Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

perspectives as the primary source of information. Here I also mention the strategic use of
abductive logic in relation to GTM framework (Reichertz 2007), which shaped and framed the
overall research process, from the construction of research questions to processes of production
and interpretation of, and theorizing from empirical data.
Application of the abductive logic
The abductive logic aims the construction of new hypotheses through critical re-evaluation of
findings (cases) and existing hypotheses (rules), and constant evaluation of what the case means.
This emergent blend of multidisciplinary interpretivism and empiricism in research methodologies
has its roots in more fundamental debates about social scientific knowledge production, namely
‘induction’ and ‘deduction’, as well as perspective of ‘abduction’ as a third form of scientific
inference. Jensen (2010) defines the ‘abductive sub-stream’ as an explicit model of scientific
reasoning, by relating it to the ‘inductivist heritage’ – defined by logical positivism, empiricism and
reductionist objectivism – and to the ‘deductive mainstream – defined as ‘hypothetico-deductive’
approach to test hypotheses - (Jensen 2010: 133-134). He claims that while standard accounts of
theory of science still tend to focus largely on either the inductive 2 or the deductive 3 reasoning,
‘abduction’ is still rarely considered as a valid form of inference although it has the capacity for
explicit scientific reasoning and generalization (also see Eco 1984).
For Danish communications professor Bente Halkier (2003), one of the main intentions behind the
abductive method of inference is to keep a “systematically open mind towards possible
interpretations of categories, and dynamic of the empirical field“(Halkier 2003: 116). Research
studies often take their point of departure from existing hypotheses (by deduction), which can be
tested against a number of instances (by induction) in order to formulate a new rule (by
abduction). Jensen (2010) describes “the point of abduction” as: “it introduces a rule that may
explain why one encounters specific (more or less surprising) facts … in a particular context”
(Jensen, 2010: 132) 4 .
In relation to the GTM perspective, Jo Reichertz describes the overall perspective of abduction as
“assembling or discovering, on the basis of an interpretation of produced data, such combinations
of features for which there is no appropriate explanation or rule in the store of knowledge that
already exists” (Reichertz 2007: 219).The point of abduction in GTM is to challenge theorization
2
Examination of several instances to a law
3
Inference from a general principle or law to individual instances
4
Rooting back to Aristotelian accounts of reality, knowledge and method, Jensen’s (2010) use of the term ‘abduction’ is
mainly drawn from Charles Sander Peirce (1894) and Umberto Eco (1984), both of whom emphasized the
interconnectedness of knowledge-in-the-world and context-specific observations in scientific process. The
interconnectedness of the three kinds of inference as scientific method is more apparent in Peirce’s later works, where he
also ties the idea to the foundations of pragmatism (Fann 1970).
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