You write that "none of Schank and Abelson's examples ever happen in
real life-- the "prototypical script" doesn't match any particular
manifestation."
What if you treat a script as a cultural ideal form? What if its power
resides PRECISELY in the fact that it "doesn't match any particular
manifestation." Right. Scripts are conventions. They are mediators/
artifacts. They mediate/constrain/enable interaction. But any script
must be "embodied" in a dramatic performance, the conduct of everyday
life.
This is not the same as the trivialized version of scripts in your
account of Schank and Abelson. Meanings constrain interaction, but
no one manifestation is ever uniquely identified.
I'll forward a relevant discussion from a course we are conducting
which seems quite relevant to this discussion. Its a summary
of Leontiev, 1981.
mike