PERSPECTIVE PAPER:COMPLEX SEMANTIC INFORMATION PROCESSING
Teun A. van Dijk
University of Amsterdam
Introduction - Aims - Problems
In this paper some recent results from linguistics, cognitive psychology and artificial
intelligence will be applied in the formulation of some major problems of information
science.* These results pertain to theories about the structure and processing of discourse
and of complex semantic information in particular. It is argued that grammatical andother models of discourse constitute a necessary basis for a sound theoretical explication ofsuch terms as 'content of a text (or document)', 'abstract' or 'summary', 'key-word','paraphrase', 'theme' or 'topic', etc., as they are used in information science. In this respect
the current automatic or non-automatic approaches to the analysis and processing of texts
in documentation are found to be inadequate, whatever their practical merits may be.
The background for the proposals in this paper is the development, in linguistics, of socalled text grammars** and of other theories of discourse structure and discourse
processing in neighbouring disciplines such as cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence,poetics, anthropology, etc. These various/in part inter-disciplinary, approaches will be
captured under the label of discourse studies. Attempts towards the elaboration of someelements of text grammars began in the late sixties, particularly in both Germanics, andwere paralleled by other work paying increasing attention to pragmatic, social and culturalcontexts of language and language use. Both directions of research are to be seen as
reactions against some major tenets in the generative-transformational ("Chomskyan")paradigm in linguistics, e.g., the study of the structure of sentences in isolation. It has beenshown that the syntactic and semantic structure and interpretation of sentences should bestudied relative to those of other sentences in the discourse. Moreover, it has been argued
that discourses may have specific overall structi.res, which cannot be formulated in termsof sentence structure alone, e.g. semantic macrostruclures.
*lt should be .'inphasi/ed that only a few aspects of the possible applications of linguistics are dealt with in
this paper. Secondly, the paper s strictly informal: no logical defm (ions of the various structures and rules
are given. Below reference will be made to other work on which tins paper is based. Finally, o u ' knowledgeof information science is limited. It may well be that recent developments in Ihis field would make some ofour critical remarks about traditional 'content analysis' superfluous.
**Work on text grammar is too voluminous to be fully considered here. Dressier & Schmidt's bibliography(1973) lists hundreds of titles although including work on related topics, l-'or references, introductions, andsurveys in English, see, e.g., van Dijk (1972a, 1976b), Pctofi and Rieser (1973). Buskc Vcilag in Hamburg
publishes a series of preprints and books on text linguistics. Van Dijk & I'etofi (1976) bring together acollection of studies in which various authors in text linguistics apply Iheir methods and proposals in theanalysis of a single text (; fable by Thurbcr).
Their book is the first volume of a new series on text
linguistics by De G r u y t i r (New Yor(.-Berlin), in which also (he first larger English survey (Dressier, 1977) will
be published.

127

Teun A. van D i j k
In poetics and anthropology it was shown that the analysis of different kinds of discourse,e.g., o f narratives, must be given in terms of units, categories, and rules based on thesemantic macro-structures of the discourse.* This insight holds for the analysis of specifictypes o f discourse in general (arguments, news reports, conversations, scientific articles,
propaganda, etc.).
In sociology, socio-linguistics and pragmatics the basic idea has been further developed thatthe structure of language systems and utterances determines and is determined by thefunctions o f language in communication and social interaction. More in particular it has
been f o u n d that everyday conversation is bound by rather strict conventional rules,** andthat structures of discourse run parallel with structures of speech act sequences.***In cognitive psychology,**** finally, it has been pointed out that verbal processing isbasically semantic, and that the production and understanding of complex discourse is notsentential but co-determined by macro-structures and mental representations ofconventional knowledge structures, 'frames' as they are called in recent a r t i f i c i a l
intelligence approaches to higher information processing and language understanding.*****The details of these various directions of research constituting the background of thispaper cannot possibly be spelled out here. We w i l l have to focus attention on thoseassumptions and results which can profitably be brought to bear in the domain of
i n f o r m a t i o n storage and retrieval problems of documentation. More in particular, thehighly intricate issue will be attacked concerning the assessment of the semantic 'content'of texts, not only of their individual sentences but also of the text as a whole. In otherwords, we w i l l address problems in a domain which may be called that of complex semantic
information
processing.
The theoretical apparatus to be developed not only provides
insight into natural (cognitive) i n f o r m a t i o n processing, but also into some crucial tasks o f
artificial
i n f o r m a t i o n processing, e.g.. in documentation. The two basic concepts involved
in solving problems of complex information processing are organization and reduction.
Itw i l l be shown that the theory of semantic macro-structures provides the basis f o r an
explanation of how large and :omplex amounts of information are organized and reduced.
This theory, in particular, allows for the first time an explicit account of the structure andf o r m a t i o n o f abstracts of texts.

•See forreferences (vanDijk.

1972a,

1975a.b).

••This work has been done in an area of research called 'ethnomethodology'. Recent readers containing workon conversation are Sudnow (1972). Cicourel (1973). Turner (1973).
Similarly, under the label of the'ethnography of sptaking", anthropologists have recently been studying the various kinds of culturally typical
discourses (see Bauman &. Sherzer. 1974).
• • • T i e last part of van Dijk (1976b) is dedicated to the systematic interdependencies of discourse structure andthe structure of speech acts and speech act sequences.
••••Developments in cognitive and experimental psychology on the processing of discourse run parallel withthose in (text) linguistics. See Freedle and Carroll (1972). Kintsch (1974). Meyer (1975). van Dijk & Kinlsch(1975. 1976). van Dijk (1975a).
•••••Closely related lo the mentioned developments in psychology, artificial intelligence has also had increasing
interest in 'higher' informal on processing in recent years, e.g., d scoursc (see Churniak, 1972). For the notionof "frame", see especially Minsky (1975). Bobrow and Collins (1975). Norman & Rumelhart (1975). For the
relations between frames and macro-structures, see our contribution to the 1976 Carnegie-Mellon Cognition
Symposium on Discourse Comprehension (van Dijk. 1976c).

128

Perspective Paper:
The Structure ofComplex Semantic Information Processing

Discourse

We start from the assumption that both natural and artificial discourse processing is inpart based on the structures assigned to the discourse. Such structures are made explicit in
the structural descriptions provided by a theory of discourse, e.g., by a text grammar. These
descriptions are abstract, whereas the text descriptions used in information storage andretrieval are not; these are also discourses of a specific k i n d , and must be based on abstract
description, on the one hand, and on the 'pragmatic' properties of the use of i n f o r m a t i o n
in retrieval processes of various kinds, on the other hand. In an account of the abstract
structures of discourse, we will further make the assumption that information processing,
especially in documentation, is primarily semantic.
This means that morphonological,
syntactic, stylistic, and rhetorical properties of discourse w i l l be ignored in this paper. It is
understood, of course, that the 'content', i.e., the semantic representation, of a discourse isexpressed by, or accessible via, these 'surface structures' of the discourse. Any full-fledged
system of information processing will therefore have to include a surface grammar of somekind, relating these structures to the 'underlying' semantic representation.
Since only
partial surface grammars of this type are available at the moment, any workablei n f o r m a t i o n processing system is necessarily incomplete or ad hoc.
Nevertheless, theanalysis of semantic information from discourse is relevant not only for semantic theory.
Surface structure analysis grammars or programs must be developed with an eye on thesemantic representations; as is the case in logic, an explicit syntax, for instance, will have toreflect the units, categories and rules of semantic interpretation. Current generativetransformational syntax does not satisfy this condition, whereas recent proposals in
categorial grammars are too limited and complex to allow direct practical application,although they are more adequate f r o m a semantic and logical point of view.*
Before we tackle the problem of the semantic structure of discourse, some terminologicalissues must be addressed. First of all, as was indicated above, the notion of
information
will be taken in its semantic sense, pertaining to the meaning and reference structure of averbal utterance. Meaning and/or reference is assigned to an expression of a natural or
artificial language by the 'real' or formal process of interpretation.
That is, we neglect f o r
a moment the pragmatic properties of i n f o r m a t i o n , as they are defined in terms of theknowledge or acts (e.g., assertions, questions) of language users in communicative contexts.
Nor will we speak of the various kinds of 'structural' information a discourse may have,e.g.. of a syntactic or stylistic nature, whatever the rhetorical/pragmatic effects of suchi n f o r m a t i o n in communication and interaction.
Secondly, we would like to distinguish between different theoretical notions of discourse
and text.
A discourse will be taken as an empirical, cognitive and social, verbal unit
satisfying a number of specific conditions (continuity in time, discreteness, etc.).
A
discourse is physically manifested by verbal utterances (tokens), which we can hear or see,but which we conventionally understand 'as' discourses of a natural language. As will bemade dear below, only those utterances may conventionally count as (i.e., be produced,
understood, aceepled) discourses of a language which have underlying text structure. Thatis, a text is an abstract theoretical construct of a grammar (or other theory of discourse),
makinr, explicit the structure of a discourse. The everyday, intuitive use of the term 'text'
in English (often meaning 'written/printed piece of discourse') will therefore be ignored•For recent work on tries.' developments in logical grammar, categorial syntax, and formal semantics, see
Cresswell (1973). Montague (1974), l l m l i k k a , Moravcsik, and Suppes (197.!), incl Keen; n (1975). In this paper
several concepts from logical semantics, such as 'interpretation', 'possible world', 'domain of individuals', areused. We refer to the work mentioned above for further explication of these terms, and to van Dijk (1976b)
for an introduction and application io the semantics of discourse.

129Teun A. van D i j khere. Finally, the term document, as usual, w i l l denote a concrete object 'containing' or'carrying' one or more discourses, and having a specific processing function (storage,
analysis, abstracting, retrieval, etc.). Thus, we can read a document, but only understandone of its discourses, whereas the understanding of a discourse takes place by the cognitiveor theoretical assignment of text structure to that discourse.
Other terminologicalintroductions and distinctions will be made below.
Above, two different kinds of semantics have been mentioned, namely, a semantics
accounting f o r the meaning of a discourse, and a semantics accounting for the reference ofa discourse. The first kind of semantics has been predominant in linguistics, the second inlogic and, partly, in the philosophy of language.* A serious account of discourse structure,
however, needs both kinds of semantics, which, in fact, are intimately related. On the one
hand we may only know what words, phrases or sentences 'denote' or 'refer to' i f we knowwhat they 'mean*. On the other hand, the conventional and conceptual meaning of
expressions can be made explicit only in terms of their potential ability to 'determine'reference with respect to individual objects, properties, relations, facts (truth values) in
certain possible worlds. Thus, as we w i l l show in a moment, the relations involved in thefundamental notion of discourse coherence are to be formulated in terms of meaning
semantics and in lerms of reference semantics,: determining, for example, that two
expressions, although different in meaning, may refer to the same individual. The task ofsemantics, in general, is to give recursive conditions determining the meaning or referenceof sentences (or propositions) on the basis of the meaning or reference of theirconstituents.
Similarly, an explicit textual semantics must formulate the meaning or reference of adiscourse n terms of the meaning or reference of its constituent sentences. In order todenote the meaning of an 'atomic' sentence, we use the term proposition.
Severalpropositions may be expressed by one (composite) sentence. A proposition w i l l be taken
to have the usual structure consisting of an /7-place predicate, n arguments, argument labels(cases), and various kinds of preceding operators and quantifiers. Propositions, just liketheir constituents, are taken as abstract concepts, i.e. as functions taking values (extensions)in some possible world. Instead of the usual truth values we shall use the notion of fact
f o r the extension of a proposition. Conversely, a fact is an element or property o f apossible world as represented by a proposition.
The semantic structure of discourse w i l l be characterized at two different, thoughconnected, levels, namely, the level of micro-structures
and the level ofmacro-siructures.
By the term 'micro-structure' - - v/hich is only used for practical reasons, we mean the
structure of propositions and the linear structure of sequences of propositions in a
discourse. By macro-structure, we mean a level of description pertaining to the semantic
structure of discourses as a whole or parts of discourses taken as wholes (units). Before we
make this distinction explicit, an intuitive example illustrating it may be given. The
proposition sequence as expressed by
(I)

Peter

marriedLaura.

She became

very

unhappy.

may be representing two particular facts and some relations between them, m i c r o structurally, but at the macro-structural le^el the propositions may be used to represent avery complex series of facts, as in a f u l l story about Peter meeting, marrying, etc.. Laura.

•Sec

the

references

in

(he

previous

footnote.

130Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
In other words: a micro-structural analysis provides the local structure of proposition
sequences, whereas the macro-structural analysis yields a global structure of the proposition
sequence. The usual linguistic and logical semantics has been limited to this kind of'micro-semantics'.
Informal approaches to macro-semanlics come from poetics,
anthropology, etc. The 'plot' of a story, for example, may be formulated in terms ofmacro-structural units, such that each unit may consist of a whole set of propositions. A
similar global distinction exists between the premise(s) and the conclusion of an argument
or proof, or between the different conventional parts of a scientific paper, a novel or adrama.
In order to satisfy the basic requirement of semantics that 'wholes' must be defined interms of their 'parts', macro-structures must be derived from micro-structures. In order tobe able to do this, macro-structures are also described in terms of propositions, because
they are also meaning/reference structures, although at another level. The mappings
relating the sequence of propositions underlyirg the actual sentences of the discourse withthe sequence at some macro-level will be called macro-rules.
The formulation of
empirically adequate macro-rules is one of the major problems of actual text grammars,
and will be attempted below.
There are various linguistic and cognitive arguments which have led to a distinction
between a linear, local level of meaning/reference and levels of global meaning/referenceof a discourse. Not only do we want to account for something like the meaning of adiscourse 'as a whole', but at the same time the notion of macro-structure is important in
the characterization of linear (local) coherence conditions of composite sentences andsequences. Zognitively, micro-structures have been shown to be indispensable in order toexplain our ability to produce, understand, store and (re-)organize, summarize, recall, andinfer from highly complex information structures, such as d;scourses. We return to theselinguistic and psychological facts below. The semantic micro-structure, to begin with, isdescribed as an ordered n-tuple of propositions.* However, not every sequence ofpropositions is interpretable, and uninterpretable proposition sequences determine the nonacceptability of the discourses expressing them. Hence, there are cooccurrence conditions
for proposition sequences. A sequence satisfying the conditions, at this level, will be called
linearly coherent.
A first set of coherence conditions pertains to pairwise connections between propositions.
These connections may be expressed by various types of natural connectives, e.g., and, but,
although, or, yet, because, for, so, if ...then, etc., relating clauses in composite sentences andsentences in sequences.
In order to be able to connect two simple or composite
propositions, a certain number of connection conditions must be satisfied.
These
conditions, first of all are to be given in terms of reference. Globally speaking, then, two
propositions are connected if their 'referents', i.e., the facts they denote in some possible
world or course of events, are related. These relations are of various types, differing in'strictness'; they range from possibility, via probability, to different kinds of necessity.
Facts may just cooccur in some situation (world-time point or period), or they may allow
each other to occur or necessitate each other, in at least one, in most, or in all possible*Thc notion of 'connection' or 'relevance' not only has been treated in text grammars (see van Dijk, 1976b),
but also cccurs in recent development in logics, especially so-called 'relevance (or entailment) logics', where anumber of intuitively unsatisfactory theorems of classical logic (e.g., ex falso sequel quod libel) are no longer
valid. That is, it is somehow assumed, especially when modality, e.g., entailment, is involved, thai propositions
which ar • connected by logical connectives or related by logical inference ruies, should be 'relevant to' eachother, either in meaning or in truth conditions, or both. The technical proposa s cannot be gone into here.
For brief surveys and for the differences between logical ind natural connectives, sec van Dijk (1976a, 1974).

131

Teun A. \an Dijk
courses of events. These distinctions define the different kinds of connection as expressedby conjunctions, disjunctions, concessives, causals and implications. Other differences
between connectives of the same kind (e.g. but/although, because/for) are to be accounted
for in presuppositional and (other) pragmatic terms.
These relations between facts in possible courses of events often involve relations between
individuals or properties/relations. Thus, in sequence (1) above, there is a referential
identity relation: the referent of the expression Laura in the first sentence is the same asthat of the expression she in the second sentence. It is in this sense that we say that theinterpretation of proposition sequences is rela:ive. the second sentence (proposition) must
be interpreted relative to the interpretation of the first sentence (proposition), because thedomains of individuals involved intersect. Note, however, that referential identity, as such,is neither sufficient nor necessary:(2)Peter married

Laura.

She has a sister called(3)

Peter married

Laura today.

Mary.

The church was fulloffriends.

In (2) there is referential identity but, normally, the facts denoted are not directly related.
In (3) '.here is no overt referential identity, but the two respective facts are elated byreason/cause.
The connection conditions are themselves relative. First of all, what is a connection for A
need not always be a connection for D, e.g., when reasons are involved. These differences,
however, are pragmatic and will be abstracted from in the semantics, also because we adopt
the assumption that connections are also conventional, i.e., of a more general nature, basedon common knowledge of the postulates governing the actual or alternative possible worlds.
Secondly, however, connection is relative to what will be called a topic of discourse, ormore in general a topic of conversation. Connected propositions may denote related facts,
but these may belong to completely different topics, intuitively speaking. In other words,
when we express a number of propositions in a sentence or sequence, these propositions
must somehow belong to the same 'range' of semantic space. Clearly, we here meet an
intensional condition, pertaining to the conceptual meanings involved. Thus marriage and(un-)happiness may characterize the same range of 'human' or 'action' concepts, whereas
marriage and liquidity, or having a sister and reading a book do not. More generally, notonly are conceptual meaning relations involved in topical identity, but also other propertiesof conventional knowledge, namely, frames: we know, conventionally, that a marriage may
take place in a church, which makes sequences like (3) connected.
A topic of conversation will be formally represented as an (ordered) set of propositions.
In particular, it will be argued below that such a topic should be defined at the level ofmacro-structures. The same holds for the conditions determining topic changes.
There are also coherence relations in proposition sequences between non-connected(sequences of) propositions. The fact, for example, that the individual denoted byexpressions in a whole sub-sequence of propositions may remain the same (thusconstituting a so-called discourse referent) - - even if the fact* denoted by these
propositions are not pairwise related -- is one of the possible conditions making sequences
coherent. More specifically, each individual introduced in the domain of interpretation('universe of discourse') must be related to an individual already introduced. Similarly, thepossible worlds in which the denoted facts occur must be identical or related (byaccessibility, for instance). Finally, the more general condition pertaining to the topic of132

Perspective Paper:

Complex Semantic Information Processing

conversation also holds here: the individuals a n d / o r their properties must belong to thesame semantic range or the same system of interrelated frames. Examples will he given
below.
Summarizing the various conditions of linear discourse coherence, it might be said thateach proposition of the sequence must be interpreted relative to the interpretation of atleast one other proposition, and relative to a common topic of discourse (or alternative
topic, initiatable, i.e., accessible, f r o m a given topic).
Note that these relativeinterpretations involve both referential and meaning properties of sentence sequences.
There is another point which should be made about the description of linear coherence indiscourse, and which has important implications f o r information science. We have adopted
the condition that each proposition of a sequence underlying a discourse should beinterpreted relative to nnother proposition o f the sequence. This condition, however, needs
further qualification. It is very often the case in natural discourse, as distinguished f r o mformal discourse, e.g., in proofs, that much of the information remains implicit.
That is, inorder to be able to postulated coherence, propositions may be 'present' without being( f u l l y ) expressed in the surface structure of the discourse. In order to be able to explain
the definite article in a sequence like
(4)
(...)
spaghettis.

We ordered

two pizzas.

The

waitress,

however,broughtus

two

we must assume that a waitress is introduced by an i m p l i c i t proposition, ' i m p l i e d ' by thei n f o r m a t i o n that we are in a restaurant. These i m p l i c i t propositions are present in thetheoretical sequence of the discourse (the so-called explicit
text base) due to ( i ) the
meaning postulates of the language (once we have the information that John is a bachelor,
we al .o know that he is a male adult and that he is not married), ( i i ) the conventional
knowledge (frames) implied by one or more propositions (we know that in a restaurant we
can order food, and that our order is taken ;;nd carried out by a waiter or waitress). Since
these weakly or strongly implied propositions are generally known, a pragmatic rule allows
them not to be expressed explicitly. T o make sure that the explicit text base does not
become too rich with ( i n f i n i t e ) sets or entailed propositions, we stipulate that only those
propositions are part of the text base which are necessary conditions for the correctinterpretation of other (expressed) propositions of the sequence, as was the case for theinterpretation of the definite noun phrase in the second sentence of (4). Below, we willshow that the macro-information of a discourse also need not be, and is not generally,
expressed in the discourse itself by direct expression in surface structure.
The implication f o r information science is that a discourse may well contain i n f o r m a t i o nwhich, as such, is not expressed in surface structure, so that a pure surface analysis or asemantic descriptionofthe expressed
propositions
may yield an
incompletecharacterization of the content of a document. Hence, any theoretically adequate accountof the content of a discourse must be based on the explicit text base as defined above.
More generally, it should be emphasized that information
as defined is essentially
propositional.
Hence an internal propositional structure must be present, not, for instance,a simple predicate or argument (as expressed by some surface noun, pronoun or verb). In
order to be able to assess this propositional structure, at least a partial syntactic analysis of
the surface structure of the discourse is necessary. It follows that any word-based analysis
of i n f o r m a t i o n is inadequate.**For references to various kinds of 'word-based' document analyses, see Sparck Jones and Kay (1973). For
work on content analysis see, e.g., (Jerbncr ct al(1969) and llolsti (1969), especially in the social sciences.
We are ignorant about possible new develop nents in the latter field.

113

Teun A. van Dijk
Macro-Structures of Discourse
Linear connection, and coherence of discourse in general, is, as we saw, also determined bya more global 'topic of conversation'. This notion will be explained in terms of macrostructures of discourse.*
Intuitively, then, a macro-structure of a discourse represents its overall meaning, and theglobal meaning constituents forming this overall meaning. Formally, a macro-structure isalso a sequence of propositions, and is acquired by mappings, so-called macro-rules, fromthe full text base of the discourse.
Macro-structjres define the overall coherence of a discourse. In other words, a sequenceof propositions (as part of a text structure) may underlie an acceptable discourse only if
this sequence is macro-structurally coherent. It is not difficult to illustrate this point. A
sequence may be linearly coherent without being globally coherent:(5) I bought a book in the bookshop this morning. The bookshop has beenrented by a French woman. French women are usually well-dressed.
My
sister dresses well, too . . .
Intuitively, we know that such sequences do not have a 'point' or 'theme' or unified 'topic'.
We assume that we can make this intuition and these notions explicit by requiring any
discourse to have a macro-structure. Such a macro-structure in a sense is a global
constrain', on the individual propositions of the sequence: it defines the intensional ranges
for the different concepts used, and defines the worlds and types of facts referred to. In
particular, it allows the individual proposition to have a specific function in a larger
structural whole, as we will see below.
The cognitive importance of macro-structures has been assessed in several recent
experiments about the comprehension, recall and summarization of discourse, e.g., ofstories.** Sequences without a macro-structure, just like sequences of words without asentence structure, are much less well recalled. The further general assumption is that
subjects are unable to store the individual sentences and propositions of a discourse.
Nevertheless, they are able to give a summary of the discourse as a whole. This fact can
only be explained if they organize and reduce the large amount of propositional
information during input. In fact, they apply macro-rules such that shorter macrostructures are obtained. These structures can be used, later, as recall cues in the search fordetailed information. After longer delays, however, not much more than the macropropusitons are available in free recall. Such delayed recall protocols bear a striking
similarity to immediate summaries. Hence, it should be assumed that a summary of adiscourse is a discourse expressing the/a macro-structure of the original discourse.
Controlled summarizing, then, is based on the same rules and processes as noncontrolledforgetting. Below, we will apply these results (of which no further experimental ortheoretical details can be given here) in a model for artificial information processing.
•We hav„- been USII g the lerm 'macro-structure' since about 1968 in various papers and books in poetics, first,
then in linguistics, a first survey being given in van Dijk (1972a). Wc have taken up the originally very
informal and imprecise ideas again in 1974, using insights from formal semantics and developments incognitive psychology, the actual state of macro-structure theory is formulate; in van Dijk (1976c). Other
uses of the term have been made, see e.g., Ballmer (1975). Our own ideas on this topic have considerablychanged since the late sixties, especially concerning the possible role of the grammar (semantics) in an accountof macro-structures.
••Sec the references on cognitive and experimental psychology cited earlier. Our own experiments are reported
in \.\t\ Dijk (1975a) and Ki it (sell and van Dijk (1975. 1976). For a recent survey of other work see Thomdykc(1975).

134

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
It should be added that macro-structures not only determine the execution of complex
linguistic tasks, but also are necessary for the planning, execution, control, andcomprehension of any k nd of highly complex behavior, e.g., in the visual interpretation ofcomplex scenes, in the solutions of problems, and in (intcr-)action.
In order to make macro-structures explicit, we assume at least four macro-rules,I.

namely:DELETION

II.

GENERALIZATIONIII.

SELECTION

IV. CONSTRUCTION or INTEGRATION
These rules make explicit the usual ways in which we intuitively organize and reduce ourinformation, either during input or within our memory (knowledge) systems. The firstrule, DELETION, allows that all propositions may be deleted from an explicit text base,which are not presuppcsitions (conditions) for the interpretation of subsequent
propositions of the sequence. Thus in the sequence:(6)

Mary was playing with a red ball.

The ball smasheda window.

the proposition red(a), wh^re a is a ball, may be deleted, because it is globally irrelevant
for the interpretation of the discourse, whatever the local relevance may be. We see thatthe macro-rules also function as an explicit device to define what information is relevant
or important in a discourse, semantically speaking at least (we neglect the pragmatic
implications of these notions, having to do with conditions and consequences of [speech]
interaction of the speaker and the hearer).
Whereas the first rule is intended to delete irrelevant 'attributes', the second rule,
GENERALIZATION, abstracts from inherent properties of individuals.
It allows
propositions with a concept a being replaced by propositions with a superconcept of a.
The organizational and reductional effect of this rule in particular lies in the fact that awhole sequence of propositions with concepts a, b, c, ... , may be reduced to a single
proposition with the superconcept of a, b, c:(7) Mary was playing with her doll house. She played with her blocks, then withher racing cars (. . .).
This sequence may be substituted by a proposition(8)

Mary was playing

underlying

with her toys.

In both rules, the information of the text base becomes formally irrecoverable by theapplication of the rules. If we would only have the macro-propositions, we could only
construct an infinite set of possible underlying text bases (with the same macro-structure).
In the following two rules, this is not the case. The information left out here is partly reconstructible. The SELECTION rule is applied on those sequences in which some
proposition weakly or strongly implies the other propositions, either by meaning postulate
or by frame information. The implied propositions may then be deleted:135

Teun A. van Dijk
(9) That day we went to Paris. In the morning we took a cab to the station,
there we took the train (. . .).
From this sequence we need just keep the proposition underlying the first sentence, since
the other proposition are weakly implied by it: if we travel to another town, we must takesome means of transportation, like a train or plane, and execute preparatory actions toaccomplish the main action. In general what may be deleted in such sequences are(10) --normal conditions and presuppositions (e.g., preparatory actions)— normal component actions, either optional or necessary--normal consequences, results--normal circumstances, possible worlds, time/placeThat is, if a sequence contains the ptoposition that we took the train to Paris, we may omit
propositions representing the facts that I perform actions to go to the station, that I buy aticket, that I get into the train, that I read a book in the train, that I arrive in Paris, etc.
All these facts are 'normal' constituents, i.e., occur in many or most possible worlds orcourses of events where the 'main action' occurs. The macro-rule indeed defines the most'important' proposition of a sequence, e.g., the proposition identifying the frame of which
the 01 her propositions are obligatory or possible parts. This importance shows in thehierarchical structure thus assigned by the macro-rules to the sequence, on the basis, of theconceptual structure of the world (e.g., of actions)* and of our knowledge about it asrepresented in frames.
The "ourth rule, CONSTRUCTION, is very similar, but in this case the proposition yieldedby the macro-rules is not part of the text base itself. We now have a sequence ofpropositions which as a whole may be replaced by another proposition, indeed as in:(11)1

went to the station. I bought a ticke!.
train arrived in Paris.

I went to the train (. . .).

The

which may be replaced by the proposition 'I took the train to Paris', due to the fact that
this proposition weakly or strongly implies the various propositions of the text base. As
was spelled out above, the constituent propositions denote normal conditions, components,
and consequences of the event described by 'he macro-proposition. In a sense, thus, themacro-proposition described the 'same' event, but only at a higher level of observation,
comprehension, and function. When we read a book, we may have read a sequence like(11), but may simply have reduced this information by rule IV, and have stored thatsomebody took the train to Paris. By rule II, we may even generalize to the informationthat somebody 'went' to Paris.
The importance of the CONSTRUCTION rule, as well as of the GENERALIZATION rule,is that they define propositional information which is not as such expressed in the•We have neglected here a systematic treatment of the structure of action and its relevance for action
description, narrative, planning actions cognitively, and the comprehension of action discourse. Similarly, an
action theory, from philosophy and philosophical logic, plays an imporiant role in pragmatics. See forreferences, van Duk (1975c, 1976b). especially to work done by von Wright. Davidson, Danto, Brennenstuhl,
and others. For the operation of the macro-rules, it is necessary to know that the notions 'conditions','components' or 'consequences' of action mean exactly. Precise definitions cannot be given in this paper, but
the intuitive idea about these notions will be sufficient to understand the conditions of the macro-rules.

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discourse. Thus, it cannot be denied that 'I took the train to Paris' is i n f o r m a t i o n conveyedby (11), but this information is only present at a level of macro-interpretation. We seethat macro-rules satisfy the more general principle of entailment: a macro-structure must
be semaniically or conventionally implied by the j o i n t sequence of propositions of which it
is a macro-stru:ture. Secondly, the macro-rules may operate recursively, given a sequenceof propositions on some macro-level, the rules may again apply and yield a macrostructure on a still higher level: my going to Paris may be a constituent of having avacation in Europe.
There is however a constraint on recursion: in order to keep the m a c r o - i n f o r m a t i o n as
specific as possible, we always will stop at the lowest possible level of macro-structure, e.g.,
use the smallest superset or super-concept involved, and only when several propositions are
the input to the rule. Thus, we do not generalize, by rule I I , to 'I had a relation to Paris',or 'Somebody had a relation to some place'.
Another general constraint is that no proposition may be deleted which is a condition f o r
the interpretation of a subsequent proposition, if this latter proposition itself is not deleted.
Thus, macro-structures themselves must satisfy the normal conditions for linear connection
and coherence.
Macro-structures may also be expressed by a discourse. Such a discourse will be called asummary of the original discourse.
Depending on the level of the macro-structure
expressed, the summary will be more or less general. When we speak of the summary of adiscourse, we thereby mean the expression of the macro-structure of the discourse, namely,
the top-most level of macro-structure.
Since a summary is a natural discourse and a macro-structure is a theoretical construct, themacro-structure is not f u l l y expressed in surface structures of the summary; by the rules
described above, some of the i n f o r m a t i o n may be kept implicit. Moreover, i f a subject
gives his summary of a discourse, there will be possible errors, biases, misinterpretation,e.g., due to pragmatic conditions of relevance assignment to certain propositions of the
discourse.
Part of the macro-structure may also appear explicitly in the discourse itself, e.g., as in rule
I and I I I , where macro-structural propositions are part o f the text base. But, for reasons o f
cognitive processing, propositions which do not belong to the proper text base, e.g., thoseyielded by rules II and IV, also may be expressed in the discourse, e.g., as announcements
and partial summaries. This fact provides one of the points where empirical evidence o fmacro-structures is to be found. Sentences expressing macro-structures in a discourse havevery specific properties.
For instance, they cannot normally be connected, e.g., in acomplex sentence, with the other propositions of a sequence.
A clause or sentence expressing a macro-structural proposition, will be cailed a topical orthematical sentence. What is usually called a topic-word or thematic word or
key-word,
can now be defined as the lexical expression of one of the predicates of a macro-structural
proposition, e.g., 'train, or 'travel', in the examples used above. As was pointed out earlier,such words only provide partial evidence of the global content of the discourse. Moreover,they need not be present at all, so that a mere k e y w o r d analysis may fail to be indicativeof the global meaning of the discourse.
Finally, we only know that a word has thefunction of a topic-word if we know what the semantic representation of the discourse is.
Although, f o r instance, lexical frequency may indicate the relative importance of anunderlying concept, this may only yield a probabilistic
hypothesis about some part of the137Teun A. van Dijk
macro-structure of a discourse, not a rule-based description. First of all, lexical identity
does not imply referential identity, which may determine discourse coherence. Second,
macro-predicates may not be expressed directly by a topic-word. Third, even repeatedlexical items with referential identity may merely have local importance. Fourth, lexical
identity may indicate the conceptual range of a discourse (the 'topic' in the intuitive sense),
but not as such define the specific information. Thus, in all discourses about oil, the word
oil will probably be relatively frequent with respect to the overall frequencies of a corpus
of discourses, but this does not yet indicate what the specific 'message' is 'about' the oil.
For this we need propositional information, for which no overall frequencies can beavailable (the set of possible propositions of a language being infinite). Titles often
express a part of the propositional macro-structure, and may therefore for practical reasonsbe ased in information retrieval.
The earlier introduced notion topic of discourse, used to give conditions for linear
connection and coherence, will now be identified with the notion of macro-structure as
defined above. Thus, if we say that two propositions also are connected relative to a topic
of discourse, we thereby mean that their connection not only is defined at the local, linear
level, but also at the more global level, in the sense that they both should 'contribute' to theformation of a macro-structure.
Hence, when : we have the sequence:(12)

I went to the station and I bought a ticket

the two prepositions expressed also are connected by the fact that they denote twoconstituent facts which belong to the 'global fact' denoted by the macro-proposition 'I took
the train'. Finally, a brief remark snould be made about the macro-structural basis fordiscourse typologies.* Macro-structural propositions may also be assigned a inon-linguistic)
function in a hierarchical structure defined by conventional rules, e.g., rules of narrative.
Thus, a macro-proposition describing some initial state of an event or action, may be
assigned the category of Setting. Similarly, for the categories of Complication, Resolution,
Evaluation, and Moral, as defining simple narratives.** The point here is that isolated
sentences or sequences, as such, cannot possibly have this function, because the constraints
determining category assignment depend on the semantic properties of a macroproposition For example, the Complication category must represent an event but somesentences under this category in the story itself may well be state descriptions.

•The theory of discourse typologies (or 'genres') is Itlle developed, although there is much traditional work on
genres in literary scholarship. Sound linguistic approaches or advances in discourse studies in general are rare,
especially because most attention is giv:n to isolated discourse types, mostly narrative til poetics andanthropology) to arguments (in philosophy) to everyday conversation and propaganda/advertisements (in thesocial sciences). See Gulich and Raible (1972) for a collection of papers. Our own paper on the subject, van
Dijk (1972b), is inadequate.
"These categories come from l.abov & Walct/ky (1%7 - and there are similar overall categoiies ('functions')of narrative being elaborated in the so-called '.structural analysis of narrative', beg in in the late twenties in ihe
Soviet Union, especially by Vladimir Propp, and rediscovered in the middle of the sixties in France (Bremond,
B.rthe, C.eimas. Tudurov, etc.). r:or references, see van Dijk (1972.1975c). aid Culler (1975). See also the"On Narrative and Narrative*" issue of New Literary History (Vol.VI, No. 2, Winter 1975), and Bremond(197 : ).

L38

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On the other hand, it may be the case that the macro-rules themselves operate undertypological constraints: it is clear that an action in a narrative is more important globally
speaking than a description of an object. Hence, the state descriptions will be deleted, andthe action sequences mapped on action sequences in macro-structures. More in particular,
we require the macro-rules to operate such that the specific type of the discourse isreflected in the macro-stricture. This means that the summary of a story must itself also
be a story. In retrieval, this allows the user of a system to know not only the 'content' o f a
discourse, but also the type of the original discourse.
In documentation this will prove to be particularly relevant in the storage of discourse withargumentative
structures.
Without the typological categories determining a macrostructure, we would perhaps have information concerning what the discourse is about, but
not what (macro-) propositions count as premises, and which as conclusions.
Moregenerally, it w i l l make an important difference in system use whether some i n f o r m a t i o ncomes f r o m a story told by somebody or f r o m a scientific argument. It follows not onlythat a text grammar with its semantics is involved but also that there is a more general
theory of discourse, in which the conventional categories of discourse types are defined, as
well as their syrtactical rules and semantic interpretation.
No such explicit discourse
typology exists at the moment, only the more descriptive results f r o m such disciplines asrhetorics and poetics.
Macro-Structures and Information

Science

In the preceding sections several conclusions f r o m the theory of discourse structure havebeen drawn with respect to current or possible properties of procedures in i n f o r m a t i o nprocessing. Before we elaborate our suggestions, we may summarize the previous remarks
as follows:(i)

Information is semantic, and hence propositional; any content analysis, thus, mustyield a sequence of propositions.

(ii)

The structure of propositions and of proposition sequences, in analysis, isdetermined b> the syntactic surface structure of sentences; hence a syntax must be
used, assigning structures which are semantically relevant.

(iii)

A sequence of propositions must satisfy the conditions of linear connection andcoherence.

(iv)

Each discourse 'contains' i n f o r m a t i o n , i.e., propositions, which remain implicit,
which are entailed by the explicit propositions (by meaning postulates and frameknowledge), and which determine the linear coherence of the discourse.

(v)

Many elements of both surface structures and propositional structures of discourse
are to be accounted for at pragmatic levels of description.

(vi)

Discourses with text structure also have global meanings, made explicit by macrostructures, which are proposition sequences obtained by macro-rules.

(vi )M a c r o - i n f o r m a t i o n is entailed by the propositional text base of a discourse; it isnecessary to assess the linear coherence of the discourse, to define the notion of asummary, a topical sentence and a topical word.

i V)

Teun A.

van Dijk(viii)

Word-based and quantitative analysis of discourse surface structure are theoreticallyinadequate to assess semantic i n f o r m a t i o n , both at the linear, and especially at the
global levels.

(ix)

The 'important' or 'relevant' information of a discourse is accounted for by themacro-structure of the discourse.

Since information science, e.g., in documentation, deals primarily with the processing oflirge numbers of complex discourses - - and not with the analysis of individual sentences,adequate models of processing must take into account the points summarized above. Thismeans, first of all, that the discourses of documents are to be stored together with somef o r m of semantic representation accourting for the 'content' of the discourses. Secondly,
this content must be given not o n l / in terms of the sequence of all propositions ( i m p l i c i t
and explicit) of the discourse, but also in terms of various levels of macro-structure, whichorganize this sequence hierarchically, and which define various levels of abstraction or
reduction.
Since it is assumed that the macro-structure defines what is semantically 'important' withrespect to the discourse as a whole, and since it is practically impossible to store the f u l linformation of each document, the most adequate storage of complex semantic information
is in the f o r m of the most general macro-structure. In that case, by inverse application of
the macro-rules at least part of the detailed information will be available by inference
procedures.
Macro-structures are theoretical; in order to use them for practical purposes, they must betranslated into some conventionally interpretable language, e.g., a specific version of anatural language. The result of such a translation is an (artificial) summary of the
discourse.
Sets of summaries may in turn be subject to further organization, on the basis of theirunderlying proposiiions (which are macro-propositions of the corresponding discourses).
We here arrive at what may be called the pragmatic aspects of information processing.*
That is, not only is what is semantically 'important' with respect to the discourse to beaccounted for, but at the same time the functionsof the semantic i n f o r m a t i o n incommunication between machine/system and man: questions asked, information given as
answer, etc. In other words: one of the major co-determining constraints on information
storage must be the possible use of the i n f o r m a t i o n in most possible pragmatic
contexts.
This implies that those macro-structures which most certainly will never be used w i l l bedeleted.
The pragmatic context involved in documentation processes is relatively simple: themachine/system f o r the most part will be required only to 'give i n f o r m a t i o n ' , i.e., toperform the speech act of assertion.
In some cases, if further information is necessary inorder to be able to provide the required i n f o r m a t i o n , the machine may ask further
questions. The 'hearer' in the communicative context, i.e., the user of the documentation•Although pragmatics is undoubtedly a major development in the humanities and the social sciences, it isneglected in this paper because, as is shown, the pragmatic properties of commt nication between
machine/s>Ntem and system user are rather simple.
However, it should be stressed that the analysis of
discourse itself must account for many types of phenomena which cannoi be described in syntactic or
pragmatic terms. For work in pragmatics, see Bar l l i l l c l (197?), Wundcrlich (1973). Cole and Morgan eds.
(1975) and van Dijk. cd. (1975)7140

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system, will for the most part perform the speech act of questioning. In order to be able to
make appropriate assertions, the system must satisfy the conditions of appropriateness ofassertions. First of all, it must only assert those propositions which the system-user does
not yet know. The easiest way to do this is to take the user'.s question (and the propositions
entailed by it) as the set of 'unknown and cesired i n f o r m a t i o n ' upon which the answer ofthe system must be based. Further the system will not give answers which are identicalwith general knowledge of the language and the world (i.e., lexicon and frames), because
this knowledge is presupposed in all normal contexts of communication.
Now, the further organization of summaries of documents will depend on the ranges of thequestions of system users, as definec4 by the conceptual structures of semantic space.
Hence, in order to select a subset of summaries for further inspection of (propositional)
i n f o r m a t i o n , we may use expressions f o r concepts f r o m semantic space that are relevant formost ;ystem users.
These expressions are given by some semi-artificial
descriptor
language. The concept expressed by a descriptor is, thus, a function characterizing a set ofsummaries, namely, the set c f those summaries which use the concept in their macrostructure.
Note that besides a descriptor language for concepts, we may have a descriptor system f o rnames. Since discourses not only have meanings but also refer to individuals, properties,
and facts, in some possible world we also may want to retrieve i n f o r m a t i o n as a functionof certain referents, e.g., well-known persons, places, or time periods. By using complex
descriptor expressions, the set of relevant discourses may be further limited, but it shouldbe emphasized again that descriptor sequences cannot possibly account for the (macro-)meaning of single discourses: they only define sets of summaries.
A more intelligent retrieval system based on these ideas need not have questions w i t hunderlying propositions directly answered by propositions of some stored summary. If wehave t i e question "Where is Peter now?", and the macro-information f r o m a story
discourse about Peter's taking the train to Paris, a simple process of inference will try toderive an answer f r o m the stored m a c r o - i n f o r m a t i o n , with general meaning postulates andframes as additional premises. These processes are well-known f r o m recent work in
artificial intelligence and need not be discussed here.*
A system of the kind outlined roughly ; nd informally above is not simple, of course. It
must have a f u l l morpho-syntax, i f natural language questions may be asked. It must havea meaning and reference semantics, i.e., have a conceptual lexicon, and be able to construct
artificial possible worlds in which individuals, properties, and facts can be located, suchthat these can be recovered for further reference. Furthermore, in order f o r the macrorules to operate (as well as the rules of linear interpretation, for that matter), it must havea system of conventional knowledge about the actual 'vorld and worlds similar to it. For
instance, it must know the abstract structure of events and actions in general, and of taking
a bath, cashing a cheque, or eating in a restaurant in particular. If not, the system would
be unable to recognize a sentence like "I took a beer with the pizza" as being part of the'eating in an Italian restaurant' frame, end a sentence like "I f i n a l l y paid at the cashier" as
one of the f i n a l propositions in a store/shopping frame sequence.
Without such arecognition, we would be unable to summarize a passage as "We ate in an Italianrestaurant" or "I went shopping". Note, that not only are the frames themselves part of thesystem, but also the rules and constraints f o r handling them. Clearly, not all o f thei n f o r m a t i o n which is, theoretically, part of a frame need be used in the interpretation of adiscourse, but only
*See. e.g., Mmsky(1968), Schankand Colby(1973), Schank141(1975).

Teun A.

van Dijkthat information which is a condition f o r the correct interpretation of following parts ofthe sequence. In order f o r somebody to understand my story about traveling to Paris, heneed not actualize his f u l l knowledge about 'how to take a cab', when it is said that I took acab to the station. The only information relevant in that case is that a cab is a means of(public) transport.
On the basis of this frame system and the rules of frame application, and on the basis o f
the lexical meaning postulates, a set of inference rules operate in order to define
derivational relations between (sequences o f ) propositions, as mentioned above.
Clearly, none of these components is ready yet at the moment, not even the syntax. Thismeans that an adequate system of information retrieval can only be partial and theoreticalat the moment, and handle fragmentary parts of discourse, world knowledge, and concepts.
Yet, we at least know what such a system should contain in order to analyse and process
discourse automatically, so that we know approximately which directions our work shouldtake. Moreover, a certain number of basic concepts of information scierce can now be
defined in a n o r e or less explicit way, namely, in terms of macro-rules, macro-structures
and their expressions in various languages or other systems.
Macro-Analysis: An Example
Finally, let us try to apply the theoretical framework sketched above in a more concrete
anal/sis of a given discourse. Such an analysis, as our remarks in the previous section
indicate, will of course be incomplete. We lack a morpho-syntactic analysis, and also asemantic analysis of the individual sentences/propositions of the discourse. We merely
want to see whether and how the proposed macro-rules operate on an arbitrarily chosen
discourse, and how these rules yield a macro-structure which can be expressed as an
acceptable summary. Furthermore, this analysis will be i n f o r m a l , in the sense that noformal language is used to represent the semantic structure, to define the macro-rules, andto prove that the macro-structure is indeed entailed by the discourse.
The discourse we will give a partial macro-analysis of is a short paper f r o m social
psychology, "Bumper Stickers and the Cops", by F. K. Heussenstamm.* This discourse has
been chosen first of all because it is short.
Second, since information science deals
predominantly with storage of scientific data, we have taken a scholarly paper. T h i r d , thepaper is relatively informal and not very complex. Fourth, papers in (social) psychology
have a conventional typological structure. The paper has a clear political 'message', i.e., amoral conclusion drawn f r o m a confirmed hypothesis. The original discourse is given in
the Appendix.
The analysis will consist of various pcrts. First of all, we give a sequence of 'basic clauses',
taken as approximate expressions of underlying propositions. From a logical point of view
these propositions are still compound, but a f u l l logical representation of the complete text
would be too cumbersome for our purposes. In order to keep track of the introduced
referents, we have added, between parentheses, letters representing the discourse referents
involved, lower case letters for he local referents, upper case letters for the global
referents. Similarly we have used the numbers of the propositions involved in those cases
where a proposition is embedded in another proposition, mostly intensionally.
Words
which are underlined have a theoretical function (e.g., of denotes membership or subset);these may also occur in the discourse itself, e.g., as connectives. By underlining theseconnectives we denote connection with the previous proposition(s). We have not tried totranslate the surface lexical items into basic conceptual predicates.
•From

Swingle,P. G., cd.. Social

Psychology

ofEveryday

142

Life.

PenguinBooks.

1973.

Pp.

27-31.

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In the second column of Table I, we indicate the macro-rules involved: I. D E L E T I O N , I I .
G E N E R A L I Z A T I O N , I I I . S E L E C T I O N , and IV. C O N S T R U C T I O N
M denotes topical
propositions w i t h i n the text itself, i.e., zero application of the rules. The resulting macroproposition is mentioned at the end of each row of the column. The 'contribution' of a
proposition to such a macro-proposition may be indirect. Thus if x is a condition for y,
and y yields a macro-proposition Mz, then Mz is also specified after x.
The application of rule I does not yield a macro-proposition but a zero-unit,-0. Rule I I ,G E N E R A L I Z A T I O N , often applies to several propositions at the same time. Such asequence is indicated between angle brackets, where the numbers denote the corresponding
propositions.
If the generalizing proposition is part of the text itself, it has been
underlined, e.g., I K ' i 5 > .
Rules III and IV are accompanied by the specific type of condition involved, i.e., whether
the substituted/deleted proposition denotes a C O N D I T I O N ( C O N D ) , C O M P O N E N T(COMP) or a CONSEQUENCE (CONS) of a fact denoted by a proposition in the text or amacro-proposition, respectively. In both cases the propositions relative to which the rules
operate are also added between angled brackets.
A specific case involves those conditions, components or consequences having to do withmental acts and speech acts as they are related to denoted (macro-)acts.
We use theabbreviation ( M A ) and (SA) tc denote these specific conditions of deletion. Thus, i f there
is a fact, 'They did not like driving around with BPP bumper stickers', we may celete thefact that they 'said', 'reported', etc., so.
Sometimes several rules may apply on one proposition. In that case the alternatives are
separated by a slash, e.g., I I / I I I . !n some cases we also have added the recursive applicationof rules, denoted by a vertical bar (|), mostly a combination of G E N E R A L I Z A T I O N ,preceding direct macro-expression: I I | M , which means that a proposition is part of themacro-structure in its generalized f o r m .
It will be obvious that our proposals for how the rules operate and the assumptions on thesufficiency of the rules are tentative and open to discussion.
In some cases some
information might have been taken up into the macro-structure, e.g., the fact that theimmediate cause of the experiments were difficulties and complaints of students of theexperimenter. We have however, integrated this information into macro-proposition M2,
because the students were Black Panther Party members.
In Table I I , we have listed the sequence of resulting macro-propositions. We see that theoriginal number of propositions (164) is reduced to 29 macro-propositions, i.e., less than af i f t h of the original number. This reduction is consistent with proposals for the macroprocessing of a stor> of similar length given in an earlier paper. There it turned out that
this number also has an empirical basis: it is what subjects recalling the discourse aftersome weeks still know.
The sequence of macro-propositions may be expressed by a natural language summary of
the article, for which we have given a proposal in Table I I I . Such a summary has
undergone the usual discourse output conditions of a grammar and pragmatics, including
certain repetitions to make the discourse coherent, and the usual complex sentence
constructions. Also certain lexical variants or combinations of propositions are possible
here. A macro-structure, as we have argued above, is a function defining a set of possible
summaries.

143

Teun A.

van Dijk

The summary is relatively long, but it contains all relevant i n f o r m a t i o n in the paper. O fcourse, there are 'degrees' of relevance, which means that macro-rules may again apply on
this first-level macro-structure. These rules have been adde.1 in the second column ofTable I I , as described above. They yield a macro-structure underlying the summary given
in Table IV, which conforms more to the conventions for giving a short summary ofpsychological papers. If we compare this summary with that of the author (or editor?) of
the paper, we see that they run parallel for some time, but that the original summary
accompanying the discourse is incomplete. It terminates with the major finding (result) of
the experiment, and omits the conclusions.
Whereas the macro-structures organize and reduce the semantic structure of the discourse,
there is ^mother superstructure assigned to the discourse. It is the conventional structure o f
a paper in (experimental) social psychology, involving such categories as 'Introduction','Problem', 'Hypothesis', 'Experiment', 'Discussion', Conclusion', where the 'Experiment'
category may again consist of 'Design', 'Subjects', 'Method', etc. A tentative proposal f o r
this kind of hierarchical conventional super-structure for this text is given in Table V,
together with the sequences of macro-propositions organized by these categories. It is
important to note that the relative relevance of information in the paper is determined by
the conventional structure of reports of psychological experiments.
Concluding

Remarks

In this paper we have tried to show that information science in general and the theory of
documentation in particular may p r o f i t f r o m some recent developments in linguistics,
psychology, and artificial intelligence with respect to complex semantic i n f o r m a t i o nprocessing, especially of discourse. It has been shown that the notion of ' i n f o r m a t i o n in adocument' should be constructed in terms of an explicit semantics, both intensional andreferential, and that important notions such as content", 'topic' or 'theme', 'abstract' or'summary', and 'key-word' can be appropriately defined in that framework.
More in particular it has been argued that information storage and retrieval must be basedon operations of organization and reduction of complex semantic i n f o r m a t i o n . These
operations are modelled by a theory of macro-structures, which represent the global
semantic structure of discourses, and which are obtained f r o m the propositional sequenceof a discourse by a set of macro-rules. Storage and retrieval, both natural and a r t i f i c i a l , isa function of these macro-structures as assigned to the discourse during analysis/input.
Some conditions were formulated for the linear connection and coherence of complex
sentences and discourse in general, primarily based on both intensional and referential
relations between facts in possible worlds. The notion of 'topic of discourse', which was
assumed to co-determine linear coherence, was found to be identical with (partial) macrostructure, which links the linear coherence with the global, overall coherence of discourse.
Besides these various levels of semantic m i c r o - and macro-structures o f discourse, there arealso global conventional rules determining the hierarchical, organization of d i f f e r e n t typesof discourses, e.g., of narratives.
In this paper we have, in particular, tried to apply this theoretical sketch in the concrete
analysis of a scholarly paper f r o m social psy;hology, by establishing a tentative sequence ofpropositions f o r the discourse, letting macro-rules operate on (sub-)sequences, thus yielding
a macro-structure. This macro-structure can be expressed in natural language discourse asa summary of the paper. Further application of the macro-rules may lead to shorter andmore general summaries.

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This 'sunmary' of our own paper does not mention the numerous problems remaining. To
be sure, both our rules and the constraints determining their application are very tentative.
Strictly speaking, we are still in the 'intuitive' stag.! of theory formation, because we do nothave sufficient sub-systems to have the rules work algorithmically, which would be a
condition for computer implementation. Although we have tried to show that a certain
number of approaches (quantitative, lexical/morpho-syptactic) must be theoreticallyinadequate because they do not reconstruct the notion of 'information', we cannot possiblyoffer at the moment a directly applicable alternative. Language structure and language use
simph are not so simple. This truism just means th.it the theoretical framework to beconstructed for information processing purposes will have a large number of highly
complex sub-theories. Besides the mentioned morpho-syntactic and semantic components,of which only small fragments are available at the moment, we first of all need an
appropiate lexicon, codifying the conventional conceptual meaning structures as they areorganized lexically by a given language.
Secondly, parallel to such a lexicon, we need (sub-)systems representing our conventional
knowledge of the world, and insight into the acquisition and transformations of these socalled frames, and in particular into the ways such frames operate in complex behavior ingeneral, and in discourse comprehension in particular. Only the first steps have been madein recent artificial intelligence in the elaboration of a frame theory. It is obvious that
information science, which is essentially concerned with storage/retrieval, i.e.,organizational, problems with respect to our ('collective') knowledge, could immediately
profit from advances in that area of research, and :>y its own investigations and experience
contribute to it. In particular, the role of world knowledge in the interpretation andstorage of natural language discourse may thus become a challenging problem both toinformation science and to linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, and computerscience. This dialogue between what now are being called various 'cognitive sciences' may
provide the basis for a solution of the still more complex but crucially relevant problemsof social information processing as it determines social interaction.
References
Ballmer, T. T. "Macrostructures".
In van Dijk, ed., Pragmatics
Literature.
Amsterdam, North Holland, 1975, Pp. 1-22.
Bar-Hillel, Y., ed.

Pragmatics of Natural

Language.

of Language andDordrecht, Reidel, 1972.

Bauman, R., and Scherzer, J., eds. Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking.
Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Bobrow, D. G., and Collins, A., eds. Representation and Understanding:Cognitive Science.
New York, Academic Press, 1975.
Bremond, C, ed.

Semiotique

Narrativeel Textuelle.

London,Studies

in

Paris, Larousse, 1973.

Charniak, E. Towards a Model of Children's Story Comprehension. Al TR-266, Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1972.
Cicourel, A. V. Cognitive Sociology.
Academic Press, 1975.

Marmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1973. New York,145

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Cresswell, M. J.
Culler, J.

Logics and Languages.

Structuralist

van Dijk, T. A.

Poetics.

London, Methuen, 1973.

London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.

Some Aspects of Text Grammars.

The Hague, Mouton, 1972.

(a)van Dijk, T. A. "Foundations for Typologies of Texts." Semiotica, 1972, 6, 297-323. (b)van Dijk, T.*A. "Relevance in Logic and Grammar." Proceedings, International Congressof Relevance Logics, St. Louis, 1974.
vanDijk, T. A. "Recalling and Summarizing Complex
Amsterdam, 1975. (a)Discourse." University of

van Dijk, T. A. "Narrative Macro-structures." (Paper contributed to the Linguistics andPoetics Colloquium of the University of Essex, 1975). To appear in PTL(b)van Dijk. T. A. "Action, Action Description, Narrative." New Literary History, 1975, VI,
273-294. (c)van Dijk, T. A. "Connectives in Text Grammar and Text Logic." (Paper for theInternational Text Linguistics Colloquium, Kiel, 1973). In van Dijk, T.A., and Petofi,
J.S., eds., Grammars and Descriptions. New York, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1976. (a)van Dijk, T. A. Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics ofDiscourse.
University of Amsterdam, 1976. (b) (Probably to be published byLongmans, London.)van Dijk, T. A. "Macro-structures and Cognition." (Paper contributed to the CarnegieMellon Symposium on Cognition, May 1976.) University of Amsterdam, 1976.(c)van Dijk, T. A., ed. Pragmatics of Language and Literature.
1975.

Amsterdam, North Holland,van Dijk, T. A., and Petofi, J. S., eds. Grammars and Descriptions.
Gruyter, 1976.
Dressier, W. U., ed.

Trends in Text Linguistics.

Dressier, W. U., and Schmidt, S. J. Textlinguistik:Fink, 1973.

New York, Berlin, De

New York, Berlin,

De Gruyter, 1977.

Kommenlierte Bibliographic.

Munich,Freedle, R. O., and Carroll, J. B., eds. Language Comprehension and the Acquisition of
Knowledge.
Washington, D.C., Winston, 1972.
Gerbner, G., et al., eds. The Analysis cf Communication Content. New York, Wiley, 1969.
Gulijh, F., and Raible, W., eds.

Textsorten.

146

Frankfurt, Athenaeum, 1972.

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Complex Semantic Information Processing

H i n t i k k a K. J J., Moravcsik, J. M. E., and Suppes, P., eds.
Language.
Dordrecht, Reidel, 1973.
Holsti, O. R. Content Analysis for
Mass., Addison Wesley, 1969.
Keenan, E. L.. ed.
FormalUniversity Press, 1975.

the Social

SemanticsofKintsch, W. The Representation of Meaning(Distributed by Wiley, New York.)

Approaches

Sciences and the Humanities.

NaturalLanguage.

in Memory.

London,to

NaturalReading,

Cambridge

Hillsdale, N. J., Erlbaum, 1974.

Kintsch, W., and van D i j k , T. A. "Recalling and Summarizing Stories." University ofColorado, 1975.
[French version: "Comment on se Rappelle et on Resume desHistoires." Langages, 1975, 40, 98-116.]
Kintsch, W., and van D i j k , T. A. "Cognitive Psychology and Discourse." University ofColorado, 1976. (Elaborated version of Kintsch and van D i j k , 1975.) [ T o be publishedin Dressier, W.U., ed., Trends in Text Linguistics.
New York, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1977.
Labov, W., and Waletzky, Y. "Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience."
In Helm, J., ed., Studies in the Verbal and Visual Arts. Seattle, Washington University
Press, 1967.
Pp. 12-44.
Meyer, B. F. The Organisation
Holland, 1975.
Minsky, M.
Psychologyof Prose and its Effects

on Memory.

Amsterdam, North

A Framework for Representing Knowledge." In Winston, P., ed.
of Computer Vision.
New York, McGraw H i l l , 1975.

Minsky, M., ed. Semantic
1968.
Montague, R. Formal
Thomason.
New

Information

Processing.

Petofi, J. S., and Rieser, H. eds.
Schank, R. C , ed. Conceptual

Studies

Information

Schank, R. C , and Colby, K. M., eds.
Francisco, Freeman, 1973.
Sparck Jones, K., and Kay, M.
Press, 1973.
Sudnow, D., ed.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, M I T Press,

Philosophy. Selected Papers of Richard
Haven, Yale University Press, 1974.

Norman, D. A., and Rumelhart, D. E_, eds.
Freeman, 1975.

Studies

Linguistics

in Socio!

Explorationsin Text

147

Edited by R.H.

in Cognition.

San Francisco,

Dordrecht, Reidel. 1973.

Amsterdam, North Holland, 1975.

Modelsand Information

Interaction.

Montague.

Grammar.

Processing.

ComputerThe

Newof Thought and Language.

Science.

San

New York, Academic

York, Free Press, 1972.

Teun A. van Dijk
Thorndyke, P. W. "Cognitive Structures in Human Slory Comprehension and Memory."
Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1975.
Turner. R.H., ed.

Ethnometfwdology.

Wunderlich, D., ed.

Linguisiische

Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1973.

Pragmatik.

Frankfurt, Athenaeum, 1972.

APPENDIX
Bumper Stickers and the Cops
(From: P.G. Swindle, ed. Social Psychology of Everyday Life.
Books, 1973. Pp. 27-31)
3.

Bumper stickers and the cops F. K.

Harmondsworth, Penguin

HcussenstammDuring a discussion about a student group of Black Panther Party members who
had received so many traffic citations that they were in danger of losing theirlicenses, it was discovered that all had Panther Party stickers glued to theirbumpers. The Panthers' claims of police harassment were put to the test by having
15 drivers with no traffic violations for the preceding 12 months attach Black
Panther slickers to the rear bumpers of their cars. With the bumper stickers on
their cars, the students received a total of 33 citations in 17 days.
A series of violent, bloody encounters between police and Black Panther Party memberspunctuated the early summer days of 1969, Soon after, a group of black students I teach at
California State College, Los Angeles, who were members of the Panther Party, began tocomplain of continuous harassment by law enforcement officers. Among their manygrievances, they complained about receiving so many traffic citations that some were indanger of losing their driving privileges. During one lengthy discussion, we realized that
all of them drove automobiles with Panther Party signs glued to their bumpers. This is areport of a study that I undertook to assess the seiiousness of their charges and to
determine whether we were hearing the voice of paranoia or reality.
Recruitment advertising for subjects to participate in the research elicited 45 possible
subjects from the student body. Careful screening thinned the ranks to 15 -- 5 black, 5
white, and 5 of Mexican descent. Each group included three males and two females.
Although the college enrolls more than 20,000 students (largest minority group numbers on
the west coast) it provides no residential facilities; all participants, of necessity, then,traveled to campus daily on freeways or surface streets. The iverage round trip was
roughly 10 miles, but some drove as far as 18 miles. Eleven of the 15 had part-time jobs
which involved driving to and from work after class as well.
All participants in the study had exemplary driving records, attested to by a sworn
statement that each driver had received no "moving" traffic violations in the preceding 12months. In addition, each promised to continue to drive in accordance with all in-force
Department of Motor Vehicles regulations. Each student signed another statement to theeffect th.it he would do nothing to "attract the attention" of either police, sheriff's deputies,
or highway patrolmen -- all of whom survey traffic in Los Angrlcs county. The
participants declared that their cars, which ranged from a "flower child" hippie van tostandard American makes of all types, had no defective equipment. Lights, horns, brakes.

148

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
and tires were duly inspected and pronounced satisfactory.
The appearance of the drivers was varied. There were three blacks with processed hair andtwo with exaggerated naturals, two white-shirt-and-r.ecktie, straight Caucasians and ashoulder-length-maned hippie, and two mustache- and sidjburn-sporting MexicanAmericans. All wore typical campus dress, with the exception of the resident hippie andthe militant blacks, who sometimes wore dashikis.
A fund of $500 was obtained from a private source to pay fines for any citations received
by the driving pool, and students were briefed on the purposes of the study. After a review
of lawful operation of motor vehicles, all agreed on the seriousness of receiving excessive
moving traffic violations.
In California, four citations within a 12-month periodprecipitates automatic examination of driving records, with a year of probation likely, or,depending on the seriousness of the offenses, suspension of the driver's license for varying
lengths of time. Probation or suspension is usually accompanied by commensurateincreases in insi ranee premiums. Thus, the students knew they were accepting considerable
personal jeopardy as a condition of involvement in the study.
Bumper stickers in lurid day-glo orange and black, depicting a menacing panther with large
BLACK PANTHER lettering, were attached to the rear bumper of each subject car, and thestudy began. The first student received a ticket for making an "incorrect lane change" on
the freeway less than tv/o hours after heading home in the rush hour traffic. Five more
tickets were received by others on the second day for "following too closely", "failing toyield the right of way", "driving too slowly in the high-speed lane of the freeway", "failure
to make a proper signal before turning right at an intersection", and "failure to observe
proper safety of pedestrians using a crosswalk". On day three, students were cited for"excessive speed", "making unsafe lane changes" and "driving erratically". And so it went
every day.
One student was forced to drop out of the study by day four, because he had alreadyreceived three citations. Three others reached what we had agreed was the maximum
limit -- three citations -- within the first week. Altogether, the participants received 33
citations in 17 days, and the violations fund was exhausted.
Drivers reported that their encounters with the intercepting officers ranged from affableand "standard polite" to surly, accompanied by search of the vehicle. Five cars were
thoroughly gone over and their drivers were shaken down. One white girl, a striking
blonde and a member of a leading campus sorority, was questioned at length about her
reasons for supporting the "criminal activity" of the Black Panther Party. This was the
only time that an actual reference to the bumper stickers was made during any of theticketings. Students, by prior agreement, made no effort to dissuade officers from giving
citations, once the vehicle had been halted.
Pledges to Drive Safely
Students received citations equally, regardless of race or sex or ethnicity or personal
appearance. Being in jeopardy made them "nervous" and "edgy", and they reported being
very uncomfortable whenever they were in their automobiles. After the first few days,
black students stopped saying "I told you so", and showed a sober, demoralized air offutility. Continuous pledges to safe driving were made daily, and all expressed increasing
incredulity as the totals mounted. They paid their fines in person immediately after
receiving a citation. One student received his second ticket on the way to pay his fine for149

Teun A. van Dijk
the first one.
No student requested a court appearance to protest a citation, regardless of thecircumstances surrounding a ticketing incident. When the investigator announced the endof the study on the 18th day, the remaining drivers expressed relief and went straight totheir cars to remove the stickers.
Some citations were undoubtedly deserved. How many, we cannot be sure. A tightly
designed replication of this study would involve control of make and year of cars throughthe use of standard rented vehicles of low-intensity color. A driving pool of individuals
who represented an equal number of both extreme-left and straight-looking appearancewith matched age-range could be developed. Drivers could be assigned at random topreselected, alternate routes of a set length. Both left-wing and right-wing bumper sticker
could also be attached at random after drivers were seated in their assigned vehicles and thedoors sealed. In this way, no subject would know in advance whether he was driving
around with "Black Panther Party" or "America Love It Or Leave It" on his auto. This
would permit us to check actual driving behavior in a more reliable way. We might also
wish to include a tape recorder in each car to preserve the dialogue at citation incidents.
No More Stickers
It is possible, of course, that the subject's bias influenced his driving, making it lesscircumspect than usual. But it is statistically unlikely that thb number of previously "safe"
drivers could amass such a collection of tickets without assuming real bias by police against
drivers with Black Panther bumper sticker.
The reactions of the traffic officers might have been influenced, and we hypothesize thatthey were, by the recent deaths of police in collision with Black Panther Party members.
But whatever the provocation, unwarranted traffic citations are a clear violation of thecivil rights of citizens and cannot be tolerated. Unattended, the legitimate grievances ofthe black community against individuals who represent agencies of the dominant society
contribute to the climate of hostility between the races at all levels and predispose victims
to acts of violent retaliation.
As a footnote to this study, I should mention that Black Panther bumper stickers are notseen in Los Angeles these days, although the party has considerable local strength.
Apparently members discovered for themselves the danger of blatantly announcing theirpoll lies on their bumpers and have long since removed the "incriminating" evidence.

150

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
Table I . Sequence of Propositions
1

There was a series of encounters(a)between police(A) and members of theBlack Panther Party(B)2(a) were violent

3. (a) were bloody

|~M

Ml

M

Ml

II<2>

Ml

4. (1) was in 1969I0

5. (1) was in early summer

I0

6. Soon after (1) a group of students(C)IIK11>C0NS

M2
M2

began to complain of (11)

7. (C) were blackM

0. 1(D) teach(C) at California State College(b)I0

9. (b) is in Los AngelesI0

10. (C) were members of (B)M

M2

11. Law enforcement officers(of A) harassed (C)M

M2

12. (11) was continuousI0

13. (C) had many grievances(c) I 0
14. One of (c) was a complaint by (C) about (15)

III<15> CONS(SA)M3

15. (C) received many traffic citations(E)M

M3

16. (15) is a danger of losing (C)'s driving

III<15> CONS

M3

pr i vi1eges

17. WE (C ajT_d D) realized that (18-19)

IIK18.19>C0NS(MA)M4

18. All of (C) drove automobi1es(d)MM4

19. (d) had Panther Party signs(F) glued toM

M4

their bumpers

20. This is a report of a study(G)III<21> CONS(SA)M5

21. 1(D) undertook (G) for (22) and (23)

III<22,23> COND

M5

22. 1(D) assess seriousness of (C)'s charges

II<23>

M5

23. 1(D) determine whether we (C and D) were

II<23>

M5

IV<M6> COMP

M6

III<24> COND

M6

hearing the voice of paranoia or reality

24. Recruitment(e) elicited 45 possible subjects
from the student body(f)25. (e) was advertising for subjects toparticipate in the research

26. Screening(f) thinned the ranks to 15(H)IV<M6>

M6

27. 5 of (H) were black(g)II<27-31>

Ml

151

Teun A. van Dijk
II<27-31>

Sn

descent(i)IK27-31)Mil

30. Each (g)(h)(i) included three males

II<27-31>

Mil

31

II<27-31>

Mil

28

5 of (II) wore whi te(h)29

5 of (II) wore of Mexican

Each (g)(h)(i) included three females

32. The collego(j) enrolls more than 20,000

T

0

I

0

students

33. (j) has the largest minority group numberson the West Coast

II I<35> COND

M7

35. All (II) necessarily traveled to campus

II

M7

36. (35) was dailyI0

37. (35) was on freeways or surface streets

III<35> COMP

M7

34. (J) yet provides no residential facilities

38. The average round trip was roughly 10 miles

I0

39. But some of (H) drove as far as 18 milesI0

40. 11 of the 15(H) has part-time jobs(l)I

041. (1) involved driving to and from work after

I

0

M

M8

III<42> CONS(SA)

M8

M

M9

45. In addition each (H) promised that (46)

III<46> COND

M10

46. (H) continues to drive in accordance withM

M10

II I<48> COND(SA)

M10

111M

M10

I

0

class as well

42. All participants(H) in the study had
exemplary driving

records(m)43. (m) were attested by a sworn statementthat (44)44. Each driver (erf (H)) had received no"moving" traffic violations
preceding 12 months

in theall in-force Department of Motor Vehicles
regulations

47. Each student (H) signed another statement
to the effect that (48)

48. Each (H) will do nothing to "attract theattention" of either police, sheriff's
deputies, or highway patrolmen (I)49. All of (I) survey traffic 1n Los Angeles
county50. The participants (H) declared that (51)

III<51> COND(SA)M13

51. Their(H) cars(J) have no defective

II |M

M13

equipment152

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
052(J) range from a "flower child" hippie van
to standard American makes of all types

I/II

53

Lights, horns, brakes, and tires(n) were
duly inspected

III<54> COND

M13

54

(n) were pronounced

M

M13

55

The appearance of the drivers(ll) was varied

M

Mil

56

Three blacks(g) had processed hair

II<55>

Mil

57

Two(of (H)) had exaggerated

II<55>

Mil

II<55>

Mil

satisfactory

naturals

58. Two(of (H)) had white-shirt-and-necktie (o)59. (o) were straight Caucasians

II<55>

Mil

60. One(of (H)) was a shoulder-1ength-maned

II<55>

Mil

II<55>

Mil

hippie61. Two(of (H)) were mustache- and sideburnsporting

Mexican-Americans

62. Al1(H) wore typical campus dress

II<55>

Mil

63. Except one (of (H)) and the militant

II<55>

Mil

blacks(p)

64. (p) sometimes wore dashikis

II<55>

Mil

65. A fund of $500 was obtained from a private

III<66> COND/
I

M19
0

IV< M19> COND

M19

IV<M5> COND

M5

III<48> COND

M10

M

M12

IK69-78>|M

M12

III<73> COND

M12

72. Driving records are examined

II<69-78>v|1273. ((71) cause) likely year of probation(q)II<69-78>

A\2

74. Or supension of the driver's license (r)II<69-78>

M12

III<73> COND

v|12

source for (66)66. (M) pays fines (K) for any citations(L)received by the driving

pool(H)

67. Students(H) were briefed on the purposesof the study(G)68. The lawful operation of motor vehicles
was reviewed

69. (Then) all (of (H)) agreed on theseriousness of (70)70. (H) receive excessive moving traffic
viol at ions

71. In California 4 citations(of L) within a
12-month period precipitates automatic(72)

for varying lengths of time

75. (q) depends on the seriousness of theoffenses[153

Teun A. van Dijk
76

Probation(q) or suspension(r) is usuallyaccompanied by commensurate increases ininsurance premiums

IK69-78>

M12

77

Thus, the students(H) knew (that (78))

III<78> COND

M12

78

(H) were accepting considerable personal
jeopardy

II<69>

M1279(78) was a condition of involvement in the
study(G)IIKM6>

80. Bumper stickers(M) were attached to the

COMP

M6

IV<M14> COMP

M14

rear bumper(N) of each subject car(J)81. (M) were in lurid day-glo orange and blackI

82. (M) were depicting a menacing panther with

II<80-82>

large BLACK PANTHER

0
M14

lettering

83. And the study(G) began

IV<M14-21> COMP

M5

84. The first student(s) (erf H) received a

IV<M15> COMP

M20

ticket(L') for making an "incorrect lanechange" on the freeway

85. (84) was less than 2 hours after (86)I

86. (s) headed home in the rush hour trafficI0

87. 5 more (o_f L') were received by others (ofIV<M15> COMP

M15

IV<M15> COMP

M15

M15

0

H) on the second day for "following too
closely", "failing to yield the right ofway", "driving too slowly in the high speed
lane of the freeway", "failure to make aproper signal before turning right at anintersection", and "failure to observe
proper safety of pedestrians using acrosswalk"

88. On day three, students (of (H)) werecited for "excessive speed", "making unsafe
lane changes", and "driving erratically"

89. And so (87, 88) it went every day

II

90. One student(t) (of (H)) was forced to (91)

II<90-94>

M16

91. (t) drop our of the study(G) by day four

II<90-94>

M16

92. (t) had already received 3 citations within

III<90-91> COND

M16

II<90-91>

M16

IV<M16> COND(SA)M16

the first week caused (90, 91)

93. 3 others (of (H)) reached the maximum
1imit(u)94. We((D) a_n_d (H)) had agreed that (u) was
3 citations

95. Altogether, the participants(H) received
33 citations(L) in 17 days

M

M17

!

154

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
96. And (so) the violation fund was exhausted| IV<M17> CONS

Ml 7

97. Driver(H) reported that (98)

111<98>

98. Their(H) encounters with the intercepting

II<98-106>

M20

99. (v) was accompanied by search of the vehicle

II<98-106>

M20

100

5 cars (jof (J)) were thoroughly gone over

II<98-106>

M20

101

Their(J) drivers(o_f H) were shaken down

II<98-106>

M20

102

1 white girl(w) (of H) was questioned at
length about her reasons for (103)

II<98-106>

M20

103

(w) support the "criminal
Black Panther Party(B)II<98-106>

M20

CONS(SA)

M20

officers ranged from affable and "standard
polite" to surly(v)activity" of the104(w) was a striking blonde I 0105(w) was a member of a leading campus
sorori tyI

0 |106. This (102) was the only time that an actualreference to the bumper stickers (M) was
made during any of the ticketings

III<102> COND

M20

107. Students(H) by prior agreement made noeffort to dissuade officers(x) (of I) from(108)

IV<M19> COMP

M19

108. (x) gave citations (o_f L)M

M15

109. (After) the vehicle (of J) had been halted(106)

III<108> COND

M15

110. Students (of H) received citations (of L)
equally

II /M

M18

111. (110) was regardless of race or sex or
ethnicity or personal appearance

II

M18

112. Being in jeopardy(78) made them(H)"nervous" and "edgy"

I/II

M21

113. They(H) reported

III<114>(114)

CONS(SA)

M21
M21

114. (H) were very uncomfortable whenever they
were in their automobiles (J)II/IV<M14> CONS

115. After the first few days black students(C)stopped saying "I told you(D) so"I

0116. (C) showed a sober, demoralized air offutilityI

0117. Continuous pledges to drive safely weremade daily

IV<M10> COMP(SA)118. All (of H) expressed

increasing155

incredulity! IV<M17> CONS(SA)M10
1 M17 1

Teun A. van Dijk

In

119. The totals mounted

M17

M

Ml 9

121. (120) was immediately after receiving a
ci tat ion (o_f L)

I I K 1 2 0 ) CONS/I I K 1 1 0 > COMP

M19
iMIO

122. One student(y) (of H) received
second ticket (of L' )IV< M15> COMP

M15

120

Thoy(H) paid their(H) fines

his(y)

0123. (122) was on the way to pay his(y) firstone (of L')

I

124. No student (ojf H) requested a court
appearance to (125)

III<125>

COND(SA)

M19
M19

125. (of H) protest a citation (o_f L)

M/IV< M10> COMP

126. (124, 125) was regardless of the circumstances surrounding a ticketing incident

I

127. When the investigator (D) announced theend of the study (G) on the 18th day (128)

IV<M5>

128. The remaining drivers(z) (of H) expressed
relief

III<114> CONS(SA)M21
IV< M21> CONS

129. (z) and went straight to their cars to(130)

IV< M21> CONS

M21

130. (z) removed the stickers

IV< M21> CONS

M21

131. Some citations
deservedM

M22(o_f L) were undoubtedly

0
COMP(SA)

M5/
M21

132. We (D) cannot be sure how many (of L)I

0133. A replication of this study (G) would
involve (134-147)

M

M23

134. Make and year of cars are controlled
through 135

II/IV<M23> COMP

M23

135. Use is made of standard rented vehicles
of low-intensity color

II/IV<M23>

COMP

M23

136. A driving pool of individuals(aa) could
be developed

II/IV<M23>

COMP

M23

137. (aa) represent equal number of both
extreme-left and straight-looking
appearance with matched age-range

II/IV<M23>

COMP

M23

138. Drivers(aa) could be assigned at random
to preselected alternate routes of aset length

II/IV<M23>

COMP

M23

139. Both left-wing and right-wing bumper
stickers could also be attached at
random after (140-141)

II/IV<M23> COMP
M23
/III<139-141> CONC156

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
140

Drivers(aa) arc seatedvehiclesin their assigned

II/IV<M23> COMP

1 M23

141

And

II/IV<M23> COMP

M23

142

In th i s( 139) way no subject (of aa) would
know in advaice whether (143) or (144)

II/IV<M23> COMP

M23

143

(o_f aa) is driving around with "Black
Panther Party" on his auto

II/IV<M23> COMP
III<145> COND

M23

144

(of aa) is driving around with "America
Love It or Leave It" on his auto

II/IV<M23> COMP
III<145> COND

M23

145. Th is (142) would permit us (D) to check
actual driving behavior in a more reliable
way

II/IV<M23> COMP

M23

146. We(D) might also wish to include a taperecorder in each car to (147)

II/IV<M23> COMP
III<147> COND

M23

147. We(D)) preserve the dialogue at citation
i ncidents

II/IV<M23> COMP

M23

148. It is possible, of course, that the
subject's (ojf_ H) bias(ab) influenced his
dr ivi ng(ac )II<150>M24

149. (ab) make it(ac) less circumspect thanusual

III<148> CONS

M24

150. But it is statistically unlikely thatthe number of previously "safe" drivers (G)could amass such a collection of tickets(L') without 151

II |M

M24

151. (D) assumes real bias by police against
drivers with Black Panther bumper stickers

M

M25

152. The reactions of the traffic officers(of I) might have been influenced

M

M26

the doors are sealed

153. And we(D) hypothesize that (154)

III<154> CONS(SAM26

154. (of I) were(influenced) by the recent
deaths of police (of A) in collision withBlack Panther Party members(B) (1)M

M26

155. But whatever the provocation, unwarranted
traffic violations (of L) are a clear
violation of the civil rights of citizens

II/M

M27

156. (155) cannot be tolerated

III<155> CONS

M27

157. If unattended(ad) then (158)

II

M28

158. The legitimate grievances (ad) of theblack community against individuals who
represent agencies of the dominating
society contribute to the climate of
hostility between the races at all levels

II

M28

and (159)

1

157

Teun A. van Dijk
159. (ad) predispose victims to acts of violent
retaliationII

160. As a footnote to this study(G) 1(D) should
mention (161)

III<161>

161. Black Panther bumper stickers (of F) arenot seen in Los Angeles these daysM

M29

162. But the party has considerable local
strengthI

01G3. Apparently members (B) discovered forthemselves(B) the danger of blatantly
announcing their politics on their bumpers

III<161> CONDI I K M15> CONS

M29

164. (of B) have long since removed the"incriminating" evidence

III<161> COND

M29

158

M28
CONS(SA) M29

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing
Table I I .

Sequence of Macro-Propositions

1

There wore violent encounters between
police(A) and Black Panther Party members(B)M

2Soon after (1) (A) harassed Black Panther
Party members(C) by (3)I/III<1> CONS

3. (A) gave many traffic citations(E) to (C)M

4. Probably (3) resulted from Black PantherM

Party bumper stickers on the cars of (C)5. We made a study with the purpose to confirm

M(4)

6. A group of 15 students(G) was selectedM

7. (G) normally traveled by car

IIKM0>

8. (G) had exemplary driving records

M

9. (G) had not received citations for 12 months

IIKM8>

10. (G) promised to drive according to theMrules and not to attract police

COND

COND

attention

11. (G) had various appearances and backgroundsM

12. (G) realized the seriousness of the

I/IIKM15>

CONS

experiment

13. The cars (J) were found OKIIKM10>14. (G) drove around with BPP bumper stickers

M

15. (G) were regularly fined for various

M

COND

minor offenses

16. Some of (G) had to drop out

I

17. (G) received 33 citations in 17 days

M

18. All (of G) were fined uniformly

M

19. All fines were paid without protest

M

20. The police behaved differentlyI

21. (G) did not like (14)I/IIKM15>

22. Most citations were not deserved

M

23. A replication with better control ofIIappearance of subjects, cars, and of
behavior of subjects would be necessary

24. But it is unlikely that good drivers

Msuddenly become worse drivers

25. Hence police bias against drivers withBlack Panther Party bumper

stickers

159

M

CONS

1 cun A.

van Oijk

26. (25) is probably caused by (1)M

27. Yet (25) is an unacceptable violationIIof civilrights28. (27) may cause violent behavior of (B)II I<27> CONS

29. (25) caused that Black Panther Party

M

bumper stickers no longer are on carsof (B)

160

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing

Table I I I .

A Possible (Long) Summary

After violent encounters with members of the Black Panther Party, the police harassed
them by giving them many traffic citations, probably due to Black Panther Party bumper
stickers on their cars.
An experiment was carried out in order to see whether this assumption of biases in traffic
citations was correct.
A group of 15 students was selected who usually traveled by car, and who had excellent
driving records, not having had traffic citations for at least a year.
They promised to drive according to the rules and not to attract the attention of the police.
Their appearance and background were varied.
They realized that their task was serious.
After inspection of their cars, they drove around in their cars with Black Panther Party
bumper stickers.
As expected, they were indeed fined for various minor reasons.
Some of the subjects had to drop out.
Ss received a total of 33 citations in 17 days without marked differences for individual
subjects.
The behavior of the police was different.
The fines were paid without protest.
The subjects did not like their task much.
It should be concluded that most citations were not deserved.
Although a replication with better control of cars, subjects, and driving behavior would
perhaps be necessary, it is unlikely that good drivers suddenly become bad drivers.
It follows that the police indeed has a bias in giving citations to Black Panther Party
members.
Although this may be understandable by the recent riots, such a bias is a violation of civilrights, and may cause further violent behavior of the Black Panthers.
Since these had noticed the effect of the bumper stickers, they no longer drive with them.

161Teun A.
Table IV.

van D i j k

A Possible (Short) Summary

A n experiment was carried out in order to test the hypothesis that membership in the Black
Panther Party, as shown by bumper stickers, leads to biases in giving traffic citations by thepolice, possibly as a result of recent riots between the Black Panthers and the police.
Subjects with varying appearances and backgrounds were selected who all had very goodd r i v i n g records. After instruction not to attract the attention of the police and to drive
according to Ihe rules, they drove around with Black Panther Party bumper stickers. As
expected they ( N = 15) received many citations (33 in 17 days), independent of individuals.
The citations were mostly undeserved and were given for minor insignificant reasons, but
the fines were paid immediately and the citations not protested against
Although a better control of the variables may be necessary, it seems unlikely that good
drivers suddenly become bad drivers, so
the hypothesis of police bias is confirmed.
Although possibly caused the recent riots, such a bias is unacceptable. Due to the manycitations, no bumper stickers are used anymore.

162

Perspective Paper: Complex Semantic Information Processing

en

c
O

U

n

163