28.2463, Review: Cognitive Science; Discourse Analysis; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics: Romano, Porto (2016)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2463. Fri Jun 02 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2463, Review: Cognitive Science; Discourse Analysis; Linguistic Theories; Pragmatics; Sociolinguistics: Romano, Porto (2016)

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Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2017 13:58:00
From: Judith Bridges [jcbridges at mail.usf.edu]
Subject: Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1904.html

EDITOR: Manuela  Romano
EDITOR: Maria Dolores  Porto
TITLE: Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction
SUBTITLE: Multimodal and cross-linguistic perspectives
SERIES TITLE: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 262
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Judith Bridges, University of South Florida

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

The volume “Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive
Interaction: Multimodal and Cross-Linguistic Perspectives” edited by Manuela
Romano and María Dolores Porto investigates the inherent connection between
discourse, cognition, and society. Divided into three sections, the volume
presents studies which are simultaneously use-based language-and-cognition
studies, and exemplars of research approaches which consider real social
structure and behavior. Following an introductory chapter by the editors, the
volume comprises ten papers, each a case study examining an area of
language-in-use as a multifaceted, intricate, and collaborative practice. An
emphasis throughout the volume is on the importance of combining the
disciplines of cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis to study how real
discourse is constructed and interpreted. Additionally, the volume emphasizes
the significance of engaging a strong sensitivity to the sociocognitive
context and multimodality of communication. 

The volume begins with the introduction, “Discourse, cognition, and society,”
authored by the co-editors Manuela Romano and María Dolores-Porto. Introducing
the aims, concepts, and background of the volume, the chapter outlines a new
social turn in cognitive linguistics in terms of its scope of study, as well
as its methodology. The field of cognitive linguistics has recently grown to
become merged with other language-related studies, and this new turn is
branded primarily by the push for a stricter understanding of language as
inseparable from the context of its socio-cognitive reality. The authors
provide some background of this paradigm shift within the field of cognitive
linguistics, its intersection with other fields such as Critical Discourse
Analysis and Metaphor Studies, and the ensuing blending of theories and
methodologies across the fields. Specifically, this new turn in cognitive
linguistics aims to establish an empirically-supported relationship between
linguistic elements and social implications, and aims to do so by rejecting
interpretative readings and urging scholars to look instead to experimental
and corpus-based evidence. 

Next, the editors spend some time on the essential theoretical concepts that
emerge in the volume’s subsequent essays: embodiment, multimodality,
conceptual integration, metaphor, and creativity. These concepts are
integrated in cognitive linguistics and must be understood by the reader to
fully grasp and benefit from the volume; thus each construct is concisely
explained and coherently linked to the historical framework from which it
emerged. In the last section of the introduction chapter, the editors provide
a brief abstract of each chapter in the volume, preparing readers for what
each essay comprises, as well as an evaluation of the significance of each
study for the fields of cognitive linguistics and discourse studies. 

The following three essays make up the volume’s first section,
“Socio-cognitive approaches to discourse.” The first essay, by Enrique
Bernárdez, identifies methodological flaws in mainstream cognitive
linguistics, and important changes to be made in standard procedures. In this
chapter, “From butchers to surgeons to the linguistic method: On language and
cognition as supraindividual phenomena,” Bernárdez focuses on the metaphor
‘This surgeon is a butcher’ as an example of how metaphor studies isolate
themselves within an unbalanced sociohistorical context. Metaphor analyses
frequently fail to consider the metaphor’s usage beyond the English language
and recent history. Bernárdez reviews two previous articles on the expression,
pointing out the omission of any historical, cultural and social situatedness
of the metaphor. The author then shows that not only has the metaphor existed
for thousands of years, but has existed in other languages. This finding thus
gives warning of methodological errors in cognitive linguistics, such as
studying metaphors in what the author calls a “solipsistic” manner, i.e.,
disregarding other possible meanings existing elsewhere in time or space. The
paper ultimately calls for linguists to avoid studying language in space-time
isolation, and instead consider interaction with other languages and eras. The
editors refer to this chapter as “a checklist that all cognitive linguistics
should take into account” (p. 8). 

Similar to the first paper, the next paper emphasizes the importance of
contextualization when analyzing language. “Individual differences and in situ
identity marking: Colloquial Belgian Dutch in the reality TV show ‘Expeditie
Robinson’” by Eline Zenner, Gitte Kristiansen, and Dirk Geeraerts also point
out the necessity of considering intraspeaker dialect variation and its
meaning in discourse. Specifically, the chapter focuses on a morphological
feature which speakers are often aware of, and a phonemic variation which
speakers are not conscious of. The study takes into consideration some
features commonly neglected in discourse studies such as personal and social
characteristics, plus circumstantial aspects where speakers may deliberately
alter their linguistic variables as communication strategies for in-group
accommodation. The concepts of situatedness and embodiment are central, as the
study reveals identity creation in discourse. The authors connect the
similarities and differences between speakers’ socio-cultural backgrounds
(e.g., Netherland or Belgian Dutch speakers) and personalities (e.g.,
discourse strategists or non-strategists), and their positioned identities at
the moment of the exchange. The final section of the chapter calls for a new
perspective for contemporary sociolinguistics, considering more in-depth
analysis of interaction between situation-related and speaker-related
features. 

The third and final paper of the volume’s section on socio-cognitive
approaches to discourse, Augusto Soares de Silva presents “The persuasive (and
manipulative) power of metaphor in ‘austerity’ discourse: A corpus-based
analysis of embodied and moral metaphors of austerity in the Portuguese
press.” As the title may hint, this paper demonstrates the power of metaphor
as a discourse strategy in the press to conceptualize austerity policies in
the public’s mind and to promote an ideological, emotional, and moral agenda.
De Silva first introduces the word ‘austerity’ and its economic, social, and
cultural significance, then provides a thorough and useful theoretical and
methodological background and rationale for fusing methods from Cognitive
Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Corpus Linguistics to approach
the construct of conceptual metaphor. Using qualitative and quantitative
methods, the study identifies three principal themes of austerity-related
metaphors used in news and opinion articles: great chain of being, image
schemas, and event/action conceptual metaphors. Offering a historical
perspective and definition of each metaphor type, as well as an analysis of
examples from the data set, the study then discusses a sub-categorization of
various specific conceptual metaphors such as obesity/diet, good student,
indebted family, and sacrifice. Findings also reveal an increase in negativity
of metaphors between 2011, the initial implementation of these economic
policies, and 2013, when protests intensified against austerity measures,
marked with shifts from positive (e.g., ‘sacrifice’) to negative (e.g.,
‘impoverishment’). Overall, the chapter demonstrates how the embodiment of
metaphor in political and economic contexts can subliminally construct a
hidden ideology in public opinion. 

The second part of the book includes three papers that investigate “Discourse
strategies in multimodal communication.” The first is “The construction of
meaning in multimodal discourse: A digital story as a case study” by Silvia
Molina and Isabel Alonso Belmonte. The authors begin with a rationale for
their various analytical tools and mixed methods approach to transmedia
storytelling, and offer a background on the narrative chosen for analysis. The
study identifies micro- and macro-level strategies of meaning-making processes
used by producers and interpreters of the story, as well as the construction
of individual and social identities. Molina and Belmonte first demonstrate
micro-level strategies occurring in three separate modes – verbal,
visual-spatial, and audio – such as color and typography of text, a balloon
reporting a character’s speech, or the song chosen to play in the background.
Additionally, the authors include a section on multimodal metaphors showing
how the metaphors function on the micro- and macro-level, exhibiting the
dynamism and highly contextualized nature of the character. The study then
turns to the macro-level, disentangling the multi-modality of the story in
presenting each semiotic resource as “cross-mapped mental spaces,” which
evolve into a comprehensive meaning that surpasses the implications conveyed
by the three modes individually. In the end, Molina and Belmonte uncover the
fact that combining the Conceptual Integration Theory and the multimodal
functional approach resulted in similar, overlapping findings, revealing how
close both frameworks are. Consequently, the authors argue that only through
combining mixed frameworks can the interwoven semiotic resources and
strategies of such a complex analysis be displayed. 

Laura Hidalgo-Downing, M. Ángeles Martínez and Blanca Kraljevic-Mujic
contribute the next paper to the volume: “Multimodal metaphor, narrativity and
creativity in TV cosmetics ads.” Similar to the previous chapter, this article
explores the interaction between multimodal metaphor and multisemiotic
narrativity as a discourse strategy, but the focus of this study is on British
television advertisements for cosmetics and the creative discourse strategies
used to create cognitive and socio-cultural experiences.  The authors review
how numerous the studies are on the relationships between narrativity,
multimodality, and creativity in ads, then offer the rationale behind their
study, which is to address the role and nature of closure, or a meaningful end
in advertisement narration. From the chosen commercials, the authors point out
several features of images and sound and how they correspond with the
organization of the narrative, as well as discuss how multimodal metaphors
operate as a method for synopsizing the overall purpose of ad. The study
demonstrates consistencies in multimodal resources used in commercials whose
narrative is in chronological order (e.g., agent with beauty problem
transpires to beautiful, thanks to the product), and ads that use a
“defamiliarizing effect” to begin the narrative with the end-point (e.g.,
agent looks beautiful, then we learn which product she used.) Lastly, the
authors offer a further detailed analysis of the persuasive strategies of four
specific cosmetic ads, revealing how the multimodal metaphors influence the
audience to accept the product.

In the third paper on multimodality, “Multimodal discourses of collective
memory,” Małgorzata Fabiszak analyzes the interaction of visual and verbal
discourse from four Holocaust memorials in Poland, two of which were erected
in the 1960s, and two that were constructed in the 2000s. Using two cognitive
frameworks, Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Image Schemata, alongside the
functional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, this chapter, like the
previous two, combines analytical approaches to explore the interaction of
visual and verbal layers of the memorials. After outlining the theoretical
frameworks and the four memorials chosen for the study, the author analyzes
the landscape and visual features with Image Schemata, walking the reader
through the embodiment of tactile sensory meaning of elements such as
constricted spaces, shade and coldness, and mass graves. The verbal layer is
analyzed through the written inscriptions on the structures of names, dates,
and messages, as well as plaques on the walls. The paper shows how memorials
not only fortify collective memory and in-group relations, but how they become
“the potential vehicle of ideology of the period in which they were created”
(p. 160). Fabiszak’s analysis of the memorials’ visual and verbal meanings
exposes how the change in discourse over the years influenced the design of
the memorials. Finally, the historically-significant geographical locations of
the former extermination sites poignantly illustrate the notions of embodiment
and situatedness, as the memorials carry cultural meaning.  Together, the
interaction of the verbal and visual allows for the cultural continuation of
ideals and ideologies. 

The final section of the volume, “Cross-linguistic perspectives,” is formed by
four papers that explore discourse strategies across languages. The volume’s
editors note that the fact that each paper looks at English and Spanish,
allows for the possibility to examine “how the same cultural contexts can
influence discourse in different ways” (p.11). In the first paper, “Exploring
specific differences: A cross-linguistic study of English and Spanish civil
engineering metaphors,” Ana Roldán-Riejos investigates civil engineering
zoomorphic metaphors or metonyms in the two languages, such as butterfly valve
or garra de fijación (‘clamp’ in English; literally, ‘fastening claw’).
Combining a socio-cognitive and multimodal approach with discourse analysis
and corpora-driven data, the study provides an observation of how
verbal-visual metaphors and metonymic mapping are similar and different across
languages. That is, while visual mappings often correlate, linguistic
metaphors almost always differ. Namely, English tends to use names of animals
(e.g., caterpillar), while Spanish uses parts of animals (e.g., wing) more
frequently than English. Additionally, Roldán-Riejos discovered that the case
for Spanish was not always so; up to the 16th century, there were more animal
names used that are now obsolete. Overall, this paper illustrates a specific
way that metaphor is a cultural phenomenon and asserts how meaning is
constructed through the dual process of metaphor and metonymy.  

In the next chapter, “The use of metaphor and evaluation as discourse
strategies in pre-electoral debates: Just about winning votes,” Mercedes Díez
Prados also examines metaphors from a cross-linguistic perspective. The
contrastive analysis first investigates which economy- and government-related
metaphors were used by two opponents in Spain’s 2011 general election debates.
Next, the author compares the metaphors to equivalent metaphors used in the
debates leading up to the 2008 American presidential election. The findings
conflict with the expectation that right-wing and left-wing party ideologies
necessarily align, respectively, with the strict father and nurturing parent
metaphors. Examining the interplay between metaphors and candidates’
evaluation of themselves and each other, the study shows how all four
politicians generally present themselves as nurturing parents and their
opponents as strict fathers. Prados discusses how this result suggests
politicians use metaphors less for ideological reasons than for the purpose of
winning elections. 

The last two chapters of the volume choose a cross-linguistic perspective to
focus on narrative structure or oral stories. In the first, “A text-world
account of temporal world-building strategies in Spanish and English,” Jane
Lugea employs Text-World Theory to examine how speakers use temporal deixis to
construct mental representations of temporal events through language. Then
using corpus-based quantitative measures, the study compares strategies
between speakers of American English, British English, Peninsular Spanish, and
Latin American Spanish. The chapter provides an outline of the “frog story”
used to elicit the narratives, and details Text World Theory in contrast to
other similar cognitive models as the most effective, approaching discourse as
a two-way meaning-making process. The analytic process resulted in the
author’s creation of a three-dimensional diagramming method necessary to trace
the temporal world-switching occurring in the stories. The subsequent findings
not only show cross-linguistic differences between English and Spanish
speakers, but some similarities between American English and Peninsular
Spanish speakers, who showed a preference for the present as an anchor tense,
suggesting they use temporal deixis for reasons beyond marking temporality.
This first chapter demonstrates that Text-World Theory can be extended to
non-English, non-written and cross-linguistic data. Secondly, this study
provides evidence that linguistic reasons alone might not account for varietal
differences, affirming the volume’s emphasis on sociocultural influences and
context, showing experiential and cultural knowledge merging to co-construct
meaning.

The final chapter, “Gesture structuring strategies in English and Spanish
autobiographical narratives” by Ana Laura Rodríguez Redondo, analyzes the
gestures that interact and structure two oral emotional narratives, as well as
what gesture differences arise between the Spanish and English narratives. To
study the conceptual unfolding of discourse through cognitive gesture studies,
the author draws on Mental Spaces Theory, which observes narrative structure
as a series of fragmented mental spaces between which speakers guide their
listeners by use of various linguistic and non-linguistic mechanisms. These
fragmented mental spaces were mapped with the corresponding gestures that
signaled shifts between the narratives’ segments. The study found that
speakers’ metanarrative use of gestures such as eye-gaze shifts or head
movements marked mental spaces that were not signaled linguistically.
Additionally, while Rodríguez warns against generalization, she found that at
least at the idiosyncratic level, the Spanish speaker’s gestures mostly marked
narrative structure, whereas the British speaker’s gestures were largely
attentional devices used for emphasizing important points. The primary aim of
this chapter is not necessarily to draw conclusions from the study, but rather
to present gesture-structure as a field of abundant potential research and to
recommend improved descriptive tools for such a comparative analysis. 

To sum up, this volume intends to join and promote the paradigm shift in
discourse analytic methods by emphasizing the inseparable interplay between
the discursive, cognitive, and social dimensions of discourse. Alongside
highlighting new trends in discourse research, at times the authors called
attention to theoretical and methodological obstacles that still exist in the
field, problematically analyzing isolated or decontextualized discourse from
solipsistic perspectives. Instead, this volume investigates language use in
terms of its three core facets –discourse, cognition, and society– which
requires a multidisciplinary approach, linking theories and methods such as
Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodality, Sociolinguistics, Conceptual
Metaphor Theory, and Corpus Linguistics, to name a few. The contributing
authors in this volume provided studies which applied socio-cognitive
approaches to real data analyzed within its specific social and cultural
context, showing human communication as a lively, collaborative, and highly
complex practice. Each chapter offered a detailed analysis of diverse types of
discourse and the discursive strategies of the participants. Together, this
volume demonstrates not only the countless means through which meaning making
is produced, but also various methodologies that can be used to integrate
discursive, cognitive, and social components to achieve a more comprehensive
understanding of language use based on real-world evidence. 

EVALUATION

This book provides valuable models of research studies aiming to understand
how language is integrally interwoven in our social realities and cognitive
perceptions of the world. Each chapter is vastly different from the one before
it, with studies ranging from pictorial discursive strategies of digital
storytelling to cross-linguistic zoology metaphors. As diverse as each chapter
is, they all provide insight to human language and how meaningful
communicative interaction is achieved through analysis of a piece of language
in its specific sociocultural and sociohistorical environment. 
These essays together make up a volume that offers a wide range of theoretical
and methodological approaches to understanding how real discourse is
constructed and interpreted in real-life interactions.  Consequently, this
collection of essays would no doubt be valuable to anyone interested in the
complexities of language and its bond with society and cognition. More
specifically, this book could be helpful to readers with interests in
discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, metaphor studies,
corpus linguistics, and the philosophy of language. Readers will enjoy the
fact that each chapter is written clearly and each construct and rationale is
thoroughly explained. As most of the essays utilize a unique research
approach, most chapters also call for more research and replication of the
particular area of discourse. Plus some chapters, such as the final one, wish
to expose an area of discourse teeming with research questions yet to be
answered, as well as to inform about the reliability of new or upgraded
analytical methods that can be used for similar studies.

A defining element to this book, which makes it more than a simple volume of
studies, is its promotion of the so-called ‘new turn’ in discourse studies.
Outlining the background and development of the field of cognitive
linguistics, readers learn how new modes and genres are continually being
created, combined, and refined, and how this enormous expansion is pushing our
tools of inquiry into new directions. What was once easily classifiable in the
field is now replaced with a blur of disciplines and methods incapable of
categorization. But this seemingly messy and overlapping indistinctness in
discourse studies is not a negative progression. The book makes it clear that
these multi-modal, cross-disciplinary blendings are indeed improvements, as
they break through limitations that discourse studies previously were confined
by, expanding the boundaries of linguistics to better understand language as
the multidimensional, fluid, and complex entity that it is. 

Each chapter is an exemplar of how discourse can actually be studied when
researchers pull conceptual and functional frameworks from other fields, and
utilize methodologies such as corpus linguistics that provide more reliable
results. Upon reflecting on the complexity and intricacy of the discursive
strategies analyzed in these essays, it is easy to imagine some of these
studies practically impossible to carry out without using the new epistemology
and empirical tools that cognitive linguistics has absorbed. This book makes
it clear that cognitive linguistics is celebrating its bonds with other fields
and open trade of methods, theories, and epistemologies. Plus, as language is
known for unpredictable complexity and an incapacity for clear
classifications, it seems appropriate for fields studying language to be
equally multilayered and integrated. 

The expansion allows for empirical investigations on very subtle nuances of
language use, such as in the essays of this book, that reveal the
interdependencies, however subliminal they might be, between language use,
mental processes, and social norms. Overall, this book successfully explores a
dynamic range of discourse strategies, demonstrating how real socio-cultural
interactions affect discourse. Anyone interested in how discourse shapes
society and cognition would find the contents in this volume advantageous to
their learning.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Judith Bridges is a doctoral student of Linguistics and Applied Language
Studies at the University of South Florida. Her interests include
sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, metadiscourse, and language
ideologies.





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