How not to kill the joke : the 'frame problem' and multiadicity

This paper will expand on the so-called “Frame Problem” (FP), as presented by Gee (2011a, p. 67; 2011b:31). For Gee, investigations of context in the field of Discourse Analysis demonstrate that the widening of interpretive frames of reference obtains an opportunity for further discursive insights and textual readings. However, Gee (2011a) also argues that this widening presents the problem of an open-endedness of interpretation with proportionately minimal return (p. 68). While conceding that “Context...is indefinitely large” (Gee, 2011b, p. 31), and that “balancing frames is an extra cognitive burden” (Tannen & Wallat, 1987, pp. 205-216), this paper argues that the concept of the FP itself warrants further investigation. Indeed, this paper makes the assertion that the FP should be viewed as a “rich point” (Agar, 1995:587), or as an opportunity to explore the potential for ways of meaning-making which respond to and which inform ever-fluid contextual conditions. The multidisciplinary framework utilised in this paper offers a new lens with which to view the almost infinite ways in which participants produce meaning from texts and from contexts. This paper originates the term ‘multiadicity’ to suggest a certain textual autonomy which invites, and is derived from, these contextual readings, but which ultimately eludes participant control. Multiadicity also suggests that participant knowledge can be ranked into a hierarchy of cultural literacies. A higher literacy, or capacity for multiadicity, presupposes the ability to move beyond a final, binary reading choice which predicts the unitary ‘solution’, to the point where textual enjoyment is actually derived from a combination of multiple, competing and seemingly irreconcilable potentialities.