Three levels of framing

A sociologist and a linguist, unaware of each other's work, each assigned a technical meaning to the term frame around 1970, based on separate usages of the word frame from the 1950s. Each researcher instigated a theory of frame analysis. Over the following decades, the two approaches to framing became intertwined as followers of both Goffman and Fillmore studied metaphoric framing, examined factors affecting the communication of frames, and became particularly interested in politics and the mass media. Years later, many theorists complain about the fragmented field of frame studies. The paper suggests that some of the fragmentation can be resolved by recognizing the dual origins of framing studies, and classifying instances of framing in either the Goffman or the Fillmore tradition as occurring at the level of language, thought, or communication. These three levels are termed semantic framing, cognitive framing, and communicative framing. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Cognitive Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Computer Science and Robotics > Natural Language Processing.