Hart, C. (submitted). Argumentation meets adapted cognition: Manipulation in media discourse
on immigration.
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.
Hart, C. (submitted). Event-construal in press reports of violence
in two recent political protests: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to CDA.
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 a comparative analysis
of the alternative conceptualisations of violence invoked in online reports from The Telegraph vs. The Guardian
of three recent political protests. Systematic differences in construal are found across several parameters of
conceptualisation, including schematization and various ‘focal adjustments'.
Hart, C. (2011). Legitimising assertions and the logico-rhetorical module: Evidence and epistemic
vigilance in media discourse on immigration. Discourse Studies 13 (6): 751-769.
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 requires Critical Discourse Analysis to re-examine
and defend some of its foundational assumptions (Chilton 2005); (ii) 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 they might be so persuasive (Hart 2010); and (iii) that findings bare little or no relevance for Critical Discourse
Analysis (Wodak 2006). In this paper, I take up the first two of these positions and in doing so, of course, implicitly
disagree with the third. I consider the positions in (i) and (ii), then, specifically in relation to Sperber's (2000,
2001) notion of a ‘logico-rhetorical' module. Taking the argument which Chilton makes concerning this
module one stage further, I suggest that the logico-rhetorical module evolved as much for persuasion as it did for vigilance.
I further suggest 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.
| pdf | weblink |
Hart, C. (2011).
Moving beyond metaphor in the Cognitive Linguistic Approach to CDA: Construal operations in immigration discourse.
In C. Hart (ed.), Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp.
171-192.
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.
| pdf |
Hart, C. (2011). Force-interactive patterns
in immigration discourse: A Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA. Discourse & Society 22 (3):
269-286.
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.
| pdf | weblink |
Hart, C. (2008). Critical discourse analysis and
metaphor: Toward a theoretical framework. Critical Discourse Studies 5 (2): 91-106.
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.
| pdf |
Hart, C. (2008). Critical discourse analysis
and conceptualisation: Mental spaces, blended spaces and discourse spaces in the British National Party. In C.
Hart and D. Lukes (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics in Critical Discourse Analysis: Application and Theory. Newcastle:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 107-31.
| pdf |
Hart, C. (2005). Analysing political discourse: Toward a cognitive
approach. Critical Discourse Studies 2 (2): 189-194.
| pdf |
