This week's topic is frames. What are they and how can they influence our understanding of discourse?

1. Week 2: frames
Cognitive discourse
analysis

2. Don’t think of
the elephant!

3. You did,
didn’t you

4. You did,
didn’t you
It is, of course, a directive that cannot be carried out — and that
is the point. In order to purposefully not think of an elephant, you
have to think of an elephant.

5. don’t feel bad
much like this picture of a
trunk makes you think of an
elephant, every word makes
you think of a frame related
to that word

6. What is a frame?
“Frames are the mental structures that allow human
beings to understand reality – and sometimes to
create what we take to be reality. [T]hey structure our
ideas and concepts, they shape how we reason, and
they even impact how we perceive and how we act.
For the most part, our use of frames is
unconscious and automatic – we use them without
realizing it.”
George Lakoff

7. Frames
Frames are like simulations or
mental models of the real world:
• what a particular situation is
• how we expect things to work

8. Frames
Frames are like simulations or
mental models of the real world:
• what a particular situation is
• how we expect things to work
For example, we expect to find
certain things in a dollhouse –
miniature stoves, cats, people,
etc. If we found a nuclear
reactor we’d be surprised – it
doesn’t belong in the model!

9. Frames inform opinions

10. Frames inform opinions
How we expect things to work depends on the mental model
we use. For example, conservatives use the mental model of
taxation as a burden to describe taxes they don’t like. Any and
all discussion within that model revolves around reducing
burden or adding burden, and thus no tax can be a good thing.
However, change the model to one of an investor and the
narrative changes and a cost/benefit analysis is put in play.

11. Conservatives use
the frame of taxation
as a burden
• lower taxes = lighter
burden
• bigger taxes =
heavier burden
This frame sets the
tone for discussions
about taxes.

12. taxation can also be
discussed in terms
of investment
• higher taxes = bigger
investment (bigger
potential payout)
• lower taxes = smaller
investment (slower,
smaller gains)

13. what about facts, tho?
Many still believe, that if you just present people with
the facts they will come to the correct conclusion.

14. objective realism

15. objective realism
When you assume that there is one way to objectively present
facts. As a result, you might think that meaning making is
manipulative.

16. frames vs facts
• it is impossible to perceive
objective facts
• everything gets filtered
through our perception and
cognition
• there is no way to perceive
reality that is divorced from
our conceptual structure
• if the facts don’t fit the theory -
too bad for the facts

17. (Lakoff 2010:73)
„Facts must make sense in terms
of their system of frames, or they
will be ignored”.

18. 4 lessons
about frames

19. Every word evokes a frame
elephant

20. Every word evokes a frame
elephant
A frame is a conceptual structure used in thinking. The word elephant evokes a
frame with an image of an elephant and certain knowledge: an elephant is a
large animal (a mammal) with large floppy ears, a trunk that functions like both
a nose and a hand, large stump-like legs, and so on.

21. Words defined within a
frame evoke the frame
trunk
Bob picked up the
peanut with his trunk.
„Bob”

22. Negating a frame evokes
the frame
elephant
Bob is not an elephant!

23. Negating a frame evokes
the frame
elephant
Bob is not an elephant!
You may have crossed out the elephant in the
picture, but you still totally see there’s an
elephant underneath the red lines.

24. Negating a frame evokes
the frame
elephant
Bob is not an elephant!
Even if we explicitly say we don’t want to evoke the thing we are
still mentioning the thing. An once we use a word it is going to set
off a frame. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s preceeded by negation
or not.

25. Evoking a frame reinforces
that frame
Bob
Bob isn’t an elephant!
Bob isn’t an elephant!
Bob isn’t an elephant!
Bob isn’t an elephant!

26. Exercise
Read the text „Tax relief” and answer the following
questions:
• What is the frame invoked by the TV host?
• What are the consequences for the guests?
• How should the Senator react?

27. “tax relief”
On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words tax relief started appearing in White House communiqués to the
press and in official speeches and reports by conservatives. Let us look in detail at the framing evoked by this term.
The word relief evokes a frame in which there is a blameless Afflicted Person who we identify with and who has some
Affliction, some pain or harm that is imposed by some external Cause-of-pain. Relief is the taking away of the pain or
harm, and it is brought about by some Reliever-of-pain. The Relief frame is an instance of a more general Rescue
scenario, in which there a Hero (The Reliever-of-pain), a Victim (the Afflicted), a Crime (the Affliction), A Villain (the Cause-
of-affliction), and a Rescue (the Pain Relief). The Hero is inherently good, the Villain is evil, and the Victim after the
Rescue owes gratitude to the Hero.
The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. Taxes, in this phrase, are the Affliction (the Crime), proponents of taxes are
the Causes-of Affliction (the Villains), the taxpayer is the Afflicted Victim, and the proponents of “tax relief” are the Heroes
who deserve the taxpayers’ gratitude. Every time the phrase tax relief is used and heard or read by millions of people, the
more this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced.
Now we’re hearing the slogan “Tax relief creates jobs.” Looking at the Relief frame, we see that afflictions and pain can be
quantified, and there can be more or less relief. By the logic of framing (NOT the logic of economics!), if tax relief creates
jobs, then more tax relief creates more jobs. That is just how the president has been arguing for increasing tax cuts from
$350 billion to $550 billion. The new frame incorporates the old Tax Relief frame into a new “Tax Relief Creates Jobs”
frame.
Now suppose that a Senator goes on a news show in which a conservative argues with a liberal. The way these shows
work is that the conservative host states an issue using a conservative framing of that issue. The conservative host says:
“Some say that more tax relief creates more jobs. You have voted against increased tax relief. Why?”

28. End of week 2