Field Notes

I repeatedly begin with extremely small, ordinary, and seemingly trivial linguistic phenomena—not because I am uninterested in larger theoretical questions. On the contrary, it is precisely because I care deeply about larger foundational questions that I choose to begin from the smallest possible entry points.

Large theories often come with high barriers to entry. When a study begins immediately with concepts such as field, gravity, topology, or the formation of understanding, readers are often pushed away by abstraction before they have encountered any concrete phenomenon at all. For me, this does not mean theory is unimportant. It means that when theory lacks a shared point of entry, it becomes difficult to genuinely examine.

This is why I choose to begin with small everyday phenomena: a single use of “because,” a punctuation mark, a phrase such as “也不是不行” (“not impossible”), or expressions such as never mind and whatever. These phenomena often appear too small, too ordinary, and too easily overlooked. But precisely because of this, they possess a unique methodological value: nearly every reader can locate an entry point within their own linguistic experience.

What interests me is not simply what these expressions mean, but rather: How is understanding formed through them? How is tension distributed? How does closure emerge? Why does one expression remain structurally stable while another feels difficult to sustain? In this sense, everyday language is not merely a source of examples—it is a place where structures leave observable traces.

This is also why I deliberately avoid beginning with grand unified theories. Even if a theory appears coherent at a highly abstract level, if it leaves no observable differences in small-scale phenomena, it can easily become a large narrative that resists meaningful examination. By contrast, if certain structures genuinely exist, they should repeatedly leave traces across different scales, materials, and contexts. I do not oppose macro-level theory itself, but I care deeply about whether theory leaves behind standards that can be repeatedly examined and evaluated through concrete phenomena.

Studying everyday micro-phenomena is therefore not a lowering of theoretical ambition—it is an increase in observational density. Small phenomena force researchers to confront highly specific differences: Why does this sentence feel different from that one? Why do two punctuation marks create different forms of closure? Why do similar expressions of acceptance follow different pathways toward acceptance? Why do never mind, whatever, and it’s fine not produce interactional closure in the same way?

These questions are small, but they are not shallow. They require a different mode of observation: not one that immediately imposes existing categories onto language, but one that remains with phenomena long enough for differences to become describable on their own. For me, this is a method of approaching larger structures through local observation. Larger structures are not declared in advance—they gradually become visible through repeated observations of small but stable phenomena.

I do not believe these everyday phenomena can immediately prove a complete theory. They function more like specimens, slices, or entry points. Each micro-phenomenon only opens a small region. But when similar operations repeatedly appear across different regions—tension, convergence, continuity, boundaries, reconfiguration, conductivity, collapse—we gain reason to ask whether they point toward larger structures of understanding.

For this reason, my current work does not reject larger theory. Rather, I want to continue observing how stable these structures remain as scale gradually expands, and how deeply they can extend across different layers of analysis. First, let phenomena accumulate. First, let differences become visible. First, let those structures that are often ignored precisely because they are too small become describable.

When enough micro-observations begin illuminating one another, larger frameworks no longer need to be declared from abstraction alone. They can emerge gradually from the phenomena themselves.

This is why I continue returning to everyday language. Because the smallest places are often not the edges of theory. They may be where theory first becomes visible.

I am currently working on what I call an “attraction framework.”

In the process, I also identified an error in my earlier DFS account of irony.

Previously, I tended to treat irony as an effect produced by field variation, even suggesting that curvature of the field gives rise to irony. But looking back, this formulation contains a structural problem: it turns the field into something that produces linguistic attraction.

If irony were directly caused by the field, this would imply that without such a field, irony would not exist.

This is likely not correct. The possibility of irony is not generated by the field out of nothing; it is already latent in the nodal structure of the text itself. The role of the field is not to create this path, but to make certain already-existing paths traversable, visible, and intelligible.

This revision matters to me because it concerns the internal consistency of the framework.

If the text itself does not carry multiple potential paths, then understanding becomes overly dependent on external conditions, and the structure of language becomes too weak. But if all meaning is pushed entirely back into the text, the field loses its proper function. A more balanced account would be: the nodal structure of the text contains multiple possible paths, including ironic ones; the field determines which path becomes manifest in a given moment; and curvature describes how the field brings that path into appearance.

In this sense, irony is not produced by the field, but made accessible by it. This adjustment better preserves the internal structure of the framework, and brings DFS and the attraction framework into closer alignment.