Le Rapprochement Entre CDA Et

Cognitive Linguistics by Adele Petitclerk

Abstract

This research examines the integrative relationship between cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an epistemological and methodological shift in the study of language as both a cognitive and social practice. It starts from the premise that CDA, since van Dijk, has been grounded in interdisciplinarity, and that incorporating cognitive linguistics deepens this orientation by explaining the mental structures underlying the production of ideology. Language, in this view, is understood as a cognitive activity that produces meaning through experience and conceptualization, while the ideological function of discourse is interpreted as stemming from cognitive processes that exploit linguistic resources to shape worldviews. The research highlights two key contributions: the first by Veronika Koller, who, through her analysis of economic discourse, demonstrated that the metaphor “business is war” reproduces male dominance and serves both cognitive and ideological functions in normalizing power relations; and the second by Christopher Hart, who employed Leonard Talmy’s “force dynamics” model to analyze migration discourse, showing how migrants are represented as active forces facing resistance—a cognitive representation that influences social and political interpretations. The study concludes that combining cognitive linguistics with critical discourse analysis broadens the analytical scope from linguistic structures to cognitive ones, providing a deeper understanding of how meaning and ideology are constructed and how discourse shapes social awareness.