Books

Hart, C. (ed.) (2020). Researching Discourse: A Student Guide. London: Routledge.

Researching Discourse: A Student Guide, 1st Edition (Paperback) book cover

This book offers a ‘how to’ guide to conducting research in discourse analysis. Organised around different approaches to discourse analysis and working with different types of discourse data, the book will help students answer questions such as: Which approach should I take? What kind of data should I analyse and how do I set about collecting it? What consideration should I give to ethics? How do I make my analyses systematic and rigorous? How do I report my findings?

Both qualitative and quantitative (corpus-based and experimental) methods are covered. Illustrated with far-ranging, detailed and original case-studies, each chapter follows a consistent format that takes readers step by step through the research process, from design to implementation and presentation. Chapters can be read independently of one another.

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Hart, C. (ed.) (2019). Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Text and Discourse: From Poetics to Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Analysing a range of genres, including novels, poems, health forums, holiday guestbooks, prayers, political songs and news stories, each chapter applies frameworks in Cognitive Linguistics to shed light on the meanings and meaning-making processes invoked when we encounter texts.  The book presents new insights into the workings of textual phenomena such as metaphor, viewpoint and deixis but also sheds light on more elusive epiphenomenal qualities such as a text’s ambience, atmosphere, power, ideology or persuasiveness.  The book takes new strides in cognitive text analysis by exploiting experimental and ethnographic methods to empirically investigate readers’ reception of, and resistance to, texts.

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Hart, C. and D. Kelsey (eds.) (2018). Discourses of Disorder: Riots, Strikes and Protests in the Media Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Riots, strikes and protests are heavily mediatised events. Media representations thus play a crucial role in narrating instances of civil disorder for the public where they define the issues at stake, delimit frames of reference and debate, and ultimately legitimise or delegitimise the actors, actions and causes involved. From a critical semiotic perspective, drawing on insights from linguistics, multimodality and media studies, this book explores the ideological dimensions of media representation and its function in discursively constructing public understandings of, and attitudes toward, civil disorder. A range of case studies are presented which cut across time, communicative modality and genre, and geo-political context.

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Filardo Llamas, L., C. Hart and B. Kaal (eds.) (2016). Space, Time and Evaluation in Ideological Discourse.  London: Routledge.

Bringing together a body of related research which has recently developed in Critical Discourse Analysis, this book is the first to address the role of perspective in socio-political discourse. Specifically, the contributions to this volume seek to explore, from a cognitive standpoint, the way in which perspective functions in three dimensions – space, time, and evaluation – to enact ideology and persuasion. A range of discourse genres are analysed, including political discourse, media discourse, and songs used as political tools. Starting from the contention that discourse processing relies on the same mechanisms that support our understanding and experience of space, the book finds a recurrent theme in the way in which perspectival concepts like distance and focus, prompted by linguistic signs, feature in our discursively constructed knowledge of social and political realities. By highlighting the complex nature of perspective-taking in ideological discourse, the volume sets the agenda for further research in this area. The book will appeal to linguists, discourse analysts, media scholars, and political scientists, and all who are interested in the relationship between language and cognition in the socio-political domain.

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Hart, C. (2014).  Discourse, Grammar and Ideology: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives.  London: Bloomsbury.

Researchers in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have often pointed to grammar as a locus of ideology in discourse. This book illustrates the role that grammars as models of language (and image) can play in revealing ideological properties of texts and discourse in social and political contexts. The book takes the reader through three distinct grammatical frameworks – functional grammar, multimodal grammar and cognitive grammar. Using examples taken from a range of discourses relating to globalisation, including discourses of immigration, war, corporate practice and political protests, the book demonstrates the individual utility and the interconnectedness of these models inside CDA. A key argument advanced is that the cognitive processes necessarily involved in making sense of language are based in visual experience. This position offers new ways of understanding the ideological effects of grammatical choices in texts and suggests a reassessment of the relationship between linguistic and multimodal grammars in CDA.  The book will appeal to students and researchers interested in CDA and the relationship between discourse, cognition and social action.

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Hart, C. and P. Cap (eds.) (2014). Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies.  London: Bloomsbury.

CDS is a multifarious field constantly developing different methodological frameworks for analysing dynamically evolving aspects of language in a broad range of socio-political and institutional contexts. This volume is a cutting edge, interdisciplinary account of these theoretical and empirical developments. It presents an up-to-date survey of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), covering both the theoretical landscape and the analytical territories that it extends over. It is intended for critical scholars and students who wish to keep abreast of the current state of the art. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, the chapters are organised around different methodological perspectives for CDS (history, cognition, multimodality and corpora, among others). In the second part, the chapters are organised around particular discourse types and topics investigated in CDS, both traditionally (e.g. issues of racism and gender inequality) and only more recently (e.g. issues of health, public policy, and the environment). This is, altogether, an essential new reference work for all CDS practitioners.

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Hart, C. (ed.) (2011).  Critical Discourse Studies in Context and CognitionAmsterdam: John Benjamins.

Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an exciting research enterprise in which scholars are concerned with the discursive reproduction of power and inequality. However, researchers in CDS are increasingly recognising the need to investigate the cognitive dimensions of discourse and context if they want to fully account for any connection between language, legitimisation and social action. This book presents a collection of papers in CDS concerned with various ideological discourses. Analyses are firmly rooted in linguistics and cognition constitutes a major focus of attention. The chapters, which are written by prominent researchers in CDS, come from a broad range of theoretical perspectives spanning pragmatics, cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics. The book is essential reading for anyone working at the cutting edge of CDS and especially for those wishing to explore the central place that cognition must surely hold in the relationship between discourse and society.

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Hart, C. (2010).  Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Science: New Perspectives on Immigration Discourse.  Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an exciting research enterprise which aims to disclose ideological and persuasive properties of social and political texts. Since its inception, CDA has been theoretically eclectic, drawing its methods from linguistics and across the social sciences. However, CDA has paid relatively little attention to the relationship between text and cognition and neglected relevant developments in cognitive science. This study advances a model for CDA which draws on two areas of cognitive science, Evolutionary Psychology and Cognitive Linguistics, to provide a novel approach to analysing immigration discourse.  This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in connections between language, mind, media and politics and especially those looking to explore new frameworks for CDA.

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Hart, C. and Lukes, D. (2007) (eds.).  Cognitive Linguistics in Critical Discourse Analysis: Application and Theory.  Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.

In contemporary linguistics, both cognitive and critical approaches to language have been elaborated in some detail. Unfortunately, the two perspectives have seldom converged, despite the potential theoretical advances such collaboration offers. The contributions to this volume explore the convergence of cognitive and critical trends in the guise of Cognitive Linguistics and critical discourse analysis. The volume addresses a range of socio-political discourses in various international contexts, including discourses on nation, education, immigration, and war. One single integrated model is not presented, but rather, a number of methodologies are developed and assessed across the chapters. The application of established Cognitive Linguistic theories, including conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual blending theory and frame semantics, are discussed, as well as developing theories, such as metaphor power theory and discourse space theory. The book is of value to anyone interested in the interaction between language, mind, and society, including both students and scholars of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis.

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