Force-interactive patterns in immigration discourse: A Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA

In the last few years, a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside critical discourse analysis. So far, however, this space has been reserved almost exclusively for critical metaphor studies where Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory has provided the lens through which otherwise naturalized or opaque ideological patterns in text and conceptualization can be detected. Yet Cognitive Linguistics consists of much more than Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Its efficacy for critical discourse analysis (CDA) may therefore extend beyond critical metaphor studies. In this article, I propose that Talmy’s (1988, 2000) theory of Force-Dynamics in particular represents a further, useful framework for the Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA. Using this analytical framework, then, I identify some of the indicators of, and demonstrate the ideological qualities of, force-dynamic conceptualizations in immigration discourse.