HOW ‘REAL’ ARE TIME AND SPACE IN POLITICALLY MOTIVATED WORLDVIEWS?

Abstract

Given that we all live in the same world, how is it that we can have such very different worldviews? Answers to this question may be found in worldview constructions and their cognitive affordances in text and discourse. This paper discusses why and how worldviews can unfold from a schematic rationale that is grounded in ‘the primacy of spatial cognition’ in perception, thought patterns and their presentations in language. Although worldview frames are selective, and therefore subjective coordinate systems, the spatial organising principle provides a tangible ground for abstract worldview ontologies. Rhetorically, this real-world/social-world analogy gives worldview constructions an objective epistemic quality that can prime commitment and activate intentions and actions. To operationalise this discourse-space theory, a model is proposed to investigate variation in spatial and temporal frames in political texts, involving their scope of attention and point of view. Examples are taken from an election manifesto analysis for Dutch party positioning. The critical question concerns the rhetorical (evidential) nature of time- and space frames of reference in discursive constructions: How ‘real’ are text and discourse worlds and how does this relate to variation in discourse-world constructions and (political) stance?

KEYWORDS:

• discourse space
• spatial cognition
• time
• frames of reference
• subjectivity
• worldview
• narrative
• political text analysis

Notes

1. See Chilton (2014, Chapter 11) for an overview of the literature in philosophy and neural cognition in relation to deictic space theory. Support for these claims can be found in experimental neuro-cognitive literature, for example Barsalou (2008) on cognitive grounding; and Boroditsky (2000) on world, mind and language, Pecher and Zwaan (2010) on grounding cognition and cognition for action.

2. See Nuñez and Cooperrider's (2013) review of literature on cognitive time and space relations.

3. See Chilton (2014, Chapter 11) for an up to date overview of neurocognitive, discourse and cognitive linguistic literature. On congruity in time and space perception see Teuscher, McQuire, Collins, and Coulson (2008).

4. Ontology is a cohesive complexity of elements and their behaviour in a particular context. Because human behaviour and social interaction are not particularly discrete, mental and social ontology requires a schematic approach to account for variation in frames of reference and points of view and their different affordances.

5. Leo Apostel founded the Integrating Worldviews research group at the ULB in Brussels and published, with Jan van der Veken: Worldviews: From fragmentation to integration 1994 [1990]). He was concerned with aesthetic spirituality, communication and cognition.

6. Wavell (1986, Chapters 4 and 5) discusses the analogy between the force-content structure of factual discourse and moral discourse in common-sense logic and concludes that they are interdependent in deliberative reasoning.

7. Geert Wilders, reported in De Volkskrant 06/10/06 (last accessed June 7, 2014).

8. For detailed description of the model and the TSA nodes, please see Kaal (2012, Van Elfrinkhof et al. 2014).

Additional information

Bertie Kaal is about to finish her Ph.D. in Political Text Analysis at the Network Institute (VU University Amsterdam). Her main interest is in discourse-space analysis and rhetorical structures in language use for social action. She is also interested in methods for text analysis and party positioning to improve public awareness of parties' ground rationale so that people can cast an informed vote (Kaal et al. (eds), From Text to Political Positions, Benjamins 2014).