Analysing political discourse: Toward a cognitive approach

The critical study of political discourse has up until very recently rested solely within the domain of the social sciences. Working within a linguistics framework, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), in particular Fairclough (Fairclough 1989, 1995a, 1995b, 2001; Fairclough and Wodak 1997), has been heavily influenced by Foucault.2 The linguistic theory that CDA and critical linguistics especially (which CDA subsumes) has traditionally drawn upon is Halliday‟s Systemic-Functional Grammar, which is largely concerned with the function of language in the social structure3 (Fowler et al. 1979; Fowler 1991; Kress and Hodge 1979).[opening paragraph]