2nd CFP: Meaning Construction in Critical Discourse Analysis

[Christopher Hart]

Dear Colleagues,

2nd Call for Papers:   Meaning Construction in Critical Discourse 
Analysis (Theme session at CADAAD'08)

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) identifies three analytic stages: 
description, interpretation and explanation. Halliday's systemic 
functional linguistics has become synonymous with description-stage 
analysis of representation in text. And at the explanation stage, CDA is 
associated with Marxism and Critical Theory. Very little work, however, 
has been carried out at the interpretation stage, which is concerned 
with discourse processing. Discourse processing, of course, involves 
meaning construction as understood in cognitive linguistics or cognitive 
pragmatics. Cognitive linguistics is a broad paradigm subsuming a number 
of distinct theories and thus offering a range of potential analytical 
tools to CDA. But whilst CDA has made use of conceptual metaphor theory, 
it has not recognised cognitive linguistic approaches to discourse and 
the input they provide at the interpretation-stage. Similarly, cognitive 
approaches to pragmatics have not been recognised in CDA.

This methodologically-oriented session then, invites papers addressing 
meaning construction in critical discourse analysis from the 
perspectives of cognitive linguistics and cognitive pragmatics. As such, 
papers applying conceptual blending theory, construction grammar, 
discourse space theory, frame negotiation, mental space theory or 
relevance theory, for example, are particularly welcome.

Please send abstracts of no longer than 400 words to 
c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by *30 November 2007*. Authors should include their 
name, affiliation and email address. Successful authors will be notified 
via email by *15 February 2008*.

For details on CADAAD'08 please visit http://cadaad.org/cadaad08

-- 
Christopher Hart
Lecturer in English Language and Communication
School of Humanities
University of Hertfordshire

www.hartcda.org.uk