The visual basis of linguistic meaning and its implications for critical discourse analysis : integrating cognitive linguistic and multimodal methods

Hart, Christopher (2016) The visual basis of linguistic meaning and its implications for critical discourse analysis : integrating cognitive linguistic and multimodal methods. Discourse and Society, 27 (3). pp. 335-350. ISSN 0957-9265

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Abstract

Two important challenges currently facing CDA concern (i) the nature of language processing and (ii) the relation between linguistic and multimodal approaches. In this paper I seek to address both issues by advancing an integrated cognitive and multimodal approach to CDA to account for the communication of ideology in linguistic discourse. This approach is predicated on an argument from Cognitive Linguistics which suggests that understanding language involves the construction of multimodal mental representations, the properties of which can be approached within frameworks of multimodal social semiotics. Specifically, the paper shows how spatial organisation and orientation feature in our linguistic understanding of certain grammatical constructions and, consequently, what evaluative functions those constructions covertly confer. Traditionally, the direction of influence between linguistic and multimodal forms of discourse analysis is unidirectional with the former informing the latter but not the other way around. This paper represents a reversal of this orthodoxy.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Discourse and Society
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3315
Subjects:
?? cognitive linguisticscritical discourse studiesmultimodal analysissocial semioticscommunicationsociology and political science ??
ID Code:
78268
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
24 Feb 2016 09:42
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
03 Feb 2024 00:35