must evacuate it, otherwise there will be a flood.» I am not saying that a single code can produce many messages, one after the other, for this is a mere truism: I am saying that usually a single sign-vehicle conveys many intertwined contents and therefore what is commonly called a 'message' is in fact a text whose content is a multilevelled discourse. (57, emphasis mine, italics Eco's).
The distinction Eco makes between a text and a discourse hinges on the notion that texts contain discourses.
novels/films as virtual worlds
Every novel creates a fictional "story world." The same can be said of every film. Take, for example, The Lord of the Rings.
For a configural analysis see Everything is Illuminated (a novel that has been filmed).
second life as a virtual world
Virtual Monmartre is a world unto itself. It only exists virtually and is not equivalent to the actual Monmartre. Analyzing conversations in SL without considering it as a virtual world would be to leave out the most crucial aspect of the context of experience.
C-CS is a virtual world not unlike VM or EII. This is not apparent because we do not ordinarily construe texts as worlds. But, consider the elements that make up a world and compare them to the elements that make up the text of C-CS.
| WORLD | WEBSITES | |
| space | places | bookmarks, spaces, pages, locations |
| selves | your virtual identy | |
| other persons | other virtual identities | |
| things | images | |
| time | duration | production/reception |
| movement | linking | |
| history | sequence of urls |
From these parallels, we can develop an analytic vocabulary to use in "configural" discourse analysis.
location of positions
perspective/voice
other perspectives/voices
situated communication (revealed through images or named)
production and reception of texts/conversations
moves [motifs/motives] = process
hiSTORY
The discourse in C-CS, has to be considered in Bachtinian terms as belonging to a chorus of VOICES one of which is mine but most of which are those of other persons--self-figures and other-figures or identities.
[Note: At the moment, most of the “other” voices in C-CS are “secondary sources.” My voice was recorded in “primary mode” and also two other voices—Kevin Harvey, David Downing. Primary mode is a text articulated for inscription in the site. Secondary mode is a text articulated in another context that is quoted in the site--e.g., Lee, Eco. Tertiary mode is a text about a primary source articulated by a secondary source and quoted on the site--e.g., Langaker quoted by Lee. These are levels of “authority.” A secondary mode of articulation is inserted on the site “out of context,” hence less authoritative. A tertiary mode presents an articulation whose author is at three levels of distance from the site as an articulatory forum.]
Discursive terrains that can be mapped
The map of this virtual world shows various “textual terrains” (locations with different characteristics) and various pathways through them. Terrains are characterized as textuality structured by generic differences. For example, one “discourse terrain” is an argument, another is an “illustration,” another is a “definition.” All texts are combinations of words and images. [A text without any graphical figures is nonetheless an image of darkly colored marks against a lighter colored background.]
Textual terrains have surfaces and depths. A journeying reader can invariably plunge deeper into the text or travel quickly along the surface.
abstract >> text >> footnote OR definition OR illustration
Every “locus” on the map has both a temporal and spatial character. The temporal aspect pertains to the duration of the production or reception of texts. The spatial aspect pertains to its location on the map of the virtual world.
The pathways are modes of experiencing. They can be construed as cognitive processes: E.g., quests, confrontations, etc. [Desires and conflicts motivate stories and quests or confrontations motivate the choice of pathways.]
The voices in virtual worlds can be construed in parallel with Propp's "Dramatis Personae" who function with respect to the modality of experience the VI pursues. Though specific narratives always have a unique character, if one analyzes the underlying narrative structure, they can be seen to tell the same story. With any NARRATIVE we have to distinguish between its STRUCTURE and its CONTENT. For example, resurrection narratives, for example the narratives of Inanna, Ishtar, Persephone, Osiris, Orpheus, and Christ are quite different in their content, but very similar in their structure, They begin with a person in a familiar everyday location. That person either decides to go or is captured and taken into a nether-world (a world totally unlike the familiar everyday world) wherein they are nearly killed and imprisoned forever. By one rouse or another, they escape back into the ordinary world. Whether that world is called a netherworld, the underworld, hell, or simply a wild forest or ocean, the figures in the narrative FUNCTION in quite similar ways. They resurrect; they return (most often rise up from) the world of the dead. Whether hero or heroine the figures perform the same narrative function. We discover these distinctions when we analyze the sentences that make up each narrative. For example, Vladimir Propp writes:
Let us compare the following events:
1. A tsar gives an eagle to a hero. The eagle carries the hero away to another kingdom.
2. An old man gives Sucenko a horse. The horse carries Sucenko away to another kingdom.
3. A sorcerer give Ivan a little boat. The boat takes Ivan to another kingdom.
4. A princess gives Ivan a ring. Young men appearing from out of the ring carry Ivan away into another kingdom.
Both constants and variables are present in the preceding instances. The names of the dramatis personae change (as well as the attributes of each), but neither ACTIONS nor FUNCTIONS change. From this we can draw the inference that a tale [narrative] often attributes identical actions to various personages. The makes possible the study of tale according to the functions of its dramatis personae. (Morphology of the Folktale, Univ. of Texas Press, 1968, pages 19‑20.)
Propp argues later in the same work that all narratives are based on two very simple structures that we can say constitute a MOVEMENT:
1. from a DESIRE [LACK] through an ACTION to the FULFILLMENT or NON‑Fulfillment of the original desire or
2. from a CONFLICT [VILLAINY] through an ACTION to the resolution of the conflict in either VICTORY or DEFEAT.
These functions may not seem descriptive of navigating a website until they are understood metaphorically. Once the hero is understood to be the self-figure (the virtual identity of the visitor to the site), the functions can be translated into terms that suit VI-Sites. Propp's conception of a "lack" can be translated into "a search" (wish desire to obtain something--e.g., information that one lacks). The turning point would be when the VIP/hero is "transferred, delivered, or led to the object of the search." This might be accomplished by the aide of a menu. The menu is a discourse of directions authored by an other voice on the sight. A "magical agent" might be a search engine.
Propp's term, "villainy" is dramatic but it points to a form of opposition that harms or injures the hero. If we consider that an identity, following Harre and Langenhove, is a position one holds that expresses a value, then a voice on a site that questions or challenges that value constitutes a threat to the hero/VIP. It would be a mistake to press for exact correspondences. The main point about a VI-Site as a story world is that a VIP lacks something or is opposed by someone. This initates the VIP's movement through the site, leading to the discovery of (a perspective) what is lacking or to the confirmation of or alternation of a perspective.
The manner in which a VIP is positioned in this world can be characterized in terms of the functional relationship between one's own voice and the other voices. Some voices, for example, have the position of critic with respect to other voices. Other voices have the position of allies. Various relations of production and reception can be understood as positions or perspectives. For example, author/reader, editor/edited, critic/criticized, and so on. These positions might alternate paralleling a conversation.
There are outcomes in journeying through this virtual world that depend upon the discursive relations generated during it. Journeyers change perspectives however minimally. A premise of configural analysis is that travelers encounter “new” perspectives which alter previous ones.
The C-CS site is structured to persuade visitors to modify their beliefs about communication, inviting them to shift from a logical/computational view to a analogical/connectionist view. My voice is the guide through the site and expresses the belief that communication is more analogical than logical. Various authors are positioned in the site as allies. Others are competitors whose views conflict with the view privileged on the site. Many pathways on the site are structured as arguments during which the connectionists defeat the computationalists. This argument leads to a delineation of communication as a process of configuring and various texts are investigated through configural analyses.
The failure of the site is tied to the predominance of the voice of jjs. The site is an extension of his worldview. The other voices on the site are, for the most part, secondary sources.
Though the site was designed as a VI-Site, it does not provide incentives (motives) for other voices to contribute. In fact, it is difficult to acquire a virtual identity specific to the site, nor are there opportunities for discussion and debate.
jjs
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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