Applying cognitive pragmatics to Critical Discourse Studies: A proximization analysis of three public space discourses

The goal of this paper is to show how proximization theory, a recent cognitive-pragmatic model of crisis and threat construction, can be applied in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). It is argued that the rapidly growing, intergeneric field of CDS is in need of new, interdisciplinary methodologies that will allow it to account for an increasingly broader spectrum of discourses, genres and thematic domains. Thus, proximization theory is used as a candidate methodological tool to handle three sample discourses - health, environment, modern technology - with a view to further applications. The results seem promising: the theory elucidates well the key features of public discourses within the CDS scope, especially the legitimization patterns in policy communication. The analysis of the three discourses demonstrates a consistent reliance of policy legitimization on discursively construed framework of fear and threat, both material and ideological. Equally promising are the prospects for proximization theory itself to continue to draw empirically from the expanding CDS territory. The most fruitful seem those of CDS domains whose discourses (ranging from war discourse to cancer treatment discourse) force a direct and growing conflict between symbolically demarcated “home” and “external” entities, thus sanctioning urgent preventive actions against the latter.