Worldview and Social Practice: A discourse-space approach to political text analysis

Worldview and Social Practice takes a cognitive-discourse approach to semantic analysis of worldview constructions along Space, Time and Attitude (STA) coordinates. It demonstrates how variations in STA schemas shape Dutch political parties’ worldviews and the rationale behind their election manifestos (2006, 2010). Results reveal a general trend towards a more conservative worldview system in The Netherlands that warrants more restrictive policies to ostensibly tighten security and increase stability. Variations in spatial schemas transcend the left-right divide in party competition and call attention to party positioning on the progressiveconservative dimension from a cultural-cognitive perspective. STA analysis makes a contribution to the transdisciplinary ambitions of Critical Discourse Studies to build bridges between linguistics, political science and sociology for a deeper understanding of diversity in social practices