Are (Polish) Politicians Out of this World? 57and Critical Discourse Analysis “now constitutes one of the most
productive and pervasive methodological approaches to ideological
research” Hart (2015: 322).
The late 1990s marked an opening of the CDA towards the methods
offered by cognitive approaches to discourse analysis (van Dijk 1993,
1997). Following this period, CDA has enriched the exploration of “the
connectedness of things” (Fairclough 1985) by revealing conceptualizations
shared by particular social groups. Hart (2005: 190) sees the potential of a
new cognitive perspective - as one which traces largely subconscious
patterns of thinking that shape conscious beliefs - for the construction of
“a new methodology for the identification and analysis of linguistic
manipulation” within the CDA trend. In the same vein, Chilton (2005: 23)
argues that it is necessary to “introduce the cognitive dimension” to CDA.
This claim is based on one of the key tenets of CL: “if language is
produced and interpreted in human brains, then it interacts on any account
of language with other cognitive capacities (as well as motor systems)”
(ibid.), and is referred to as embodiment (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Lakoff
1987). Embodied approaches to language hold that cognition depends
largely (if not entirely) on subjective human perception of reality and
interaction of the human body with the physical world. These give rise to
kinaesthetic image schemas^1 grounded in bodily experience of functioning
in the physical world and manipulating objects, which – in turn – provide a
shared conceptual plane for metaphors. Conceptual metaphors provide a
link between physical experience and abstract thought by drawing upon
perceptual similarities. For instance, emotional or social distance is
expressed in terms of physical distance. Emotions, at both the personal and
social level, cannot be expressed without resorting to this pervasive
conceptual mechanism, which implies that a cognitively-oriented study of
language in social context provides essential information on shared beliefs,
preferences, resentments, and fears. As Chilton notes (2005: 23), “if CDA
is to be a research enterprise, which I take to mean an enterprise that
enhances human understanding and knowledge, then what goes on inside
people’s heads must become a prime concern.”
(^1) “An image schema is a recurring dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions
and motor programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience”
(Johnson 1987: iv).
For a concise yet thorough review of the nature of image schemas, see the
introductory chapter to Hampe and Grady (2005) From Perception to Meaning: