A Cognitive-evolutionary Approach To CDA

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is heavily criticized for its theoretical eclecticism, for instance, its description of language use has largely been limited in the realm of sociolinguistic frameworks and its explanation for the effect of texts has been confined to the domain of the sociology. Based on these criticisms, Chilton (2005) proposes that the ignorance of cognition is’missing links in mainstream CDA’. Chilton (2004and2005) and Hart (2005,2008, and2010) further argue that CDA should draw upon the new research results from Cognitive Linguistics and Evolutionary Psychology to enrich its study of discourse analysis, i.e. they propose a cognitive-evolutionary approach to CDA.The study of this paper is based on the analytical framework of the cognitive-evolutionary approach to CDA above mentioned, and the linguistic material for analysis is chosen from the news reports on Chinese migrant workers in China Daily of the whole year of2011. Based on a host of theoretical literature and linguistic material, this study lays research foci on analyzing conceptual metaphors and discursive strategies embedded in discourse on Chinese migrant workers. Employing the Blending Theory in Cognitive Linguistics, we analyze conceptual metaphors, and focus on describing cognitive process of metaphor understanding and interpreting ideology loading of different metaphors; using the Mental Modules theory of Evolutionary Psychology, we analyze discursive strategies, and focus on interpreting ideology in different discursive strategies from the Evolutionary Psychological perspective.In our analysis we find that the cognitive-evolutionary approach to CDA has distinctive advantages in description of language use and explanation for the effect of texts, which may partially complement the theoretical shortcoming of CDA. This advantage on the one hand is helpful to realize the demystification of ideology, one of the aims of CDA and on the other hand it may be discursively helpful for us to eliminate discrimination against migrant workers.