INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO THE CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF WRITTEN TEXT DOCUMENTARY CONTENT ANALYSIS (WTDCA)

Abstract

Content analysis, restricted within the limits of written textual documents (wtdca), is a field which is greatly in need of extensive interdisciplinary research. This would clarify certain concepts, especially those concerned with ‘text’, as a new central nucleus of semiotic research, and ‘content’, or the informative power of text. The objective reality (syntax) of the written document should be, in the cognitive process that all content analysis entails, interpreted (semantically and pragmatically) in an intersubjective manner with regard to the context, the analyst's knowledge base and the documentary objectives. The contributions of semiolinguistics (textual), logic (formal) and psychology (cognitive) are fundamental to the conduct of these activities. The criteria used to validate the results obtained complete the necessary conceptual reference panorama.