Discourse Analysis Models Compared – a Cognitive Linguistics Perspective

This paper is a presentation of Discourse Analysis (DA) in New Testament (NT) Studies, from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective. While much linguistic research has been done in DA and is useful to those in the Bible translation movement, it can be confusing and overwhelming to get a grasp of the scope and nuance of the DA enterprise itself. This paper first seeks to remedy that problem.

The DA approaches that have been in use over the years consist of a myriad of components and models. For example, some approaches are robust and try to engage with every aspect of a discourse (e.g., Longacre’s approach, Halliday’s approach, Levinsohn’s approach), while other approaches are more modest as they tackle specific discourse issues (e.g., Louw’s approach; Beekman, Callow, and Kopesec’s approach; even Runge’s approach to some extent).

After a brief introduction to the various approaches and models of DA used in NT Studies, a working framework for a cognitive approach to DA will be presented and elaborated upon. Next, a Cognitive Model for DA will be presented using this framework, with reference to the core components of DA and how to conceptualize them within the given model (cf. esp. Langacker, 2008; Evans, 2019). Thus, by comparing and contrasting the Cognitive Model with other DA approaches, the benefits of a cognitive approach to DA in NT Studies will be firmly established.