Introduction to Critical Discourse
Analysis: An Overview
By Noveera Jaffar
Critical Discourse Analysis is an interdisciplinary approach
and discourse analytical research that explores the
connections between the use of language and the social and
political contexts in which it occurs. It explores issues such as
gender, ethnicity, culture difference, ideology and identity and
how these are both constructed and reflected in texts.
Studies how social power abuse, dominance and inequality
are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in
social and political contexts.
Deals with the relationship between discourse and power
(with the aim of understanding, exposing and resisting
social inequality).
Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
Focuses on how discourse structures enact, confirm,
legitimize, reproduce or challenge relations of power and
dominance in society.
Rejects the possibility of a value-free science – as these
inequalities are inherently a part social structures and are
influenced by social interactions.
According to Paltridge (2006), CDA aims to reveal some of
the hidden and ”out of sight” values, positions and
perspectives and norms which underlie texts are often ‘out of
sight’ “ and as what is cited by Rogers (2004, 6) in ( Paltridge:
2006, 178) about discourses “are always socially, politically,
racially and economically loaded” Since CDA is approach of
the study of discourse that views language as a form of social
practice.
Conti……
According to van Dijk (1998a) Critical Discourse
Analysis is a field that is concerned with studying
and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the
discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality
and bias. It examines how these discursive sources
are maintained and reproduced within specific
social, political and historical contexts.
Fairclough (1993) defines CDA as discourse analysis which
aims to explore often opaque relationships of causality and
determination between
Conti….
(a)discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider
social and cultural structures, relations and processes;
to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise
out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of
power and struggles over power; and to explore how the
opacity of these relationships between discourse and
society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony
Paltridge“ explores the connections between the use of
language and the social and political contexts in which it
occurs. It explores issues such as gender, ethnicity,
cultural differences, ideology and identity and how these
are both constructed and reflected in texts.
Conti…..
It also investigates ways in which language constructs and is
constructed by social relationships. A critical analysis may
include a detailed textual analysis and move from there to an
explanation and interpretation of the analysis. It might
proceed from there to deconstruct and challenge the text/s
being examined. This may include tracing underlying
ideologies from the linguistic features of a text, unpacking
particular biases and ideological presuppositions underlying
the text, and relating the text to other texts and to people’s
experiences and beliefs”
Critical discourse analysis defined by Paltridge
(2006, 179) as
The term ‘critical’ can be particularly associated with the
Frankfurt School of Philosophy. The Frankfurt School re-
examines the foundations of Marxist thought. Kantian ‘critique’
entails the use of rational analysis to question the limits of
human knowledge and understanding of, for example, the
physical world.
The Frankfurt School extends this to an analysis of cultural
forms of various kinds, which are seen as central to the
reproduction of capitalist social relations. According to Jürgen
Habermas, a critical science has to be self reflexive (reflecting
on the interests that underlie it) and it must also consider the
historical context in which linguistic and social interactions take
place.
Being Critical
Inthe late 1970s, Critical Linguistics was developed by a
group of linguists and literary theorists at the University
of East Anglia. Their approach was based on Halliday's
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). CL practitioners
aimed at "isolating ideology in discourse" and showing
"how ideology and ideological processes are manifested
as systems of linguistic characteristics and processes.".
Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language
in use as simultaneously performing three functions:
ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions.
Development of CDA
Halliday'sview of language as a "social act" is central to
many of CDA's practitioners .According to Fowler et al.
(1979, 185), CL, like sociolinguistics, asserts that,
"there are strong and pervasive connections between
linguistic structure and social structure" However,
whereas in sociolinguistics "the concepts 'language'
and 'society' are divided…so that one is forced to talk
of 'links between the two'", for CL "language is an
integral part of social process" (Fowler et al., 1979, p.
189).
Conti….
Another central assumption of CDA and SFL is that
speakers make choices regarding vocabulary and
grammar, and that these choices are consciously or
.
unconsciously "principled and systematic"(Fowler et
al., 1979, p. 188). Thus choices are ideologically
based. According to Fowler et al. (1979), the
"relation between form and content is not arbitrary or
conventional, but . . . form signifies content" .In sum,
language is a social act that is ideologically driven.
Conti…..
Theoretical Origins
CDA, in its various forms, has its academic origins in ‘Western
Marxism’. In broad terms, Western Marxism places a
particular emphasis on the role of cultural dimensions in
reproducing capitalist social relations. This necessarily implies
a focus on meaning (semiosis) and ideology as key
mechanisms in this process. Western Marxism includes key
figures and movements in twentieth-century social and
political thought – Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School,
Louis Althusser. Critical discourse analysts do not always
explicitly place themselves within this legacy, but nevertheless
it frames their work.
Gramsci’s observation that the maintenance of
contemporary power rests not only on coercive force
but also on ‘hegemony’ (winning the consent of the
majority) has been particularly influential in CDA.
The emphasis on hegemony entails an emphasis on
ideology, and on how the structures and practices of
ordinary life routinely normalize capitalist social
relations.
Conti…..
Althusser made a major contribution to the theory of
ideology, demonstrating how these are linked to
material practices embedded in social institutions
(e.g. school teaching). He also showed their capacity
to position people as social ‘subjects’, although he
tended toward an overly deterministic (structuralist)
version of this process which left little room for
action by subjects.
Directed against such structuralist accounts of
ideology, Foucault’s work on discourse has generated
immense interest in discourse analysis,
Conti…..
but also analysis of a rather abstract sort that is not
anchored in a close analysis of particular texts. For
Foucault , discourses are knowledge systems of the
human sciences (medicine, economics, linguistics, etc.)
that inform the social and governmental ‘technologies’
which constitute power in modern society.
A further influential figure has been the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in particular his (1991)
work on the relationship between language, social
position and symbolic value in the dynamics of power
relations.
Conti…..
From within linguistics and literary studies the work of
Bakhtin has also been important in discourse analysis.
Volosinov (1973) work is the first linguistic theory of
ideology. It claims that linguistic signs are the material
of ideology, and that all language use is ideological.
As well as developing a theory of genre, Bakhtin’s
work emphasizes the dialogical properties of texts,
introducing the idea of ‘intertextuality’ (see Kristeva,
1986). This is the idea that any text is a link in a chain
of texts, reacting to, drawing on, and transforming
other texts.
Conti…..
Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-80) summarize
the main tenets of CDA as follows:
1. CDA addresses social problems
2. Power relations are discursive
3. Discourse constitutes society and culture
4. Discourse does ideological work
5. Discourse is historical
6. The link between text and society is mediated
7. Discourse analysis is interpretative and
explanatory
8. Discourse is a form of social action.
Main Tenets Of CDA
Social and political issues are constructed
and reflected in discourse
b) Power relations are negotiated and
performed through discourse
c) Discourse both reflects and reproduces social
relations
d) Ideologies are produced and reflected in the
use of discourse
Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis
In everyday interaction and experience the macro- and micro
level (and intermediary "mesolevels") form one unified whole:
For instance, a racist speech in parliament is a discourse at the
micro level of social interaction in the specific situation of a
debate, but at the same time may enact or be a constituent part
of legislation or the reproduction of racism at the macrolevel.
Macro-analysis: Power, Dominance, Inequality
Micro-analysis: Language Use, Discourse, Verbal Interaction
& Communication
• These 2 levels form 1 unified whole in everyday interaction
and experience.
Macro vs. Micro Levels of Analysis
CDA will feature such notions as "power,"
"dominance," "hegemony," "ideology,"
"class," "gender," "race," "discrimination,"
"interests," "reproduction," "institutions,"
"social structure," and "social order,"
besides
the more familiar discourse analytical
notions. Further reading 'Critical Discourse
Analysis TEUN A. VAN DIJK
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