Frame Semantics

Overview:

Frames operate in the background but they are fundamental to the ways we reason and think about the world. A frame is a schematic representation of a situation involving various participants, props, and other conceptual roles. Frame semantics is a theory of linguistic meaning developed by Charles J. Fillmore that extends his earlier case grammar. It relates linguistic semantics to encyclopedic knowledge. The basic idea is that one cannot understand the meaning of a single word without access to all the essential knowledge that relates to that word. Frame semantics offers a particular way of looking at word meanings, as well as a way of characterizing principles for creating new words and phrases, for adding new meanings to words, and for assembling the meanings of elements in a text into the total meaning of the text.

Frames:

By the term ‘frame’ I have in mind any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it is, when one of the things in such a structure, all of the others are automatically made available. For example, consider a frame of It’s a sunny morning, you wake up and the energetic atmosphere is perfect for a morning jog. You get dressed, get your running shoes on. Take your phone, keys and put them on AirPods. You walk out, in the hallway you are greeted by a friend, you chat for a bit and then lock your room door. On the way out start your morning playlist. The music is a mood buster, greet your friend passing by and then start with jogging.

Intervention of frame

To understand this frame and connections to different concepts, think about the intervention of this frame. Here the concept of 'Uncomfortable objects' ( Katerina Kamprani) comes in. Uncomfortable objects: Deliberately creating inconvenient everyday objects much of what we do and understand is based on our registering of repeated patterns in daily life. Some of these patterns are cycles, like breathing, that are so automatic that we barely realise they are happening. For example in the above frame, see Airpods as an object of personal touch and the link to our own morning playlist. Just changing one factor here will thereby change the way we look and feel comfortable with this frame. Airpods have always been associated with private music, riding on the theory that private music allows us to create our own world. In order to disrupt the frame, I wish to change that aspect for AirPods.

Take away:

Frames operate in the background but they are fundamental to the ways we reason and think about the world. By making something dysfunctional within the frame, it prompts us to question the conventions of the frame concerned to perhaps find a way that this dysfunctional object could become meaningful. One of the learning experience through this project was to see how simple was to turn things uncomfortable. A goal is achieved through evoking the cultural frames of which the designed objects are a part.

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