The volume offers a number of representative papers on cognitive models that are invoked when people deal with questions of social identity, political and economic manipulation, and more general issues such as the genomic discourse.

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models and ideologiesRené Dirven, Roslyn M. Frank and Martin PützSection 1: Cognitive models of linguistic variation Cultural models of linguistic standardization Dirk Geeraerts How to do things with allophones: Linguistic stereotypes as cognitive reference points in social cognitionGitte Kristiansen Section 2: Cognitive models of cultural/social identities Shifting identities in Basque and Western cultural models of Self and BeingRoslyn M. Frank Language and ideology in Nigerian cartoonsOyinkan Medubi Three mandates for anti-minority policy expressed in U.S. public discourse metaphorsOtto Santa Ana Has the consciousness of modern industrial societies rendered "housewife" no longer a value-free cultural model?Lewis Sego Section 3: Cognitive models as covert ideologies Conceptual metaphor as ideological stylistic means: An exemplary analysisHans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen Metaphor and ideology in the press coverage of telecom corporate consolidationsMichael White and Honesto Herrera Section 4: Cognitive models in covert social debates Ideological functions of metaphor: The conceptual metaphors of health and illness in public iscourseAndreas Musolff Genetic roulette: On the cognitive rhetoric of bioriskCraig A. Hamilton Deciphering the human genome: The semantic and ideological foundations of genetic and genomic DiscourseBrigitte Nerlich and Robert Dingwall