6 Representación interna, el marco y de contexto en la dinámica de los negocios INTERACCIONES AN NLP PERSPECTIVA

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INTERNAL REPRESENTATION, FRAME AND CONTEXT 
IN THE DYNAMICS OF BUSINESS INTERACTIONS: 
AN NLP PERSPECTIVE 
 
 
CRISTINA-MIHAELA ZAMFIR 
‛Ovidius’ University, Constanța 
 
Abstract: NLP suggests that internal processing is associated with sensory word 
use. The aim of this paper is to show how our representational systems are 
important skills for business people who try to understand their interlocutors’ way 
of thinking and information processing. The frame and the context filters in the 
communication process will also be analyzed. Linguistically, the outcome is to 
identify and match business people’s predicates as a step towards achieving the goal 
of clear communication. 
 Keywords: context, frame, internal representations, language, map of reality, NLP 
 
 
 
1. Introduction 
 
Our inner representation of reality is unique for us, as our perception of the 
world is only an interpretation. It is not an exact representation of reality, because 
each person has his/her own way of thinking and takes information through his/her 
eyes, ears, taste and so on. 
People’s internal representation acts as a filter on the world and gives us an 
indication of their different thoughts and responses to particular external stimuli. 
This filter produces states that are specific to each person’s experience. 
From the communication model perspective, certain states are associated 
with certain behaviours, i.e. what we do and say depends on the state we are in. 
Our internal representation is a reflection of our state, consisting of images, sounds 
and feelings which are interrelated to make up a mental map and which 
interconnect to form behaviour. 
A way of changing the quality of our internal representations is, according to 
Molden (2001: 67), through the use of critical submodalities, which are likely to 
help us manage our states more easily: “imagine you have a control panel for 
changing the qualities of your internal representations, called submodalities”. In 
other words, the three types of submodalities, i.e. visual, auditory and kinesthetic, 
enable us to develop our ability to work with our internal representations. This is 
particularly evident when using an internal representation of a pleasurable past 
experience. Starting from this point, one could make a mental exercise and bring 
back the feelings, images and sounds experienced at the time of the event and 
intensify them by using submodalities. That is why the role of submodalities is 
closely related to our internal representation, since images (black and white, bright 
and dim, larger and smaller, framed and panoramic), sounds (mono or stereo, loud 
or soft, cleared or muffled), and feelings (rough or smooth, hard or soft, hot or 
cold) are associated with the representation, and make up what the NLP Model of 
Communication calls a “mind programming unit”. 
 
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2. The internal representation 
 
Our functional model of communication also provides a new way of 
accessing information and representing the world internally. This method of 
recognizing which of the three communication channels is used to form the 
representation is known as the eye movement pattern. It provides cues for whether 
a person unconsciously prefers to represent the world visually, auditorily, or 
kinesthetically. Each eye accessing cue indicates how we represent and process 
information. 
Visual pattern-oriented people recall experiences by seeing a lot of pictures 
in their mind’s eye. Strong, well-defined images, frequent upward eye movements 
characterize those with a visual representation of the world. Linguistically, persons 
who prefer the visual channel are more prone to use specific visual phrases like: It 
looks great, I can get the picture, I can picture what you’re saying, She paints a 
completely different picture, We might consider this on a broader canvas. 
Kinesthetic pattern-based people process and represent information 
internally by moving their eyes down and to the right. During a conversation, this 
eye position accesses kinesthetic sensations of internal feelings and is a frequent 
cause for pauses and speech interruptions in mid-sentence. Kinesthetics’ language 
cues are reflected in expressions such as Do you get a handle on things now?, Let’s 
touch upon this point., He must brush up on his writing reports. 
Patterns of eye accessing cues include lateral and leftward movements for 
remembered sounds, and lateral and rightward movements for constructed sounds. 
Auditory pattern–oriented people use language structures that match their 
representational style: Listen to Mike’s proposal, That’s clear as a bell, Don’t 
breathe a word. 
The filters on our experience determine the way we make sense of reality. 
As Sue Knight (2002: 47) put it, “by learning to recognize filters you begin to build 
bridges of communication… Your filters can vary over time and context, they are 
part of what makes you unique”. 
The process of sensing and feeling the world around us, i.e. the territory, 
helps us to create an internal model of the world made up of mental images, 
interactions, feelings. Firstly, we take in information directly from the territory, and 
secondly, we interpret the incoming perceptions (external signals) by means of the 
three filters of generalization, deletion and distortion. Moreover, Dilts and 
DeLozier’s classifications (2000: 379) of the ongoing experiences of the outside 
world are twofold: on the one hand, there is primary experience which “relates to 
the information we actually receive and perceive through our senses”, and on the 
other hand, secondary experience has to do with “the verbal and symbolic maps 
that we create to represent and organize our primary experiences”. 
Our internal representation is further shaped with the addition of our values 
which are a mark of our identity. Thus, as Dilts and DeLozier (2000: 410) point 
out, “Our values are an important influence on filters. Filters, in turn, influence our 
internal representation of our experience”. 
It is well-known that, in conversation, two people often use the same filters 
and similar language patterns, there being a high level of rapport and mutual trust. 
In this respect, Sue Knight (2002: 37-38) considers two steps to be relevant: the 
first step consists in learning to recognize the filters that you and others use, 
flexibility being developed further on, and the second step consists in giving 
ourselves a choice which is the key to success. 
207 LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 
NLP helps us to learn how to recognize the way in which our customers (in 
negotiating and selling) take in information through filters. On the one hand, we 
have to be able to present ourselves, and we have to be able to detect our 
customer’s needs, on the other. In other words, we have to know how to present 
our products and services, but we also have to consider the so-called customer 
delight (Knight 2002). In order to achieve the customer’s contentment, we have to 
know how to model his/her thinking and behaviour. All this is called meta program 
(Knight 2002; Molden 1996; O’Connor and Seymour 2002; Molden and 
Hutchinson 2006). 
In active listening, the sender of the message can hear in the recipient’s 
language what sensory source s/he uses in communication at any moment. In 
business, attention during the personal selling process is given not only to verbal 
phrases, but also to the thoughts and feelings of the prospective customer. It is 
essential for him/her to hear, see, touch the product and the salesperson must make 
him/her feel the benefits of the purchase. The sales managers tailor their approach 
to the needs of the various customers, enter their world and share the sensory-based 
language which their clients are most attuned to. The sales managers decode the 
communication mode chosen by their interlocutors and adapt themselves, using the 
sensory-based language of the latter. Byspeaking the customers’ language while 
matching predicates, they can make them feel they get a solid understanding, they 
might see eye to eye, or they might be on the same wavelength. 
 
3. The frame and the context 
 
Some theorists, for example Bateson (1973), refer to the relationship 
between the internal psychological state (the frame), which is part of our map of 
the world, and the context, which is an external representation of reality. 
In Bateson’s opinion (1973: 187), a frame “is not real in the same way as our 
map of the world is not the actual territory it represents. It is more of an indicator 
of the sort of thinking in interpreting”. The map, as a series of signs, is a myth, as 
Barthes (1993) suggested; it is a misrepresentation. As already suggested in his 
earlier studies, Korzybski (1994: 58) points out that “a map is not the territory it 
represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts 
for its usefulness”. Later on, Bandler and Grinder (1975) developed Korzybski’s 
ideas. The map maker has to make choices about how much information is to be 
processed and what aspects need to be brought out in order to make the map 
meaningful and useful. 
The context, more carefully studied by Leonard Bloomfield (1984), 
determines meaning which depends on “the situation in which the speaker utters it 
and the response which it calls forth in the hearer” (Bloomfield 1984: 139). The 
definition of meaning in NLP is very similar: “The meaning of the communication 
is the response you get… Meaning in communication is culture-bound” (O’Connor 
and Seymour 1993: 23, 89). 
For my purposes, thinking in terms of maps is more useful when studying 
NLP in business English, in general, and in negotiating and selling, in particular, 
because our first task is to map the reality as perceived by others. The result will be 
deletion of some of the material irrelevant for the map, distortion of the relevant 
material, which will cause disproportions, and generalizations of features to fit a 
standard recognizable pattern in terms of colour, shape and size (Katan 2004: 119-
120). 
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Much of a particular experience or event is framed by the context seen as 
strongly influencing the sending of messages in the medium. The interpretation of 
an experience will be determined by certain behaviour, also defined as “meta 
messages” about the context. 
In NLP, the physical and non-physical dimensions of a context exert 
influence on communication. The former is related to external cues and constraints 
(e.g. time constraints), and the latter is concerned with “parameters such as 
people’s goals, roles, the phase of work they are in” (Dilts and DeLozier 2000: 
224). For example, a brainstorming session targeted at designing a new product 
sets up a different context than a brainstorming session targeted at promoting or 
delivering that product on the market. 
As both terms imply, the frame and the context look at the dynamics of an 
interaction, focusing on the thoughts and actions surrounding it. 
 
4. Conclusion 
 
We often blend representational systems to make the most out of a particular 
experience. People feel more comfortable and in rapport with someone who is 
responding to them in the same language representations as they have 
communicated at that point in time. Matching someone’s representational 
processors immediately creates the condition of rapport. People’s “sensory 
bundle”, or package of senses, helps us to get a full experience of the richness of 
information we are all searching for. 
One particularly advantageous result of cascading from one representational 
system to another is, of course, the ability to establish deep rapport. 
Although people’s language may want for richness, eye accessing cues 
rarely lie. Therefore, what we would be getting without observing people’s eye 
accessing cues would only be language. In so doing, the eyes will follow the 
internal neurology, and will move according to which sense or representational 
mode they are accessing at the moment. 
Other elements which contribute to the dynamics of business interactions, 
namely context and frame, are essential aspects of the medium in which messages 
are sent. In business, time constraints are an important contextual influence. If a 
time limit of 20 minutes has been set for a meeting, it is more likely that the 
meeting will be interpreted as being task-oriented rather than an open-ended, 
exploratory brainstorming session. Frames greatly influence the way that specific 
experiences are interpreted and responded to because of how they serve to 
punctuate those experiences and direct attention. Frames also help “to make 
interactions more efficient because they determine which information and issues 
fall within or outside of the purpose of the interaction” (Dilts and DeLozier 2000: 
426). 
In conclusion, from the NLP perspective, having clear frames helps business 
people to adjust their expectations, and to interpret messages and actions 
accordingly. 
 
209 LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 
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O’Connor, J. and J. Seymour. 1993. Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming. 
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253 NOTES ON THE AUTHORS 
Cristina-Mihaela Zamfir is a senior lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages 
at the ‘Ovidius’ University of Constanţa, Romania. She holds a doctoral degree from 
the University of Timișoara. Her research interests include language studies, 
psycholinguistics, ESP, NLP and communication. She is an NLP practitioner, certified 
by ITANLP Timişoara in 2008. She has published articles in the fields of ESP and 
English lexicology and semantics in national and international journals. 
E-mailaddress: cristina_m_zamfir@yahoo.com 
 
Dragica Žugić is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, 
University ‘Mediterranean’, Montenegro. Her teaching career started in the department 
of English, Faculty of Philosophy, Nikšić in 1998. She holds a doctoral degree from the 
Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, Serbia. Her research interests include applied 
linguistics, translation studies and SLA. 
E-mail address: dragicazugic@gmail.com 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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