Still something missing in CDA

Abstract

In an important article (this issue), Chris Hart makes the case that CDA needs to draw on a wider range of theoretical sources in Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Science, giving particular attention to Evolutionary Psychology. While I support Hart’s case for this approach to CDA, and also support his argument, as a corrective to Chilton (2005), that Evolutionary Psychology actually shows the need for something like CDA, this present article advances three further points, aimed to supplement the cognitive approach to CDA. The first is that CDA could fruitfully draw on Cognitive Linguistics in a more detailed way than it has hitherto, and in particular on work that articulates Cognitive Linguistics with Cognitive Psychology of the kind developed by Tomasello. The second is that the insights of Habermas, much mentioned in CDA, need to be better integrated within a linguistic approach to CDA. The third and most important point is that the question of the underlying moral values of the critical stance in CDA now need to be explicated in view of the global context in which CDA operates. I also show, using Hart’s own data, how values are presupposed (or ‘presumed’) in many types of utterance. Hart is right to focus on evidentials in his data, as evidence of the critical abilities of human communicators. But there is something important missing for CDA to explore further: the presence of contestable values.