Professor Christopher Hart
Professor of LinguisticsCurrent Teaching
I currently convene the following modules at UG and PG levels:
- LING330 Language, Cognition and Culture (UG)
- LING324 Cognitive Linguistics (UG)
- LING439 Cognitive Linguistics (PG)
- LING440 Critical Discourse Analysis (PG)
I also contribute to teaching on LING103 Linguistics (UG)
Research Overview
My research combines insights and methods from cognitive science and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to investigate the links between language, cognition and action in contexts of political communication. It falls into three principal programmes as part of a more general cognitive approach to CDA:
In the first, I use frameworks developed in cognitive linguistics (including cognitive grammar, frame semantics and conceptual metaphor theory) to analyse the conceptualisations evoked by linguistic structures in specific social and political contexts of communication includng their ideological and (de)legitimating functions.
In the second, I use experimental methods to empirically test the effects that semiotic choices have on audience attitudes toward social groups and social/political issues.
In the third, I investigate the multimodal properties of political communication including co-text images and co-speech gestures.
I have worked on discourses in different areas of politics but I am primarily interested in discourses of migration, discourses of political protest, and the discrusive performance of right-wing populism.
PhD Supervision Interests
I am keen to receive proposals for research projects investigating any aspect of political communication from a broadly cognitive linguistic perspective.
Gesture in the Communicative Style of Right Wing Populism
01/06/2024 → 31/03/2026
Research
Using the NewsScape corpus to explore multimodal meaning-making in TV news communication about immigration
Invited talk
Co-speech gestures in the discursive performance of right-wing populism
Invited talk
Embodied performance and right-wing populism: Co-speech gestures in the spoken discourse of Donald Trump
Invited talk
The Embodied Performance of Right-Wing Populism
Invited talk
Multimodal meaning-making in news communication about migration: Using the NewsScape Corpus to explore co-text images in TV news
Oral presentation
Multimodal Meaning-Making in News Communication about Migration: Using the NewsScape Corpus to Explore Co-Text Images in TV News
Oral presentation
Gesture in the communicative style of right-wing populism: The case of Donald Trump
Invited talk
What's the Point of Donald Trump? Deictic Gestures in the Service of Right-wing Populism
Oral presentation
Language, image and gesture in the communication of prejudice
Invited talk
The cognitive semiotics of politics: Language, image, gesture
Invited talk
Reassessing the "Critical" in Critical Discourse Studies
Invited talk
Intersemiotic Convergence in Multimodal Texts: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach
Oral presentation
Ten lectures in cognitive critical discourse analysis
Invited talk
Fire, War and Revolution: Metaphors in Media Discourses of Political Protest
Invited talk
Gesture and Legitimation in the Anti-Immigration Discourse of Nigel Farage
Oral presentation
Migration and Multimodal Semiotics: Language, Image, Gesture
Invited talk
Animals vs. Armies: Resistance to Extreme Metaphors in Immigration Discourse
Oral presentation
What can Cognitive Linguistics tell us about text-image relations? With a focus on intersemiotic convergence
Oral presentation
"28 Palestinians Die": A Cognitive Grammar Analysis of Mystification in Press Coverage of Violence on the Gaza Border
Oral presentation
Discourses of disorder: Representations of riots, strikes and protests in globalised cities
Invited talk
With Banners Held High
Invited talk
Experimental methods in critical discourse studies
Invited talk
Discourses of Power and the Power of Discourse
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Polish Cognitive Linguistics Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
CDA 20+
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
CADAAD 2014
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
UK Cognitive Linguistics Pre-Conference Workshop
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Political Linguistics III
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
5th International Conference New Discourses in Contemporary China
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Languages, Media and Politics: Cognitive Linguistic Methods in Discourse Analysis
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Summer School in Cognitive Linguistics
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
- DisTex - Discourse and Text Research Group
- LIP - Language, Ideology and Power Group
- Research Group in Cognitive Linguistics