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.

‘Hart’s elucidation of key links that can be made between cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis lays the groundwork for insightful application to polysemiotic forms of political discourse. The book provides a valuable resource for students new to the disciplines involved as well as for experts delving into multimodal political discourse analysis.’

Alan Cienki - Professor of Language Use & Cognition and English Linguistics, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands

‘In accessible and elegant language, Hart develops an approach to contemporary political discourse which builds on a range of approaches – Critical Discourse Analysis, Cognitive Linguistics, Semiotics, and Multimodality. Modelling compelling analyses of a range of texts and artifacts, the book offers a productive way to give justice to the complexity of political texts, while helping the reader see the advantages of interdisciplinary methodology. The book is a major step forward in current discourse studies.’

Barbara Dancygier - Professor and Distinguished University Scholar, The University of British Columbia, Canada

‘Christopher Hart provides a detailed overview and rationale for the applicability of cognitive linguistics and multimodality in Critical Discourse Studies. Examples for the analysis are taken from different contexts and they successfully prove the pertinence of studying textual cues, visuals and gestures in political communication. Readable and well argued, it is a must-read for linguists, political and communication scientists, and anyone interested in the relation between language and political discourse.’

Laura Filardo-Llamas - Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

‘Hart's book is the first to achieve an integrated account of Critical Discourse Analysis as part of a Semiotics of Political Language, linking accounts from Cognitive Grammar, Cognitive Semantics and Multimodal Analysis (both of Text-Image combinations as well as of Gestures). It will become a benchmark for all further work in this field.’

Andreas Musolff - Professor Emeritus, University of East Anglia, UK

‘Chris Hart presents a masterful demonstration of the power of Cognitive CDA in revealing the craft of political discourses. The book is a road map of the field into the future.’

Peter Stockwell - Chair in Literary Linguistics, University of Nottingham, UK

‘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