{"id":2043,"date":"2012-04-15T10:00:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T08:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2012-04-12T10:35:25","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T08:35:25","slug":"critical-discourse-studies-in-context-and-cognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=2043","title":{"rendered":"Critical discourse studies in context and cognition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Critical discourse studies in context and cognition<\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0Ed. by\u00a0Christopher Hart<\/strong>. (Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture 43.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Pp. vii, 231. ISBN\u00a09789027206343<\/a>. $135 (Hb).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Fan Zhen-qiang<\/a><\/strong>, Zhejiang Gongshang University<\/em><\/p>\n

In view of the fact that in critical discourse studies (CDS), current pragmatic and cognitive linguistic approaches to meaning construction in discourse are yet to march from the \u2018description stage\u2019 to \u2018interpretation stage\u2019 (1), this volume brings together articles, contributed by leading scholars in the field, offering interdisciplinary approaches and models to CDS on a basis broader than current cognitive-pragmatic and cognitive-semantic models. The editor\u2019s introduction sets the scene for and offers a snapshot of the chapters that follow.<\/p>\n

In his chapter, Martin Reisigl<\/strong> presents a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the relationship between pragmatics and discourse analysis, arguing for a holistic approach and a family-resemblance relationship between them, as well as other branches of linguistics. Focusing on the relationship between knowledge, discourse, and power, Teun A. van Dijk <\/strong>introduces his model of \u2018critical epistemic discourse analysis\u2019 through which he conducts a detailed analysis of Tony Blair\u2019s speech in the British House of Commons concerning sanctions for the Iraq war. Didier Maillat <\/strong>and Steve Oswald <\/strong>approach manipulative communication from the perspective of relevance theory, concluding that manipulation lies in the speaker controlling the hearer\u2019s context selection by making certain assumptions so salient that they are cognitively inescapable. The authors further explain how salience is achieved on the basis of argumentation theory. Piotr Cap<\/strong> presents his proximization-based model for interpreting legitimization effects in CDS. He particularly elaborates and refines axiological proximization and verifies the model by analyzing United States presidential speeches on the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

Integrating tools from cognitive linguistics (CL) and Teun A. van Dijk\u2019s sociocognitive framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA), Bego\u00f1a N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Perucha<\/strong> presents a diachronic investigation of political speeches on feminism, aiming to reveal how women conceptualize their unequal status in relation to men in the last three centuries. Another integrated model is proposed and applied in Veronika Koller<\/strong>\u2019s chapter. Her framework combines the discourse-historical and the sociocognitive approaches and, through a sample analysis of 1970s lesbian identity in discourse, proves to be capable of handling \u2018the complexity of collective identity both at a given historical moment and throughout time\u2019 (120). Like N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Perucha, Christine S. Sing <\/strong>also incorporates tools from CL in her discussion of the discursive construction of European identity. The difference is that the former relies mainly on image-schema theory while Sing draws on conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and categorization theory. She also uses corpus-linguistic methods to support her analysis.<\/p>\n

Christopher Hart<\/strong> reaches beyond CMT and explores more tools from CL in his examination of immigration discourse, adding to the inventory of analytic tools of CDA in general and bringing new perspective to the study of immigration discourse. The new tools introduced include construal operations, profiling\/backgrounding, metonymy, categorization, scalar adjustment, metaphor, deixis, and epistemic modality. Employing notions from cognitive grammarian Ronald Langacker (i.e. his distinction between the effective and the epistemic level), Juana I. Mar\u00edn Arrese <\/strong>builds a new model, which she uses to characterize speakers\u2019 expressions of stance and subjectivity in discourse by conducting a comparative corpus study of political discourse in English and Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critical discourse studies in context and cognition.\u00a0Ed. by\u00a0Christopher Hart. (Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture 43.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Pp. vii, 231. ISBN\u00a09789027206343. $135 (Hb). Reviewed by Fan Zhen-qiang, Zhejiang Gongshang University In view of the fact that in critical discourse studies (CDS), current pragmatic and cognitive linguistic approaches to meaning construction in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2045,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}