Chapter 9 looks beyond CODA in two ways. On the one hand, CODA is only one among many established ways to examine human thought; linguistic analysis can be easily and fruitfully combined with other methods. The first half of this chapter addresses triangulation with performance and other observable data as well as subtler measures such as reaction times and eye movements, and also includes brief discussions of cognitive modelling and corpus linguistic methods. On the other hand, CODA is rarely used purely for its own sake; more often than not, linguistic analysis is part of a wider goal. Results can be used for a multitude of applications and purposes, including implementation in automatic systems that support human everyday needs. Therefore, the second half of Chapter 9 concludes the book with a discussion of practical applications for the methodology in academia and beyond, in applied and interdisciplinary fields such as architecture and artificial intelligence, and also looks at how CODA results can be made more accessible using suitable visualisation tools. The final section provides a brief wrap–up of the book's main messages.

Chapter 8 provides a detailed account of practical steps and advice for doing CODA. While avoiding reintroducing well-known methods of discourse analysis , it highlights important principles and shares practice–based insights that have accumulated over many years of doing CODA. Starting with considerations as to the purpose of individual CODA studies, it discusses relevant procedures step by step, including experimental design aspects, data collection, transcription and data preparation, and practical steps of data analysis such as segmentation, content analysis, tool support, and operationalisation of analysis categories. The final sections of this chapter consider issues pertaining to qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. The practical guidance using only simple and highly accessible tools provided in this chapter will be well received particularly by graduate students (or early-career researchers) with little access to complex technologies or hands–on practical support in their own universities. More experienced researchers will understand the principles quickly and be able to adapt them for their own purposes, using whichever technology they may have access to.

Chapter 4 is the first of four chapters that each explore conceptual aspects that are of potential interest to researchers when using language to access cognition, across a broad range of subject areas. These conceptual aspects can therefore be regarded as prominent analysis perspectives. This chapter starts by discussing two central phenomena related to cognitive orientation: attention and perspective. Both of these are systematically reflected in language use, albeit in different ways: attention underlies our choice of what we say, whereas perspective addresses how we say it. What we say will reflect what we attend to; aspects that we barely think about will rarely be reflected in our descriptions. As we formulate what we’re attending to, we can use our own point of view or adopt a different one, such as our interaction partner’s standpoint. While we don𣀙t often say explicitly which perspective we’re using, our language will reflect the underlying viewpoint in systematic ways.

Chapter 1 has three goals. First, it provides motivation and history for the methodology by reviewing seminal insights and current debates about the relationship between language and thought, outlining how most research in this field concerns the structure of language rather than its use. Second, it outlines the scope for using CODA by identifying crucial and typical areas of application, with specific focus on mental representations and cognitive processes. Third, it highlights the scope and limits of language analysis of this kind, along with a discussion of reliability and generalisability of insights gained by using CODA. Altogether, the chapter provides in-depth insights into the foundational insights the method builds on, what it is intended for, why and where it is useful, and how it relates to other approaches to cognition.

Chapter 7 addresses the formulation of thought from two perspectives. On the one hand, whenever we put thoughts into words, we do this for a specific purpose – typically for the benefit of an interaction partner. The first half of Chapter 7 discusses communication and dialogic interaction, where thoughts are formulated for an addressee; this affects how words are chosen, what kind of background knowledge is presumed, what style of language is adopted, etc.; also, speakers adapt to each other in the course of a dialogue. Further, dialogues follow specific structures that can be systematically accounted for. The second half of this chapter addresses the idea of cognitive strategies, which are the main target of think–aloud protocol analysis in traditional problem-solving studies. These are not intended to be primarily formulated for an addressee but instead represent the structure of cognitive processes in temporal sequence. While content analysis is the first (and often the only) crucial step for researchers in this general field, the chapter explores what kinds of insights CODA adds with its focus on linguistic features. This concludes the set of chapters addressing analysis perspectives.

This chapter gently sets the stage for the book, using accessible language and intuitive examples. It outlines the key insights in the book in simple terms, provides motivation for the issues addressed in subsequent chapters, and introduces relevant facts from everyday experience as well as academic background. Straightforward insights help to motivate and encourage the reader to consider using Cognitive Discourse Analysis in their own research, independent of previous experience in linguistic analysis. The short chapter ends by listing the main content for each of the book’s chapters, thus providing a first detailed and intuitive overview of the book’s overall scope.

Concluding the set of general background chapters that introduce theoretical foundations, Chapter 3 summarises relevant insights from three fairly unrelated fields: cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, and functional grammar. In cognitive linguistics, prominent insights include the relationship between words, concepts, and meanings, along with their structures in terms of semantics and syntax, general patterns concerning how language is used, and the fact that meanings are embedded in physical experience and transferred to more abstract domains (often referred to as metaphor). Discourse analysis is a generic label encompassing many ways of analysing actual language used in different contexts; this section looks at prominent methods adopted in well-known approaches such as Critical Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis, and then addresses a range of discourse-specific phenomena to illustrate pertinent insights in the field. Finally, Functional Grammar with its three levels of analysis (interpersonal, ideational, and textual) offers specific analysis perspectives and insights that are highly relevant and useful for understanding discourse in a cognitive context.

Chapter 2 discusses the relationship between language and thought from a methodological perspective. It explores how language has been viewed as a representation of thought, and used as a 'window' to human cognition, across various disciplines, spanning cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and other areas. In cognitive science, unconstrained verbal production data are frequently used to investigate dynamic cognitive processes, whereas psycholinguistic approaches address cognitively significant distinctions between a set of available options in controlled situations, typically with a focus on language production and comprehension. Following a general outline of other relevant disciplines and areas in which cognition is addressed through language, this chapter spells out in some detail how CODA builds on, relates to, and is distinct from both of these most central approaches.

Chapter 5 turns to cognitive depth, another aspect of our thinking that is regularly reflected in the way we formulate our thoughts. On the one hand, we can think things through, and formulate them in language, in much detail, or we can remain on the surface, sticking to the mere essentials. A focus on granularity patterns in linguistic analysis therefore provides insights into the speaker’s conceptualisations relative to a situation context, aspects attended to in depth, and diversity between individuals and types of situations. On the other hand, we can be more or less certain about what we describe, reflecting our expertise or the uncertainty of the subject matter itself. Variability in certainty adds a dimension of reliability to the speaker’s contribution, which is decisive for assessing the status of relevant concepts. Both aspects, granularity and certainty, work together, as experts will often be able to look into things in much more depth than novices – but on the other hand they don’t always need to, as they quickly recognise patterns that they’ve come across before.

Chapter 6 addresses two ways in which our minds can be constructive: either by making inferences on the basis of what’s already there – filling in gaps of information, or by transforming what’s there into something new. This twofold ability of the human mind to construct is basic to our existence, enabling us to go beyond what we encounter around us. The way we talk reflects both inference and transformation processes systematically. Inference involves taking observable facts and combining them with further knowledge or assumptions, in order to come to new insights or conclusions that aren’t directly observable. Transformation, on the other hand, involves taking observable facts or objects and turning them into something different, something that isn’t yet there but that can be accomplished using available tools and operators. Chapter 6 looks at each of these processes of cognitive constructiveness in turn.