Critical discourse analysis

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are visible in text and talk.[1]

Since Norman Fairclough's Language and Power in 1989, CDA has been deployed as a method of analysis throughout the humanities and social sciences. It is neither a homogeneous nor necessarily united approach. Nor does it confine itself only to method. The single shared assumption uniting CDA practitioners is that language and power are entirely linked.

Contents

Background

CDA was first developed by the Lancaster school of linguists of which Norman Fairclough was the most prominent figure. Scholar Ruth Wodak also made a remarkable contribution to this field of study. The approach draws from several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, such as critical linguistics.[2] Fairclough developed a three-dimensional framework for studying discourse, where the aim is to map three separate forms of analysis onto one another: analysis of (spoken or written) language texts, analysis of discourse practice (processes of text production, distribution and consumption) and analysis of discursive events as instances of sociocultural practice.[1][3] Particularly, he combines micro, meso and macro-level interpretation. At the micro-level, the analyst considers the text's syntax, metaphoric structure and certain metorical devises . The meso-level involved studying the text's production and consumption, focusing on how power relations are enacted. At the macro-level, the analyst is concerned with inter-textual understanding, trying to understand the broad, societal currents that are affecting the text being studied.[4][5]

In addition to linguistic theory, the approach draws from social theory — and contributions from Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu — in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in discourse. Language connects with the social through being the primary domain of ideology, and through being both a site of, and a stake in, struggles for power.[1] Ideology has been called the basis of the social representations of groups, and, in psychological versions of CDA developed by Teun A. van Dijk and Ruth Wodak, there is assumed to be a sociocognitive interface between social structures and discourse structures.[6] The historical dimension in critical discourse studies also plays an important role.[7]

Methodology

Although CDA is sometimes mistaken to represent a 'method' of discourse analysis, it is generally agreed upon that any explicit method in discourse studies, the humanities and social sciences may be used in CDA research, as long as it is able to adequately and relevantly produce insights into the way discourse reproduces (or resists) social and political inequality, power abuse or domination. That is, CDA does not limit its analysis to specific structures of text or talk, but systematically relates these to structures of the sociopolitical context.

Notable academics

Notable writers include Norman Fairclough, Michał Krzyżanowski, Paul Chilton, Teun A. van Dijk, Ruth Wodak, Ernesto Laclau, Phil Graham, Theo Van Leeuwen, Siegfried Jäger, Christina Schäffner, James Paul Gee, Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress, Mary Talbot, Lilie Chouliaraki, Thomas Huckin, and Bob Hodge.

See also

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Fairclough, Norman; Clive Holes (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Longman. ISBN 0582219809. 
  2. ^ Fowler, Roger; Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress, Tony Trew (1979). Language and Control. Routledge. ISBN 9780710002884. 
  3. ^ Fairclough, Norman (2001). Language and Power. Longman. ISBN 0582414830. 
  4. ^ David Barry, Brigid Carroll and Hans Hansen (4 May 2006). Narrative and Discursive Organizational Studies To Text or Context? Endotextual, Exotextual, and Multi-textual Approaches to Narrative and Discursive Organizational Studies Organization Studies 2006; 27; 1091. ISBN 10.1177/0170840606064568. 
  5. ^ Alvesson, Mats, Dan Karreman (2000). ‘Varieties of discourse: On the study of organizations through discourse analysis’. Human Relations 53/9: 1125–1149. 
  6. ^ van Dijk, Teun Adrianus (1998). Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Sage Publications. ISBN 0761956549. 
  7. ^ Wodak, Ruth; Michael Meyer (2001). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis: Methods of Critical. Sage Publications. ISBN 0761961542. 

References

Further reading

External links

Journals associated with CDA

Origins
Concepts
Derivatives