Language, Image, Gesture
The Cognitive Semiotics of Politics

Provides an overview of Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis, extended to language, image and gesture in contemporary political discourse.

Christopher Hart (Author)

9781009257541, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 February 2025

298 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.2 cm, 0.57 kg

'In this book, Christopher Hart expertly guides readers through the major construal operations through which ideology is enacted in political discourses: schematisation, distribution of attention, viewpoint, and metaphor. Sample analyses are drawn from a range of, mostly online, discourses around highly salient topics, including immigration, the Black Lives Matter movement, Brexit, and Covid-19, and the investigation is extended to the study of co-text image and of co-speech gesture. A demonstration of the applicability of concepts from cognitive linguistics to the critical understanding of political discourse, the book also encourages us as citizens to read better, see more, and resist unthinking acceptance of ideological priors.' Lieven Vandelanotte, Francqui research professor in English linguistics, Université de Namur, Belgium

Politics is an inherently symbolic practice. This innovative book advances a framework for the critical analysis of political texts and talk based in cognitive linguistics. Through detailed analyses of attested semiotic practices, it provides a current, comprehensive and authoritative statement on the paradigm of Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (Cognitive CDA). The ideological effects of dominant conceptualisations and their implications for the legitimation of social action are explored with reference to political topics that have defined the last decade, including immigration, the rise of nationalism, the right to protest, Brexit and Covid-19. A range of conceptual phenomena are addressed, including image schematic patterning, attentional distribution, viewpoint and metaphor, as they feature in various contexts, genres and modes of political discourse. In a major advancement of the paradigm, the book extends Cognitive CDA to images and gesture to consider the role played by multiple semiotic modes in the discursive performance of politics.

1. Introduction
2. Principles of cognitive critical discourse analysis
3. Schematisation
4. Attention
5. Viewpoint
6. Metaphor
7. Co-text images
8. Co-speech gestures
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]