Books by Christopher Hart
Researchers in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have often pointed to grammar as a locus of ideo... more Researchers in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have often pointed to grammar as a locus of ideology in discourse. This book illustrates the role that grammars as models of language (and image) can play in revealing ideological properties of texts and discourse in social and political contexts. The book takes the reader through three distinct grammatical frameworks – functional grammar, multimodal grammar and cognitive grammar. Using examples taken from a range of discourses relating to globalisation, including discourses of immigration, war, corporate practice and political protests, the book demonstrates the individual utility and the interconnectedness of these models inside CDA. A key argument advanced is that the cognitive processes necessarily involved in making sense of language are based in visual experience. This position offers new ways of understanding the ideological effects of grammatical choices in texts and suggests a reassessment of the relationship between linguistic and multimodal grammars in CDA.
The book will appeal to students and researchers interested in CDA and the relationship between discourse, cognition and social action.
CDS is a multifarious field constantly developing different methodological frameworks for analysi... more CDS is a multifarious field constantly developing different methodological frameworks for analysing dynamically evolving aspects of language in a broad range of socio-political and institutional contexts. This volume is a cutting edge, interdisciplinary account of these theoretical and empirical developments. It presents an up-to-date survey of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), covering both the theoretical landscape and the analytical territories that it extends over. It is intended for critical scholars and students who wish to keep abreast of the current state of the art.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, the chapters are organised around different methodological perspectives for CDS (history, cognition, multimodality and corpora, among others). In the second part, the chapters are organised around particular discourse types and topics investigated in CDS, both traditionally (e.g. issues of racism and gender inequality) and only more recently (e.g. issues of health, public policy, and the environment).
This is, altogether, an essential new reference work for all CDS practitioners.
Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an exciting research enterprise in which scholars are concern... more Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an exciting research enterprise in which scholars are concerned with the discursive reproduction of power and inequality. However, researchers in CDS are increasingly recognising the need to investigate the cognitive dimensions of discourse and context if they want to fully account for any connection between language, legitimisation and social action. This book presents a collection of papers in CDS concerned with various ideological discourses. Analyses are firmly rooted in linguistics and cognition constitutes a major focus of attention. The chapters, which are written by prominent researchers in CDS, come from a broad range of theoretical perspectives spanning pragmatics, cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics. The book is essential reading for anyone working at the cutting edge of CDS and especially for those wishing to explore the central place that cognition must surely hold in the relationship between discourse and society.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an exciting research enterprise which aims to disclose ideol... more Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an exciting research enterprise which aims to disclose ideological and persuasive properties of social and political texts. Since its inception, CDA has been theoretically eclectic, drawing its methods from linguistics and across the social sciences. However, CDA has paid relatively little attention to the relationship between text and cognition and neglected relevant developments in cognitive science. This study advances a model for CDA which draws on two areas of cognitive science, Evolutionary Psychology and Cognitive Linguistics, to provide a novel approach to analysing immigration discourse.
This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in connections between language, mind, media and politics and especially those looking to explore new frameworks for CDA.
In contemporary linguistics, both cognitive and critical approaches to language have been elabora... more In contemporary linguistics, both cognitive and critical approaches to language have been elaborated in some detail. Unfortunately, the two perspectives have seldom converged, despite the potential theoretical advances such collaboration offers. The contributions to this volume explore the convergence of cognitive and critical trends in the guise of Cognitive Linguistics and critical discourse analysis. The volume addresses a range of socio-political discourses in various international contexts, including discourses on nation, education, immigration, and war. One single integrated model is not presented, but rather, a number of methodologies are developed and assessed across the chapters. The application of established Cognitive Linguistic theories, including conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual blending theory and frame semantics, are discussed, as well as developing theories, such as metaphor power theory and discourse space theory. The book is of value to anyone interested in the interaction between language, mind, and society, including both students and scholars of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis.
Papers by Christopher Hart
This paper continues to develop a program of research which has recently emerged investigating th... more This paper continues to develop a program of research which has recently emerged investigating the ideological functions of spatial construals in social and political discourse from a Cognitive Linguistic perspective (Cap 2013; Chilton 2004; Dunmire 2011; Filardo Llamas 2013; Hart 2013a/b, 2014a; Kaal 2012). Specifically, inspired by principles in Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 2008), the paper attempts to formulate a grammar of ‘point of view’ and show how this trans-modal cognitive system is manifested in the meanings of individual grammatical constructions which, when selected in discourse, yield mental representations whose spatial properties invite ideological evaluations. The link between spatial organisation and ideological evaluation in these mental models, it is argued, is a function of our embodied understanding of language. These theoretical arguments are illustrated with data taken from online news reports of two political protests.
One of the most successful new ‘schools’ or ‘approaches’ in CDS is represented by a body of work ... more One of the most successful new ‘schools’ or ‘approaches’ in CDS is represented by a body of work applying insights from Cognitive Linguistics (Chilton 2004; Dirven, Frank and Putz 2003; Hart 2010, 2011a; Hart and Lukeš 2007). This body of work includes but is not limited to Critical Metaphor Analysis (e.g. Charteris-Black 2004; Koller 2004; Musolff 2004). At the theoretical core of this ‘Cognitive Linguistic Approach’ (CLA) are the notions of conceptualisation and construal. Conceptualisation is the dynamic cognitive process involved in meaning-making as discourse unfolds. This process entails language connecting with background knowledge and global cognitive abilities to yield local mental representations. To the extent that the CLA focuses on the relation between discourse and conceptualisation, it addresses the cognitive import of (ideologically imbued) linguistic representations (cf. Stubbs 1997: 106). Construal refers to the different ways in which a given scene, guided by language, can be conceptualised. Alternative ‘construal operations’ are reliant on different cross-domain cognitive systems and realise different (ideological) discursive strategies. In this chapter, I discuss some of the specific construal operations which, invoked in the audience, are the locus proper of ideological reproduction in discourse. I do so in the context of two contrasting online news texts reporting on the G20 protests in London, 2009.
Virtues of Argumentation: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation
This paper advances a cognitive account of the rhetorical effectiveness of fallacious arguments a... more This paper advances a cognitive account of the rhetorical effectiveness of fallacious arguments and takes the example of source-related fallacies. Drawing on cognitive psychology and evolutionary linguistics, we claim that a fallacy enforces accessibility and epistemic cognitive constraints on argument processing targeted at preventing the addressee from spotting its fallaciousness, by managing to prevent or circumvent critical reactions. We address the evolutionary bases of biases and the way that these are exploited in fallacious argumentation.
Journal of Pragmatics
Critical discourse analysis has focussed extensively on argumentation in anti-immigration discour... more Critical discourse analysis has focussed extensively on argumentation in anti-immigration discourse where a specific suite of argumentation strategies has been identified as constitutive of the discourse. The successful perlocutionary effects of these arguments are analysed as products of pragmatic processes based on ‘common-sense' reasoning schemes known as topoi. In this paper, I offer an alternative explanation grounded in cognitive-evolutionary psychology. Specifically, it is shown that a number of argumentation schemes identified as recurrent in anti-immigration discourse relate to two cognitive mechanisms proposed in evolutionary psychology: the cheater detection and avoidance mechanism (Cosmides 1989) and epistemic vigilance (Sperber et al. 2010). It is further suggested that the potential perlocutionary effects of argument acts in anti-immigration discourse, in achieving sanction for discriminatory practices, may arise not as the product of intentional-inferential processes but as a function of cognitive heuristics and biases provided by these mechanisms. The impact of such arguments may therefore be best characterised in terms of manipulation rather than persuasion.
Discoruse and Context
In this chapter, I analyse, from the perspective of the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to CDA, rep... more In this chapter, I analyse, from the perspective of the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to CDA, representations of political protests in British newspapers and the cognitive models that these representations reflect and (re)construct in the minds of readers. The analysis focuses on the alternative image schemas which are available to construe protest events and how patterns of construal might index wider ideological discourses. A comparative analysis is undertaken of online press reports of violence in the UK stu dent fees protests on the 10th and 24th
of November 2010.
Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics
In this chapter, I survey the most recent developments at the intersection between Cognitive Ling... more In this chapter, I survey the most recent developments at the intersection between Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. This synergy represents both a ‘social', or more specifically a ‘critical', turn in Cognitive Linguistics as well as a ‘cognitive' turn in Critical Discourse Analysis, which has traditionally adopted more social science based methodologies. Such has been the success of Cognitive Linguistics in Critical Discourse Analysis, however, that this synergy now constitutes one of the most productive and pervasive methodological approaches to ideological research. Below, then, I only briefly state the case for and consider the consonance of this now well established alliance. The reciprocal benefits that collaboration between these two disciplines brings and the extent to which they make for (un)easy bedfellows has been carefully assessed by Stockwell (1999) and later recapitulated in several works (including Dirven et al. 2007; Hart 2010; Koller, forthcoming; Nuñez-Perucha 2011). The focus of this chapter will therefore be on the different Cognitive Linguistic tools which have been developed and deployed in Critical Discourse Analysis over the last decade. Rather than chronologically chart the development of this field, however, I offer an overview of the landscape from a contemporary vantage point which brings together several analytical apparatus inside a single, integrated framework.
Journal of Language and Politics
In this paper I extend the scope of the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Critical Discourse Analy... more In this paper I extend the scope of the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by incorporating Langacker's model of Cognitive Grammar in a critical analysis of press reports of violence in two political protests. In doing so, I address issues recently raised against CDA concerning cognitive equivalence. The paper presents an analysis of the alternative conceptualisations of violence invoked in online reports from The Telegraph vs. The Guardian of two recent political protests. Systematic differences in construal are found across several parameters of conceptualisation, including schematization and various ‘focal adjustments', which, it is suggested, represent potential sites of ideological reproduction.
Critical Discourse Analysis has recently begun to consider the implications of research in Evolut... more Critical Discourse Analysis has recently begun to consider the implications of research in Evolutionary Psychology for political communication. At least three positions have been taken: (i) that this research provides a useful explanatory framework for Critical Discourse Analysis in which questions can be addressed: why might speakers pursue particular discursive strategies and why might they be so effective (Hart 2010); (ii) that this research could leave Critical Discourse Analysis redundant (Chilton 2005); and (iii) that findings have little or no bearing for Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak 2006). In this paper, I defend the first of these positions and argue against the stance taken by Chilton. In doing so, of course, I implicitly disagree with Wodak. I consider the arguments in (i) and (ii) specifically in relation to Sperber's (2000, 2001) notion of a ‘logico-rhetorical' module. I argue, contrary to Chilton (2005), that the logico-rhetorical module evolved as much for persuasion as it did for epistemic vigilance. And I further argue that the semantic category of evidentiality operationalised in media discourse is intended to satisfy the conditions of acceptance laid down by the logico-rhetorical module. I show how this semantic category therefore performs a legitimising function in media discourse on immigration.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Cognitive Linguistics were established at around the same t... more Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Cognitive Linguistics were established at around the same time with the publications of Language and Control (Fowler et al. 1979) and Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). They developed in quite different academic contexts, though, and until relatively recently did not come into contact. In the last few years, however, a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside CDA (Charteris-Black 2004, 2006a/b; Koller 2004, 2005; Musolff 2004, 2006). So far, this space has been reserved almost exclusively for Critical Metaphor Analysis where Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory has provided the lens through which otherwise naturalised or opaque ideological patterns could be detected in language and thought. But Cognitive Linguistics, like CDA, is not a single discipline. It is, rather, a perspective on a range of linguistic phenomena. Its potential efficacy for CDA may therefore extend beyond Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight (i) the place of Cognitive Linguistics in CDA and (ii) that Cognitive Linguistics can be incorporated into CDA to disclose various ideological dimensions of text and conceptualisation including but without being limited to metaphor.
In the last few years a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside... more In the last few years a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside Critical Discourse Analysis. So far, however, this space has been reserved almost exclusively for critical metaphor studies where Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory has provided the lens through which otherwise naturalised or opaque ideological patterns in text and conceptualisation can be detected. Yet Cognitive Linguistics consists of much more than Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Its efficacy for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) may therefore extend beyond critical metaphor studies. In this paper, I propose that Talmy's (1988, 2000) theory of force-dynamics in particular represents a further, useful framework for the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to CDA. Using this analytical framework, then, I identify some of the indicators of, and demonstrate the ideological qualities of, force-dynamic conceptualisations in immigration discourse.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) explores the role of discourse structures in constituting socia... more Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) explores the role of discourse structures in constituting social inequality. Metaphorical structure, however, has received relatively little attention in explicit CDA. The paper aims to redress this by developing a coherent theoretical framework for CDA and metaphor. This framework adopts conceptual blending theory over conceptual metaphor theory, where the latter is perceived to be incompatible with CDA. The framework is applied in a CDA of metaphors for nation and immigration in the British National Party’s 2005 general election manifesto.
Uploads
Books by Christopher Hart
The book will appeal to students and researchers interested in CDA and the relationship between discourse, cognition and social action.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, the chapters are organised around different methodological perspectives for CDS (history, cognition, multimodality and corpora, among others). In the second part, the chapters are organised around particular discourse types and topics investigated in CDS, both traditionally (e.g. issues of racism and gender inequality) and only more recently (e.g. issues of health, public policy, and the environment).
This is, altogether, an essential new reference work for all CDS practitioners.
This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in connections between language, mind, media and politics and especially those looking to explore new frameworks for CDA.
Papers by Christopher Hart
of November 2010.
The book will appeal to students and researchers interested in CDA and the relationship between discourse, cognition and social action.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, the chapters are organised around different methodological perspectives for CDS (history, cognition, multimodality and corpora, among others). In the second part, the chapters are organised around particular discourse types and topics investigated in CDS, both traditionally (e.g. issues of racism and gender inequality) and only more recently (e.g. issues of health, public policy, and the environment).
This is, altogether, an essential new reference work for all CDS practitioners.
This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in connections between language, mind, media and politics and especially those looking to explore new frameworks for CDA.
of November 2010.