Post on 30-Mar-2023
How ‘real’ are time and space in politically motivated worldviews?1
Bertie Kaal
VU University Amsterdam
a.r.kaal@vu.nl
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
1. Introduction
Given that we all live in one physical world, how is it that people have such very different
understandings of reality and such very different motives for their social organisation and
interaction? This article concerns the structural relationship between the real world and
discursive constructions of social worlds. It links traditional epistemology (truth) and
worldview philosophy with the cognitive affordances of time-‐ and space frames of reference
in discourse constructions in the domain of political discourse. The persuasive character of
political discourse and its rhetorical affordances makes it a typical domain in which spatial
cognition is related to constructing “shared intentionality” in language and thought (cf.
Tomasello’s 2014 socio-‐cognitive hypothesis) that is essential to the democratic politics. The
motivation for a spatial approach to political discourse analysis is the cognitive relationship 1 This is a pre-‐print version. Please cite from: Kaal, Bertie (2015). How ‘real’ are Time and Space in politically motivated worldviews? In L. Filardo, Llamas, Chr. Hart and B. Kaal, Special Issue on Space, Time and Evaluation
between the real world and the abstract world. The aim is to find variation in party positions
at the non-‐verbal level of textual coordinate systems that operate in the background of
linguistic and lexical meaning constructions. The analogy between natural phenomenology
and culturally inscribed cognition, language use and worldview construction could account
for the success of language use as a social cohesive. The implications of the primacy of
spatial cognition in thought and language make our reasoning intrinsically political in that
shared spatial reasoning patterns constitute epistemic communities, their identity,
tolerance, commitments and ultimately their actions. Politics as an institution is intrinsically
spatial because its mandatory space (e.g., the nation state) is traditionally a geo-‐space that is
physically delimited by its borders. However, political players will focus on different relations
within the borders, and with other political space (e.g., the EU). It is therefore assumed that
the spatial ground rationale of political discourses could mark variation in party positions.
The goal is to find variation in the spatial coordinate systems of politically motivated texts.
Section 2 discusses the validity and affordances of a discourse space approach.
Section 3 makes a case for critical worldview theory addressing the complementary nature
of time and space and their affordances in worldview construction. Section 4 discusses how
to bring this hybrid theory into practice in political discourse analysis. Section 5 describes the
design of a deictic discourse-‐space model for the analysis of scope and vantage point (based
on Chilton 2004) as markers of variation in worldviews as found in Dutch election manifestos
(Kaal 2012). Some examples serve to illustrate the type of results this can render and how
these could relate to political dimensions. A discussion follows on how discourse-‐space
analysis could contribute to political text analysis and its affordances for other discourse
domains in which variation in coordinate systems indicates similarities and differences in
attitude and identities.
2. From real world to social world in space and time
In principle, space and time are natural phenomena, external to human behaviour. At the
same time, cognitive findings have shown that time and space play a significant role in the
mental organisation of perception for thinking. Furthermore, by sharing a basic spatial
coordinate system, thought can be communicated and negotiated effectively on the basis of
a presumed shared reality, or common ground. Logically and pragmatically, language must
follow a “single unifying principle” (Searle 2010) for it to be instrumental in the social
“process of coordination” toward “shared intentionality” (cf. Tomasello 2014: Introduction).
The logical assumption of this ‘single unifying system’ is supported by neuro-‐cognitive
experiments on perception and thought that provide evidence that they are processed by
the same neural configuration (cf. Barsalou 2008 on mental simulation) that is basically
spatial-‐temporal in nature (see below § 3.1). Cognitive theory on the “overall organising
principle” (Hörnig et al. 2000) finds evidence in empirical research into cognitive grounding
and knowing for action (cf. Pecher and Zwaan 2010). 2 And Levinson, in his cultural studies
on the relationship between language and thought (2003), makes a case for “the primacy of
spatial cognition” as the basic organising principle of human thought, by way of which we
can mentally visualise the world’s complexity, relativise from various points of view and
construct a worldview. These philosophical, cognitive and socio-‐cognitive linguistic theories
jointly confirm the social requirement of a spatial organising principle to facilitate
communication and establish a common ground that forms a basis for social action.
However, an understanding of the entire world does not address our everyday needs,
and it is questionable whether our mental ability stretches to conceptualising and
understanding the global ontology in every detail at once. Making sense therefore requires a
selective compartmentalisation of the world into focus areas, or sub-‐worlds (Werth 1999:
xvi), layered in levels of focus and attention. These interactive fields allow deliberation by
navigation around innumerable scenarios and interactions with other sub-‐worlds so that a
well-‐considered position can be taken (cf. Herman 2003: 172). Deliberation is a process of
making choices so as to find a focus area from which to relativise and make sense of its
intrinsic and extrinsic interactions. The ability to ‘picture’ a worldview, to imagine likely
scenarios of interacting spaces, is facilitated by our mental ability for spatial cognition. On
the basis of existing theories and empirical evidence for spatial cognition in thought and
language, it is reasonable to assume that the ground rationale for sense making is analogical
to human perception of real space and that its systematicity functions as the “primacy of
2 See Chilton (2014, Ch. 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.
spatial cognition” from which social organisation and intentions for action unfold. Time also
plays an essential role in reasoning for action.
2.1 Time and space
Through the primacy of spatial cognition, visual and tangible aspects of space transform
naturally into abstract mental projections. However, space is static and cannot fully
represent experiential, relative processes, such as the speed of change of position, duration
or the experiential reality of transience and distance in time relative to now. McTaggart
(1908) saw ‘time’ largely as a product of the human mind, based in common experience of
external time passing. Time is therefore conceptually more problematic than space because,
unlike space, time has no tangible ground and cannot be explained in its own terms. It is
dissociated from sensory-‐motor experience (Evans 2013: 403). Where space can be
described in its own absolute terms, time needs space as a source domain to construct an
abstract context in which to conceptualise time. Time also needs space to express dynamics
and force direction from one point to another, such as ‘tomorrow’, which is immanent
(force) because it is close relative to now (direction). Another kind of time is timespace that
involves a fixed period, an event with a beginning and an end as well as a presumed
geographic location, like the Second World War. Space and time are both quantifiable, but
time also holds a culturally determined qualifying aspect of meaning, known as transience.
Time and space are do not have the same epistemic, evidential quality when “experience
types that in part underlie temporal representation are inherently temporal, rather than
spatial in nature.” (Evans 2013: 393). The conceptual domain of time is transience and it
activates spatial reasoning. The pragmatic entanglement of real and abstract time and space
in meaning constructions will be discussed in section 3.2.
McTaggart’s (1908) theory that time cannot be explained in its own terms although it
is a domain in its own right, can now be confirmed with empirical neuro-‐cognitive evidence.
Experimental evidence of neural activity shows that time and space activate different neural
pathways that interact, and that they converge when time is represented as a space in
timespace (e.g., Boroditsky 2000).3 These relatively recent insights support an investigation
of variation in the systematicity of spatial organising patterns and manifestations of this
3 See Nuñez and Cooperrider’s (2013) review of literature on cognitive time and space relations.
systematicity in language, discourse, interaction and social behaviour. 4 However, time
complements the conceptualisation of spatial relations by adding a continuity dimension on
which to gauge change as “the subjectively felt experience of temporal passage” (Evans
2013: 408). The experiential certainty of time and space strengthens a sense of epistemic
and deontic certainty with which we ‘know’ and qualify the here and now. But time also
facilitates a sense of certainty about imagined other places and future scenarios, supported
by the schematic analogy between real-‐world and abstract-‐world ontology. 5
The temporal and spatial nature of reasoning allows the construction of intrinsically
coherent worldviews, involving a coordinate system that sustains common knowledge,
values and commitment that can prime social action. The spatial coordinate system is also
equipped to cope with change because it can be reconstructed again and again in different
worldview constellations of time and space frames of reference relative to various points of
view.
3. Worldview: The beauty of the (un-‐) reality of time and space
3.1 Worldview: From knowing the world to changing the world
Worldview concerns the fundamental ontology of existential phenomenological questions by
which we seek to find unity in fragmented experience, as proposed by Heidegger (1927). The
philosophical worldview approach developed by the Flemish philosopher and proponent of
cognitive, communicative worldview ontology, Leo Apostel,6 lists six basic questions about
the nature of worldview:
1. What is? Ontology (model of the present); 2. Where does it all come from? Explanation (model of the past); 3. Where are we going? Prediction (model of the future); 4. What is good and what is evil? Axiology (theory of values); 5. How should we act? Praxeology (theory of action); 6. What is true and what is false? Epistemology (theory of the nature and scope of knowledge).
4 See Chilton (2014, Ch. 11) for an up to date overview of neurocognitive, discourse and cognitive linguistic literature. On congruity in time and space perception see Teuscher et al. (2008). 5 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. 6 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.
(Apostel, in Vidal 2008: 4)
His worldview theory involves a mental system based on beliefs, trust and cognitive
affordances of the narrative organisation of our experience of life. If worldview is based on
subjective coordinate systems, values and knowledge schemas, then the next question must
be a meta question (7): “where do we start in order to answer these questions?” (2008:4).
As discussed above, the cognitive ground for reasoning and communication relies on the
Overall Organizing Principle (cf. Hörnig et al. 2000), the logic of a “single unifying principle to
that (worldview) ontology” (Searle 2010: 7) and the “primacy of spatial cognition” as the
basic organising system of worldview construction (Levinson 2003: 24, 39). In each of these
theories, worldviews are ontological sets of dynamic spatial relations that are grounded in
knowledge, beliefs and intuitions about real space (and time) dynamics. But worldviews are
abstract, imaginary ontologies organised by the same spatial principle.
In Apostel’s theory, worldview is a symbolic representational system that “allows us
to integrate everything we know about the world and ourselves into a global picture, one
that illuminates reality as it is presented to us within a certain culture” (Apostel, in Aerts et
al. 2007 [1994]: 9). However, worldview involves more than recognising states of being. It is
primarily about frames of attention and commitment to knowledge, beliefs, values and
desirability. It involves epistemic as well as deontic deliberation, prior to having a worldview,
and prior to having intentions for action (cf. Searle 2010: 31). Worldview deliberation is a
about imagining scenarios and gauging their likelihood and desirability, supported by prior
knowledge of real world ontology, experience, and a sense of social appropriateness. The
answer to Apostel’s meta-‐question is therefore that discourse analysis should start from a
basic understanding of human cognition and its analogical spatial systematicity in linguistics
as well as the pragmatics of interaction and motivation for social action is (cf. Searle 2010).
From a pragmatic point of view, sharing deliberation and complex ideas requires
communication conventions that are likely to function in their social context. By virtue of its
generic spatial (and temporal) organising principle, language use has enough structure and
fluidity to facilitate social interaction in and across cultures. Thus, languages and their
underlying coordinate systems function as a means to co-‐construct meaning and
commitment “in a sociocultural matrix” (Tomasello 2014: 1) that may motivate intentions
for action.
Searle’s theory of a logical “single unifying system” suggests that communities
require a real spatial basis in order to experience the epistemic quality of a worldview.
However, we cannot determine how real time and space frames can or should be to give
enough epistemic quality to abstract ideas because the frames are not discrete and their
illocutionary force is highly context dependent. We do know that there must be a balance
between epistemic certainty and deontic attitude because we need certainty to commit to
attitude. Rather than referring to epistemic and deontic certainty, Wavell makes a
distinction that is perhaps more appropriate to (political) discourse studies and the logic of
‘factual discourse’ (knowledge based) and ‘moral discourse’ (will and conscience based) that
combine in common-‐sense deliberation (1986: 196). 7 He reasons that if a worldview lacks
factual ‘evidence’, there is no evidential ground for moral reasoning. A worldview that is
reduced to facts would still require a deontic, moral quality to prime intentions for action to
change the world.
3.2 The (un)reality of time and space in worldview constructions
The temporal and spatial ground of worldview construction relies on implicature that
emerges from the analogy between spatial real-‐world and abstract-‐world ontology.
Although they are not of the same magnitude, common sense knowledge of real world
ontology satisfies the need to constrain its complexity in selective segments as well as the
social need for common ground. The certainty derived from this analogy provides a sense of
confidence to move from knowing to foreseeing and goal setting.
In this deliberative process, time and space frames of reference form an entangled
cognitive domain in which to relativise and take position (Nuñez and Cooperrider 2013).
While we may be “good at thinking spatially” (Levinson 2003: 16), we are perhaps even
more clever at thinking temporally because it is an intellectual, metaphysical achievement
(Evans 2013: 403) by which we can comprehend the dynamic nature of non-‐factual
phenomena. The basic requirements of the overall organising principle are that it has (1) a
vantage point, (2) a bounded attention space/timespace, and (3) temporality to relativise
and (re-‐) construct experiences. Moral and creative deliberations about the unknown are
imaginable through the ternary nature (time, space and modality) of the coordinate system.
7 Wavell (1986, Ch. 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.
Cultural variation in intrinsic, relative and absolute patterns (Levinson 2003) and egocentric,
allocentric or 0-‐centric points of view (Searle 2010) will afford different inferences. For
example, Levinson discusses how speakers of Dutch and Japanese typically use an intrinsic
and relative coordinate system with a high level of abstraction, for instance, using relative
deictic left-‐right positioning rather than cardinal East-‐West. While speakers of other
languages, like Mayan and Bantu, use different reference frames that may also involve
absolute positioning, for instance, when geographic facts such as mountains and rivers are
their dominant relatum (Levinson 2003: 93). This indicates that basic facts affect cultural
coordinate systems and worldview implicature.
Some social facts are cultural assumptions of time, such as in TIME IS MONEY. The
epistemic quality of social facts relies on their status function that relies on common sense.
Social facts loose meaning when the status is no longer supported sufficiently. The fact that
money is essential to the functioning of a community makes it “intentionality relative”
(Searle 2010: 17). Likewise, subjective worldviews can be presented as intentionality-‐relative
spatial constructions (Evans 2013; Jaszczolt 2009). The pairing of physical spatial fact with
abstract moral fact (Wavell 1986), of certainty with deonticity (Jaszczolt 2009: 32-‐37; Searle
2010: 4), leads to the hypothesis that discourse-‐space analysis should lead to finding
variation in the epistemic and deontic ground rationale of a discourse.
The beauty of time and space phenomenology is that it is an open system, based on
one generic spatial organising principle (Levinson 2003). Moreover, the organising principle
of spatial cognition comes in various coordinate systems that are so adaptable that they can
accommodate worldviews in an unquantifiable number of ways. This acrobatic mental ability
is fundamental to human reasoning, language use, social interaction, and adaptation in
other contexts. The coordinate system satisfies the cognitive need to frame worlds into
layered attention spaces and to relativise and understand relational networks from different
vantage points. When fact-‐based spatial logic forms the implicit ground for moral-‐based,
abstract logic (Wavell 1986) by virtue of analogy, the challenge is to find a way to identify
the spatial ground-‐rationale of worldview constructions.
3.3 From time and space frames to politically motivated worldviews
Political discourse is based, not only in a geo-‐space, but also in an institutionally determined
time frame and a narrative continuum of past, present and future perspectives. However,
the narrative is not necessarily from past to future, but various directions can be presented.
The schematic frames of reference of discourse worlds affect the deliberation space and
likely directions of coherent fit, but whatever direction the narrative takes, it presumes a
default past-‐present-‐future real-‐time continuity. As Herman (2003: 165) observes, stories
provide “domain-‐general” tools for thinking that suggest narrative structure as a resource
for thinking. The analogy between worldview construction and narrative structure is in the
domain-‐general spatial coordinate system. However, in narrative it is used in a more formal
way to provide a sense of narrative development. In a discourse world, the coordinate
system functions as a schematic ground upon which various scenarios can be explored
within a given or presumed worldview frame. A worldview frame functions as the context in
which facts and morals have meaning, as a schematic ground for the logic of narrative
development. In political discourse cultural conventions of narrative development are a
significant feature because these conventions are presumed as common knowledge, giving
mainstream political discourse the implicit power of presumption.
The cognitive affordances of narrative strongly suggest a certain direction for reasoning
(Herman 2003: 10, 165-‐166). In political discourse, time and space-‐based narrative structure
coordinates ideological (spatial) stance, direction and modality of force in its intentions for
political action, considering that:
An ideology is a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political
action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power.
(Heywood 2007: 11)
Heywood’s sequential coordinate structure of political ideology involves (a) a worldview of
the here and now, (b) a future vision of the ‘good society’ and (c) an explanation for political
action to satisfy or secure the future (Heywood 2007: 12). But this structure for reasoning
may change over time, or be different for pragmatic reasons. In their overview of cultural
influences on the concept of time, Nuñez and Cooperrider (2013: 224) describe how time
has become a conscious organising principle fairly recently in the evolution of mankind. This
change in the conceptualisation of time marked an ‘epistemic paradigm shift’ (Kuhn 1962)
that gained in popularity at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century, particularly in
industrialising countries (cf. Soule 1956). Considering that this development did not occur in
isolated and non-‐technological cultures it may indicate that time, as a vehicle for reasoning,
coincides with technological advances and the need for the temporal qualification and
quantification of dynamic processes that today seem quite normal in Western societies.
In a similar vein, Dunmire (2011) suggests that political reasoning has shifted from
stability to continuity from known past and present into predictions of the unknown future.
Heywood’s ideology-‐structure also fits in with the epistemic paradigm shift from stable,
value-‐oriented ideology to process-‐oriented ideology. We are witnessing a fundamental
change in politics from post-‐war static ideological motivation to a flexible, pragmatic
motivation in Western (Kirchheimer 1966), particularly in European populism and in Dutch
politics in general (Dittrich 1987; Knippenberg 2003). An example of 21st Century populist
ideology is the metaphor TSUNAMI IS IMMIGRATION that resonated in Dutch parliament for quite
a few years (Wilders 20068). It suggests a scenario of immanent threat that bypasses reason
and appeals directly to the emotion of fear and with it a desire for security.
Space is the factual discourse builder, whereas time facilitates modularity in
reasoning and constructing subjective, normative, worldview-‐based discourse. The ground
on which we navigate in the abstract world to commit ourselves to knowing and believing
must be spatial, simply because that is how we think and make sense of the world.
Worldviews and their suggestive cognitive affordances require a critical assessment of the
epistemic, factual quality of the types of frames by which we construct them. To find
answers to Apostel’s last question about the nature of worldview, we need to address the
basic principles that ground reasoning and find variations in coordinate systems of time,
space and point of view. The hypothesis is that if a worldview construction is cohesively
strong enough and pragmatically viable, it can be adopted as an implicit background
rationale for intentions for action and motivation for ideologically motivated politics. If the
logic of time and space frames of reference functions as the structure of common ground it
makes sense to investigate how their coordinate systems vary.
To illustrate how the theories discussed here can be operationalized, the following
section reports on the development of a discourse space model to find variation in
worldview constructions of Dutch parties. As Evans and Levinson (2009) point out, the
primacy of spatial cognition cannot be understood as a universal practice, but rather as a
mental principle that affords coordinate systems. The theory is applied here to find variation
8 Geert Wilders, reported in De Volkskrant 06/10/06 (last accessed 07-‐06-‐2014)
in the abstract discursive coordinate system of worldview frames of reference, vantage point
and attitude. It is not a linguistic model, but rather takes a more abstract discourse-‐
construction approach. A purely linguistic analysis would not bring out contextual
presumptions embedded in the discursive coordinate system of a discourse.
To make results of discourse-‐space analysis useful for political interpretations,
worldview analysis requires a strong qualitative grounding to identify markers of attitude
that are relevant in the particular political context and to distinguish types of coordinate
systems that relate to the nature of the discourse domain. The resulting frames can then
serve to reveal variation in the ground rational underlying politically-‐motivated texts. The
main questions are: how spatial variation in text-‐internal logic can be extracted; and
secondly on which kinds of political dimensions can they be projected? To illustrate how
theory of spatial cognition could be applied to find variation in worldview frames, Dutch
political texts (manifestos) were analysed for time and space frames of reference and
attitude. Levinson’s observation that speakers of Dutch (and Japanese) typically use intrinsic
and relative frames of reference at a high level of abstraction (Levinson 2003: 93) supports
the relevance of the approach in the Dutch context.
4. A Time-‐Space model for Dutch manifesto analysis
4.1 Time and space in the evolution of Dutch politics
To understand the affordances of spatial reasoning in Dutch politics, we need to consider
some basic changes in the history of modern Dutch politics. I propose to start out from the
biggest political upheaval caused by the Second World War. In the years following the
Second World War, Dutch parties distinguished themselves on ideological and religious
grounds but they had an important common goal: to reconstruct the nation and to regain its
regional and international position (Dittrich 1987). However, this national solidarity and
tolerance between parties developed gradually from consensus to competition into a “catch-‐
all people’s party” strategy that overshadows ideological ideals (Krouwel 1998). The strategy
involves addressing individual, basic desires, rather than collective needs and values. Other
influences on doing politics involve national efforts and external pressure to establish a
European Union, untouchable economic globalisation, and the mediatisation of politics.
These developments have fundamentally changed the power and status function of the
nation state. The Netherlands today faces a decline in national autonomy and parties need
to rearticulate their raison d’ètre and identity. In the past four elections, more than twenty
national parties have been vying for votes and elections have become a fierce competition,
resulting in a pragmatic appeal that reaches beyond national solidarity and ideological
communities. The focus of attention is on change and the unknown future, a development
that Dunmire (2011) describes as typically Western. Worldviews of the present and
projections of the unknown future legitimise urgency for action, as with the Tsunami
example, as if “the future … legitimates the present and its conflicts and sufferings” (Heller
1999: 10, quoted in Dunmire 2011). The current future-‐oriented discourse of Dutch politics
almost reverses continuous time by downplaying knowledge and experience of the past. In
addition, electoral power has diminished as a result of coalition governments that are
formed after the elections. As a result, a vote for a winning party does not mean that their
policies will be realised. Majority governments can only be formed through compromises
laid down in coalition agreements with other, sometimes unlikely partners (e.g., the current
Liberal VVD with Labour PvdA minority coalition). Considering the number of parties, the
lack of electoral influence, transparency, consistency in party attitudes, and the focus on the
unknown future, there is a clear need for reliable estimates of party positions to inform the
public as well as to predict election outcomes at election time (Krouwel and Wall 2014: 277-‐
278). Text analysis for the temporal and spatial ground of worldview constructions addresses
the nature of the ground rationale of party programmes. Rather than analysing what they
are about, discourse-‐space analysis can reveal the scope of attention and point of view from
which issues and policies are framed.
Time and space frames indicate the scope of a party’s worldview and are considered
indicators of conservative (limited scope)-‐-‐progressive (wide scope) attitude. In order to be
able to relate discourse-‐space analysis to political dimensions, the hypothesis is that the
wider the scope of a party’s worldview, the more space and time there is to negotiate
solutions to social problems. And the narrower the scope, the more the focus is on internal
affairs.
4.2 A corpus for discourse-‐space analysis of Dutch election manifestos
To develop the model for discourse-‐space analysis, a stable corpus of like texts was selected
to avoid stylistic and functional text-‐type variations. Election manifestos were selected as
the most stable corpus over time and across parties (cf. Van Elfrinkhof et al. 2014: 301). For
decades, election manifestos have been landmarks of parties’ worldviews around election
time. They form a reliable corpus for cross-‐party analysis and can also be applied in a historic
study of individual parties’ developments. The manifesto is the reference point of a party’s
focus and stance at election time, of its assessment of the current state of affairs, focus
issues, policies and commitment to achieve their goals.
The narrative structure of the manifestos included in the corpus is generally three
tiered. The manifestos begin with an assessment of the current state of affairs, in an
introductory section that sets the temporal and spatial frame of attention for policies and
goals. The second part concerns specific topics, sub-‐issues and policies that ‘fit’ in the
attention field delineated in their introductory paragraphs. The third part is less consistent:
in some manifestos it is absent, in others, it is a list of bullet points or policies that address
the issues mentioned in the second part, or simply summarises them. Because the goal is to
find variation in worldview constructions, the corpus was limited to the introductory
sections.
The model was inspired by Chilton’s Time Space Modality model (2004). Werth’s
(1999) lexical modality scale served as a basis for the analysis of modal force-‐direction that
regulates Attitude relative to the vantage point (Cienki, Kaal, and Maks 2010).9 The resulting
Time-‐Space-‐Attitude (TSA) model is designed to identify real and abstract time and space
references and their complementation. Attitude was annotated relative to time and space
referents that emerged from a close reading of the data, based on Chilton’s modality ranking
(2005: 89). The vantage point is situated in the here and now of the nation state at election
time (Figure 1). Annotation was done manually, using the Kyoto Annotation Format.
9 For detailed description of the model and the Time, Space and Attitude nodes, please see Kaal (2012, and Van Elfrinkhof et al. 2014).
Figure 1. A Time-‐Space-‐Attitude (TSA) model for Dutch manifesto analysis.
On the basis of pilot TSA annotation and reliability tests, a codebook was designed for
further annotation. To illustrate the interpretive potential of results, three parties on
different points in the political landscape are compared. Attitude was annotated on a five-‐
point scale of epistemic and deontic complementation to the annotated time and space
expressions in order to adjust time and space rankings with a +2 to -‐2 factor. Variation in
party positions is not sought in the quantifiable salience differences, but rather in terms of
relative differences. For example if a party mentions “the barbaric Middle Ages” once in its
introduction and other parties do not mention the period at all, then the per cent difference
is significant. The TSA model allows for the visualisation of time and spatial scope, and
vantage point in simple diagrams.
It is not easy to provide samples of relevant text snippets because it is not possible to
catch the temporal and spatial ground of a text in a single sentence, but some examples may
serve as an indication of the kind of annotation applied at the text level. The examples are
taken from the corpus of introductory paragraphs of 2010 election manifestos (EM 2010
Intro), comparing the time and space frames of three very different parties: the populist
Party for Freedom (PVV), the Christian Democrats (CDA) and the Green Left (GL) party
(Figures 2-‐4). In sentence (1) the Party for Freedom (PVV) posits an unspecified period as a
positive national experience. This positive stance contrasts with the here and now location
of sentence (2), strengthening the parties’ dissatisfaction with the local, current state of
affairs and suggesting that the current misery has been brought about by an ‘outside’
influence, ‘Islam’:
(1) NL/Very Past>10-‐Present
“Our ancestors have transformed a boggy swamp-‐delta into something the whole world is jealous
of.” (EM2010 PVV Intro)
(Onze voorouders hebben een zompige moerasdelta omgevormd tot iets waar de hele wereld
jaloers op is.)
(2) Local/Now-‐Near Future process
“Borough after borough, street after street, school after school is being islamified.” (EM2010 PVV
Intro)
(Wijk na wijk, straat na straat, school na school worden geïslamificeerd.)
The contrast connects political stance with the premises of the argument and can be
interpreted as traditional and nationalistic. The contrast in (1) and (2) evokes a sense of
dissatisfaction with the here and now. While holding outsiders (the islam) responsible for
unwanted change, the focus throughout these introductory paragraphs remains on the here
and now (Figure 2). On the other hand, the Green Left (3) and the Christian Democrats (4)
are forward looking into the future:
(3) NL/Now-‐Future process
The GreenLeft wants to look ahead. Politicians must do what is necessary in view of the future of
our children. (EM2010 GL Intro)
(GroenLinks wil vooruitkijken. Politici moeten nu doen wat nodig is en denken aan de toekomst van
onze kinderen.)
This sentence appeals to primary feeling of family protection into the distant future, and
‘must’ and ‘necessary’ connote urgency and inevitability (Figure 3). In terms of their
environmental programme, the broad scope of the GL party’s worldview can be explained in
terms of human responsibility for sustainability. The introductory paragraphs of the Christian
Democrat party focus on measures to be taken here and now (less government, more
society), and responsibilities for the long-‐term (rentmeesterschap -‐ stewardship,
duurzaamheid, bestendigheid -‐ sustainability). But infinite space and time are in the
background as an important secondary attention space that can be interpreted in terms of
religious space: God’s infinite realm (Figure 4).
Figure 2. Time and Space range of primary (black), secondary (grey) and tertiary (white) attention fields (PVV
EM2010 Intro).
Figure 3. Time and Space range primary (black), secondary (grey) and tertiary (white) attention fields (GL EM 2010 Intro).
Figure 4. Time and Space range of primary (black), secondary (grey) and tertiary (white) attention fields (CDA EM2010 Intro).
These graphic representations of the scope and levels of attention in party worldviews
visualise the spatial and temporal frame in which party-‐political reasoning is based. The
resulting relative differences between parties can serve further political interpretations for
party positioning.
Parties have in common that they focus on the here and now, the political mandatory
space. But we find differences between parties in their emphasis (black) and in the
peripheral scope (grey) and beyond the immediate situation (white). Quantitative results
visualise the scope of worldviews but quantification is not directly linked with salience
because the frames operate in the background, as common ground in worldview
construction. However, the diagrams do reveal relative variations. Figures 2-‐4 show that the
vantage point of these manifestos, and in fact of all of the manifestos analysed, is the nation
state at election time, as might reasonably be expected, but the peripheral space shows
significant variation.
A cautious interpretation of variation in the scope of layered attention space onto
political dimensions is that the Christian Democrats are more conservative than content or
linguistic analysis would suggest. Their focus is on past-‐present and internal affairs and the
attention is predominantly in the institutional range of government periods and national
borders. The PVV is rather black and white in contrasting home affairs with international
affairs, often in a negative sense. The GL party has a broad scope within the limitations of
political agency in time and space, but with a main focus on the here and now, and the near
future.
It does not seem possible to measure the ‘reality factor’ of time and space frames
because it is presumed a metaphysical analogy between real space and abstract space in
thought and language. The pragmatic effect of the frames does not depend on quantity, but
rather on their cohesive role and conceptual impact on the construction of meaning.
Salience is not the main issue in the analysis of time and space frames of reference because
they function in the background as an intrinsic worldview grounding throughout the entire
manifesto. However, quantifying time and space references helps to detect differences
between parties’ attention spaces and to identify levels of attention space. It is, however, a
valid distinguishing feature that may best be represented in a comparative ranking to find
salient variation in coordinate systems.
A comparison with linguistic and content analysis of the same texts shows that
worldview analysis links up with the Progressive-‐Conservative dimension, rather than with
Left-‐Right (see Van Elfrinkhof et al. 2014: 316-‐318). This seems to confirm the hypothesis
that the temporal and spatial scope of a worldview is an indicator of conservative (limited
scope)-‐-‐progressive (wide scope) attitude. The TSA approach could therefore complement
content and linguistic analysis in terms of revealing the underlying coordinate systems of
text-‐intrinsic logic, that are not explicit aspects of meaning making in texts.
5. How ‘real’ are time and space in politically motivated worldviews?
Theory of the primacy of spatial cognition provides a key to ‘how’, in the background,
physical and abstract, factual and moral convictions are constructed as if they were all basic
facts (cf. Searle 2010). The analogy between the coordinate systems of the real world and
abstract worldviews supports a sense of reality. The logic of the generic spatial coordinate
system, based in the primacy of spatial cognition, lends illocutionary force and rhetorical,
epistemic quality to abstract worldview constructions, particularly so in political discourse.
TSA analysis may reveal variation in the politically motivated ground logic of discursive
constructions that can reveal differences and shifts in stance.
As discussed above, Levinson (2003) and Nuñez and Cooperrider (2013) note the
importance of recognising the cultural, subconscious cognitive level of conceptual reasoning
as expressed in language. In the framework of critical discourse analysis, a cognitive
discourse investigation of the construction of text-‐ and discourse-‐world logic addresses this
culturally determined aspect of politically motivated discourse. In his pragmatic social
philosophy, Searle claims a logical relationship between material, social, existential and
linguistic structure in layers of making sense of social ontology by way of “a single unifying
principle” and “one formal linguistic mechanism” for “a secure understanding of (…)
ontology” (2010: 7). Furthermore, he makes a critical link between language use (speech
acts) and the construction of intention for action. Where cognitive-‐linguistic approaches to
spatial cognition address the conceptualizing affordances of linguistic constructions of
meaning, a discourse-‐space approach can include basic aspects of cognition, language use
and social behaviour with attention to the cognitive affordances of discursive meaning
constructions and their possible social impact. The basic coordinate systematicity of time
and space frames, as described in cognitive-‐linguistic theory (Levinson 2003), can be
projected on discourse as discursive markers of text-‐world logic, meaning construction in
context and the social function and illocutionary force of a text (Searle 2010). Qualitative
analysis of both space and time frames seems essential to do a process-‐oriented analysis of
constructions of meaning that are subject to change in their volatile socio-‐historical context.
Theory of spatial cognition can then be extended to theories on the power of language to
challenge or uphold institutional power and its knowledge and values.
In critical discourse studies, approaches to constructional affordances of time and
space in political discourse were pioneered in Chilton’s work on Deictic Space Theory (2010),
Evans and Chilton (2010) on language, cognition and space, Cap’s proximisation theory
(2008) and Dunmire’s work on projecting the future in political discourse (2011). These
approaches focus on linguistic lexical-‐semantic and syntactic structures and there is a need
for analysis beyond the sentence unit and semantic networks and to include more context in
the analysis. Text analysis for conceptual constructions also requires a text-‐world approach
to find time and space frames of reference and their intrinsic, non-‐verbal effects on meaning
making (cf. Werth 1999 and Gavins 2007 on text worlds). Another factor to be considered is
the historic context, beyond the text, as exemplified in the case of Dutch politics. Discourse
analysis should address text-‐external cognitive, cultural and genre-‐specific aspects that
contextualise or localise language use and inscribes its patterns of making sense. Text
internal and external factors and their socio-‐cognitive role need to be qualified to be able to
interpret the discursive affordances of spatial constructions, and particularly so in
rhetorically rich political discourse.
The subjective positioning of a point of view in a scope of attention is an interesting
critical approach as knowing the scope and vantage point of the coordinate system of an
argument means that it can be challenged and transformed by moving the vantage point or
changing the scope. In the discourse-‐space analysis for party positioning discussed in this
article, time and space frames of reference give insight into variation in the vantage point
and the scope of attention that support political attitudes and rationalise party programmes.
If the same cognitive principle applies to human reasoning in general, it makes sense to
apply worldview analysis in other investigations of social practice, by first identifying the
spatial logic of the coordinate system of a particular community and its affordances for
meaning making.
To answer the question at the beginning of this article: “Given that we all live in the
same world, how is it we can have such very different worldviews?”, a case has been made
for the analysis of the coordinate system of a discourse and its rhetorical affordances. The
question concerns spatial reasoning and the rhetorical (evidential and persuasive) nature of
time-‐ and space frames of reference in worldview constructions. Worldview analysis is a way
of illuminating the ‘mythical’ (Lyotard 1984 [1979]) aspect of narrative entailment of
discourse spaces as the cognitive ground of discursive constructions of meaning. In this way,
discourse space theory goes beyond the words of a text and addresses subconscious
reasoning patterns that intuitively “connect the dots” (Oakley and Coulson 2008). Worldview
analysis does not per se investigate deliberate manipulation or legitimation, but rather it
investigates the illocutionary power of a more primitive systematicity of worldview
coherence for sense making. The question of “how real are time and space” in the abstract
world cannot be answered with any precision as the reality factor is as fluid as thought,
language and meaning itself. But potentially they are real enough to prime intentions for
action in politics as well as in any other form of communication for social action.
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Biosketch
Bertie Kaal is about to finish her PhD in Political Text Analysis at the VU University Amsterdam (The Network Institute). 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 in comparative political studies 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). Email a.r.kaal (at) vu.nl