@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.17038.ull, author = "Ullmann, Stefanie", title = "Epistemic stancetaking and speaker objectification in a spatio-cognitive discourse world: A critical contrastive analysis of political discourse", journal= "Journal of Language and Politics", year = "2019", volume = "18", number = "3", pages = "393-419", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17038.ull", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.17038.ull", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "1569-2159", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "critical discourse studies", keywords = "cognitive linguistics", keywords = "discourse space theory", keywords = "Syrian civil war", keywords = "epistemic stance", keywords = "inter/subjectivity", abstract = "Abstract

This paper seeks to apply a cognitive-linguistic approach to critical discourse studies in an investigation of epistemic stancetaking and types of inter/subjectivity of the speaker in political discourse. More specifically, the paper presents an analysis of responses by three different politicians, i.e. John Kerry, Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin, to the chemical weapons attack in Syria in August 2013. By incorporating cognitive-linguistic theories in a critical investigation of language, I address diverging representations of the same event and their discursive functions in representing underlying ideologies and motifs of the respective politicians. Specifically, I propose a more nuanced incorporation of epistemic stance in a spatio-cognitive representation of discourse. My analysis shows that type of inter/subjectivity has bearing on the epistemic quality of a proposition. The more prominently a speaker construes him-/herself as evaluator of an event, the stronger his/her assertions become, which is equally visible in a discourse space model.", }