Introduction to Audiovisual Archives

Glossary of Specialized Terms ¹

NOTE: Expressions in bold and followed by an asterisk (e.g. “ASW-HSS project*”) appear in the glossary.

A

Analysis (of an audiovisual corpus)

1) A term denoting one of the two main categories of tasks and activities of work on an audiovisual corpus. The other category is processing* of an audiovisual corpus.

2) The work of analysis involves explicitizing the potential value* of an audiovisual text for a given audience (the analyst* could be this audience). A potential value* may be new information provided about a particular topic, missing or unpublished images, explanations which facilitate better understanding of a fact, etc.).

3) In the context of the ASW-HSS project, we distinguish between six main types of analysis of an audiovisual corpus: a) locating a potential value (analysis which consists of identifying the relevant segments or passages in an audiovisual text, and segmenting it); b) paratextual analysis* (a task which involves producing so-called identifying information on an audiovisual text and/or one of its segments); c) audiovisual description* (a task which consists of carrying out a description/interpretation of the visual and audio shots of an audiovisual text); d) thematic description* (a task which consists of analyzing the content of an audiovisual text or one of its segments, i.e. the topics they deal with); e) pragmatic analysis* in the broader sense (a task which consists of explicitly stating the possible uses/users of ...