Language and politics have always been closely connected. As the linguistic carrier of political activities, political discourse can shape public emotions, influence public opinion, and even affect socio-political behaviour. Based on the changes in the contemporary political landscape, Chilton’s book explores the new trends of political discourse in the second edition. While retaining the case studies from the first edition, he adds new examples that reflect today’s complex political reality and further explores the crucial role of emotion in political discourse. He employs theories of pragmatics and semantics to explain the characteristics of political language through a three-dimensional deictic model from discourse space theory. This approach has advanced the study of political discourse and expanded the field of critical discourse analysis.

The book comprises 12 chapters, which can be divided into four major parts. The first part is the theoretical groundwork; the second and third parts carry out empirical analyses of domestic and international political discourse respectively; and the fourth part summarises the theoretical contributions of the book and discusses future research directions.

Chapters 1–5 establish the theoretical groundwork. Chapter 1 explores the complex relationship between language and politics. Chapter 2 further examines the evolution and functions of language as well as their relationship with political behaviour. Chapter 3 turns to interpersonal interaction.

Chapter 4 forms the theoretical core of the book. This chapter puts forward the three-dimensional deictic model of space, time, and modality to provide a unified framework for the empirical analysis of the book. Chilton proposes that people cognitively construct a three-dimensional coordinate system with the ‘Self’ as its origin when processing political discourse. All political discourse centres on the speaker. Actors, events, and values are positioned along space, time, and modality. Taking Clinton’s speech on the Kosovo War as an example, he demonstrates how spatial metaphor, temporal narrative, and modal judgement shape public cognition. Finally, the chapter explains how speakers use implicature, entailment, presupposition, and assumption to help listeners form mental representations.

Newly added to the second edition, Chapter 5 introduces emotion into political discourse analysis. Chilton uses neurolinguistics and psychological research to confirm that political language can directly activate the emotional centre of the brain, triggering both negative emotions and positive emotions. He demonstrates that populist and authoritarian discourses strongly rely on negative emotions, and these emotions are frequently expressed through words and metaphors. Finally, Chilton takes Trump’s campaign rallies as an example to illustrate how repetition, metaphor, and collective interaction activate anger, fear, and nostalgia and argues that emotion is the main driving force of contemporary populist politics. This chapter integrates linguistics with neuroscience and psychology, representing an important interdisciplinary advancement.

Chapters 6–8 focus on empirical analyses of domestic political discourse. Chapter 6 examines political interviews, pointing out that journalists interrupt and ask follow-up questions to expose contradictions, while politicians evade and change topics to avoid risks. Chapter 7 analyses parliamentary discourse, demonstrating that interruption, discourse repair, and turn-taking mechanisms serve as important means of party competition and power negotiation. Chapter 8 explores how racist discourse is constructed and disseminated through strategies of self-legitimisation.

Chapters 9–11 focus on international political discourse. Chapter 9 analyses Clinton’s speech defending the Kosovo War and demonstrates how Western leaders employ historical analogies and metaphors to justify military intervention and foreign policy decisions. Chapter 10 compares the public texts of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, arguing that although the two hold opposite views, both construct similar cognitive structures that centre the self and legitimise violence against each other. Chapter 11 extends the analysis to religious discourse. This chapter examines how religious concepts function as cognitive presuppositions to serve political legitimisation purposes, thereby deepening our understanding of the relationship between religion and politics.

As the concluding chapter of the book, Chapter 12 first reviews the two theoretical strands of interaction and cognitive representation. It then summarises the major characteristics of political discourse. Finally, Chilton discusses emerging challenges including discourse gaps, lying and post-truth political discourse, values and new media.

Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice is a landmark work in political discourse analysis, so the update of its second edition is timely and necessary. First of all, the new Chapter 5 on emotion introduces emotional mechanisms into political discourse analysis, making the theoretical framework more relevant to the rise of populism and the political communication environments shaped by social media. Secondly, the removal of Habermas’s political pragmatics makes the framework more suitable for current political communication environments. Thirdly, new cases such as Trump’s rallies, Brexit discourse, and extreme nationalism enhance its contemporary relevance. Finally, Chilton adds a reflection on the issue of value neutrality in political discourse analysis.

The main contribution of this book is the three-dimensional deictic model of space, time, and modality as a unified framework for political discourse analysis. This model moves beyond the limitations of traditional critical discourse analysis, which focuses on texts and social structures. By integrating cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, and political science, Chilton provides a powerful analytical tool for understanding populism, legitimisation, and ideological confrontation. Furthermore, it opens new possibilities for quantitative research and cross-cultural comparative studies of political discourse.

However, the book still has limitations. Most cases are drawn from the UK and the US. Non-Western and multilingual political discourses receive limited attention, so the general applicability of the theory needs further testing. Moreover, although Chilton recognises the influence of social media on political discourse, this issue is not explored systematically.

Overall, Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice (2nd edn.) is an influential work. It is essential reading for researchers and students in linguistics, communication, politics, and other fields. Moreover, it points to the emotional turn and digital turn for future research in political discourse analysis.