Abstract
Critical discourse studies (CDS) focuses on the discursive reproduction of power and power abuse, but to date cognitive theories of language have not been given due attention in CDS. Analysis is often limited to the description stage, without considering cognition at the interpretation stage. The papers in this volume offer new frameworks of critical discourse research from a broad cognitive perspective. They deal with the various intersections between discourse, social cognition, cognitive pragmatics and cognitive semantics.
In my opinion, this volume has several features that deserve the attention of readers. First, it clarifies the relation of CDS to context and cognition, and the relation between pragmatics and discourse analysis. Context is seen as the set of representations that discourse participants have of the world. It contributes to meaning construction and is managed and maintained through discourse. Pragmatics and discourse analysis cannot be separated, because the general characterizations of pragmatics are quite similar to those of discourse analysis. Both analyze language as social action and language use in a social context.
Second, this volume presents insightful ideas about critical epistemic discourse analysis in Van Dijk’s chapter, which focuses on how knowledge is abused to control discourse, or how the knowledge of the recipients may be manipulated in the interests of powerful groups. A critical analysis would deal with the structures and strategies that are affected by the management of knowledge, such as topics, local coherence, description, implications and presuppositions, definition, evidentiality, argumentation, metaphor, modalities, rhetorical devices, grammar, lexicon and nonverbal structures.
Third, this volume enables us to understand that the study of ideology in discourse could include the level of cognitive representations. From the perspective of CDS, construal operations in cognitive linguistics are the conceptual processes through which discursive strategies are realized, resulting in ideological cognitive representations. They are closely related to the three general cognitive abilities of attention, comparison and perspective (Hart’s chapter). Besides, relevance theory can be applied to the analysis of manipulative communication (Maillat and Oswald’s chapter). This type of analysis specifies the conditions under which cognitive processing may be misled to fulfill the speaker’s manipulative intention. It also addresses the constraints a speaker can impose through different means to mislead the hearer. Conceptual metaphor theory can be combined with a socio-cognitive approach to examine the cognitive dimension of feminist ideology in terms of the ideological categories and cognitive structures relevant to the representation of inequality (Núñez-Perucha’s chapter). Conceptual metaphor theory can also be employed to analyze metaphorical construction of European identity in terms of the old versus new European dichotomy (Sing’s chapter).
Fourth, the research in this volume includes socio-cognitive and pragmatic-cognitive phenomena such as proximization, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and stance. This indicates that the pragmatic-cognitive strategy of proximization can be used to accomplish legitimization effects (Cap’s chapter). It brings to us the fact that the expected rhetorical effect of proximization is legitimization of policies the speaker wants to enact to neutralize the threat from outside-the-deictic-center entities. A socio-cognitive approach is combined with a discourse-historical approach in analyzing collective identity (Koller’s chapter). The critical analysis of collective identity is to describe, explain and interpret the linguistic features of texts at the micro-level, meso-level and macro-level. However, socio-historical factors at the macro-level affect the selection of linguistic features at the micro-level. By the use of stance resources, speakers manage their rhetorical goals of persuasion through the strategic functions of legitimization and coercion (Arrese’s chapter).
All the chapters in this volume present an interesting interdisciplinary dialogue and serve as good examples for doing CDS in relation to cognition and social context. They illustrate the fact that many concepts in cognitive theory can be appropriately used to account for the communication and discursive construction of social and political knowledge that is based on the cognitive systems of discourse participants. In my opinion, this volume is of great theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, a new framework is formed with the synergy of cognitive linguistics and CDS. It enables us to understand that context can be regarded as subjective knowledge and that discourse is constrained by context models which include the knowledge of the speaker about a specific topic. As language is linked both to cognitive mechanisms and to socio-cultural context, there is no doubt that theories of cognition can provide useful theoretical insights into the communication of ideology in discourse and thus can be incorporated into CDS. Practically, cognitive processes such as categorization, profiling, metaphor, metonymy and deixis, which encode ideological conceptualizations of socio-political phenomena, can be very useful in concrete analytical work. In other words, they can provide important input for the analysis of ideological meaning construction. Concrete analysis of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and the various stancetaking acts in text production can throw light on the way speakers mystify their own responsibility for assertions in political discourse. Unequal social position can be interpreted on the basis of conceptual metaphors.
A wide range of topics is addressed and many genres are involved. There are topics in gender inequality, war, immigration and group identity, and there are genres such as documents, political speeches, parliamentary debates, presidential addresses and newspaper articles. In fact, CDS can even extend to textbooks, classroom dialogues and scientific discourse, because they also encode ideologies and power. Many of the research studies present a qualitative analysis of data supplemented by a quantitative, corpus-based analysis to strengthen the validity of arguments. The key point in this volume is that the combination of CDS and cognitive linguistics represents a useful tool for the analysis of ideologies and power. Without doubt, this volume can be used as a good reference for students and researchers who are interested in the theory and practice of CDS and cognitive linguistics.