Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto's Selected Speeches

ii
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected Speeches
Muhammad Munir
maahemunir@gmail.com
A dissertation submitted to Professor Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt, the honourable
supervisor, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of M. Phil English
Fall 2014
Department of English Language and Literature
GIFT University, Gujranwala, Pakistan

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Declaration
I, Muhammad Munir, hereby declare that this research is a result of my research
investigations and findings. The sources of information other than my own have been
acknowledged and a reference list thereof has been appended. This work has not been
previously submitted to any other university for award of any type of academic degree.
Signature…………………………….. Date…………………………………

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Certification
This research project has been perused and approved as fulfilling one of the requirements
for the award of M. Phil English degree in the Department of English Language and
Literature, GIFT University, Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. The researcher has submitted
this thesis within the stipulated period.
……………………………… ………………………………
Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt Date
Project Supervisor
……………………………… ………………………………
Dr. Surriya Shaffi Mir Date
Head of Department

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Dedication
Humbly dedicated to my extremely venerable father and mother
My painstaking mother in law
My more than beloved wife Namrah Munir
Revered brothers: M. Shabbir, Shah Zib, Tanvir Sajjad, Zuber, Asim Ahmad, and Ahmad
My dearer-than-life sister Sidra Siddique
The sweetest, soothing, and comforting angels: Abdullah, Ali, Mahnur, and A. Rahman
&
The divine and miraculous Saif-ur-Rahman Mubarak
The matchless Khaja Khalid Mahmood
The simple Sultan Mahmood
The inspiring Muhammad Ajmal Khan
The selfless Amjad Mehmood
The reliable Shahzad Ahmad
The sincere Humayun Shahzad
All of my religious and academic teachers

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Acknowledgements
Having offered gratitude to the Almighty and Durood upon the Holy Prophet (Peace Be
Upon Him) beyond the limits of my calculations, I most venerably acknowledge the
invaluable guidance of my respected supervisor Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt without
whose says and scolds this thesis would have gone unborn. I am also heartily obliged and
thankful to my mentors Mr. Muhammad Ajmal Khan, Dr. Mehmood Ahmad Azhar, and
especially Mr. Salman Rafique for bestowing spiritual, moral, and intellectual heed on
me imbued with kindness; they really became source of inspiration for me. It is also to be
acknowledged well-deservedly that Miss Ammara Sabohi’s sincere cooperation, and
Fatima Salahuddin’s esteemed assistance greatly facilitated me in this project. I am
obliged to admit the helplessness of my inadequate vocabulary while acknowledging the
concern, caution, and counsel my auspicious wife, neglecting herself, devoted to me in
the way of completing this task; her un-substitutable well-wishing and beatific care have
left me badly in debt to her. All these entities have had me to the destination; I am deeply
and humbly thankful to all of them.

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Abstract
This study concentrates on the selected pieces of Benazir Bhutto’s political discourse to
critical discourse analysis (CDA). The researcher has tried to explore the conveyance of a
particular ideology in an environment in which several other socio-political ideologies
compete at once. Besides, the play of various persuasive strategies to indoctrinating the
very ideology has also been analyzed by evaluating: how the political discourse exercises
language to its specific ends, and how an individually power-plugged language attempts
to manage representing general public. This research observed twofold relationship of
power i.e. relation with the powerless, and relation with the (other) powerful. Unlike the
earlier critical discourse analyses, this analysis has investigated the political discourse of
a female political leader when she held the office of the premier of an Islamic country; it
has also touched the pronouncing of power from a female tongue. It is found that power,
through discourse, demonstrates and declares itself in all of its possible dimensions which
remain varying though in its particular range of orbits like language, individual, ideology,
society, control etc.; the practice of power dismisses the so called gender differences of
socio-political nature. This research presents a broader investigation of the selected
political discourse i.e. it has been given an eclectic treatment as far as application of
framework is concerned: the selected data has been analyzed keeping in view the
analytical frameworks and strategies occurred in the works of certain discourse analysts.
However, it is closely inspired by Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday’s perspectives
and Norman Fairclough’s deliberations on hidden meaning, language, ideology, and
power etc. where persuasive strategies have also mattered.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION……………………………………………….................. ii
CERTIFICATION………………………………………………………….
DEDICATION……………………………………………………………..
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………..
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………..
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………..
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………..
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………………….
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iv
v
vi
vii
ix
x
CHAPTERS
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
1.9.1
1.9.2
1.10
1.10.1
1.10.2
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
1.15
1.16
1.17
1.18
1.19
1.20
1.21
1.22
1.23
1.24
1.25
INTRODUCTION………………………………………..
Politics (ideology), Power, and Language………………..
Evolution of the Expression of Power……………………
Language of Power and Power of Language……………..
Instrumentalization of Language………………………....
CDA Perspective of Ideology………………....................
Function of Ideology……………………………………..
Ideology and Discourse Process………………………….
CDA Perspective of Power……………………................
Discourse and Types of Power…………………………...
Power in Discourse……………………………………….
Power behind Discourse…………………………………
Discourse and Power…………………………………….
Discourse Control………………………………………..
Mind Control…………………………………………….
Discourse as Social Practice …………………………….
Difference between Discourse and Text…………………
Power lies in Language or Speaking?..............................
Indispensability of Language…………………………….
Inequality and Power: -ful versus -less…………………..
Empowerment through Languages……………………….
Efficacy of Language in Religious and Mythical Texts…
Transitivity: Tracing True Trends………………………..
This Study and Its Significance………………………….
Statement of the Problem…………………………………
Research Questions……………………………………….
Hypotheses……………………………………………….
Research Objectives………………………………………
Research Methodology……………………………..........
Conclusion………………………………………………..
1
3
3
5
6
6
7
8
8
9
9
11
12
13
13
14
15
17
17
18
19
20
21
21
23
24
24
24
25
25
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………...
Theoretical Background...................................................
What is Discourse?...........................................................
What is Discourse Analysis (DA)?...................................
27
27
27
28

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2.4
2.5
2.6
2.6.1
2.6.2
2.6.3
2.6.3.1
2.7
2.8
2.9
What is What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?……
Maturity of CDA…...........................................................
Recent Advancements…………………………………….
Van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive Approach……………………
Wodak and the Vienna School of Discourse Analysis…...
Fairclough’s Contribution………………………………...
Fairclough’s Framework for Analyzing a Communicative
Event……………………………………………………...
Principles of CDA………………………………………...
Previous Analyses………………………………………...
Conclusion: the ‘Hunch’………………………………….
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30
33
34
38
39
42
51
53
58
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………
Methodology....................................................................
Data: Its Source and Rationale……………………………
Procedure…………………………………………………
Conclusion………………………………………………..
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60
62
64
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4
4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.2
4.3
4.4
CRITICAL DICSOURSE ANALYSIS OF BENAZIR
BHUTTO’S SELECTED SPEECHES…………………...
Brief profile of Benazir Bhutto: Early and Personal Life...
Political Life………………………………………............
Return to Pakistan………………………………………...
Assassination……………………………………………...
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected
Speech I…………………………………………………...
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected
Speech II………………………………………………….
Conclusion………………………………………………..
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67
69
75
76
77
115
129
5
5.1
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
CONCLUSION…………………………………………...
Overview and Findings…………………………………..
Statement of the Problem Revisited………………………
Research Questions Revisited…………………………….
Research Objectives and Hypotheses Revisited………….
Delimitations……………………………………………...
Limitations and Directions for Further Research…………
Recommendations for Theoreticians……………………..
Conclusion………………………………………………..
131
131
131
135
150
151
151
152
154
REFERENCES
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
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164
175

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List of Figures
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figure 5:
Figure 6
Figure 7:
Figure 8:
Figure 9:
Figure 10:
Analytical procedure of CDA: how is CDA done?
Extrapolation of Critical Discourse Analysis
Model of power-projection
The ‘Criticals’ of Discourse Analysis
Objective of CDA
Halliday’s discursive functions of language
Halliday’s process types
Texcont-ambit of ideology
Analytical pivot of this research project
Ideology-triplet
3
16
19
26
30
31
32
52
60
152
List of Tables
Table 1:
Table 2:
Table 3:
Table 4:
Table 5:
Table 6:
Frequency of major temporal constructs
Frequency of major politico-national constructs
Frequency of major personal pronouns
Foreign-policy tilt
Frequency of major religious constructs
Frequency of party references
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130
135
137
141
151

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Key to Abbreviations
AIDA Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
APA American Psychological Association
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CL Critical Linguistics
DA Discourse Analysis
DSF Discourse of Specific Fields
DSS Discourse of Specific Subjects
ESP English for Specific Purposes
EU European Union
ILO International Labour Organization
IPDR International Platform of Discourse Research
IPA International Phonetic Association
M.A.K Halliday Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday
PML-N Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)
PML-Q Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam)
PPP Pakistan People’s Party
SFL Systematic Functional Linguistics
UK United Kingdom
US/USA United States of America
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republic
Z.A Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTON
Aggregate of humans’ administrative evolution and experience is politics.
Behind this is a calendar-less process through which, over the civilizations, humanity
has acquired despotism, democracy, and a mix of both of course. Ancient
Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etc., and lately the Muslims, Westerns, and
Americans etc. - all have contributed to this powerful venture according to their
sagacity, capacity and legacy.
Since politics is altogether concerned with ruling and administrating a
particular group of people or peoples i.e. a nation or subjects in the form of a social
group, it has excelled as purely a social science. The very social spirit of politics has
exposed it to an immense competition of ideologies within the same social group in
addition to others (social groups). There emerges, then, a variety of faces (individuals)
or factions advocating their own agenda, ideology, or, merely a shade of ideology
which they think appropriate for themselves or the people there in given time, space,
and circumstances. This agenda-contest, in turn, necessitates outdoing the other faces
and factions by the one who appears to be the most credible and/or influential. This
race of rule may so naturally be self-oriented i.e. dictatorship in any form, as well as
public-oriented i.e. democracy in any form. In both of the cases, it involves attainment
of power to fulfill the purposes set. It is here the word ‘power’ becomes a pretty
proper substitute for the word ‘politics’. Politics and power become complimentary to
each other. Hence, politics may be defined as an endeavour for attainment,
preservation, organization, and practice of power towards individual and/or collective
end.

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As politics and power mainly deal with governing, language i.e. discourse/text
becomes an inseparable dimension of these. It is so because language (specifically
political texts and discourses) appears to be the sole and the most facilitating medium
for the demonstration and practice of political power.
It is well perceived that, after religious texts, only two types of language
influence the men most: one is the artistic language, and the other is the language of
power. Man can be viewed as a political animal as well as a poetical animal. It is,
further, observed that it is the power of language which translates the language of
power.
In order to gather maximum public favour and fervor, the players of power use
different techniques and strategies in their formal speeches and conversations. Their
ideological reflections, expected actions, futuristic connections, and all the other
political tendencies including their persuasive strategies and even ironies and
paradoxes of their persons are wrapped in their diction. Their worlds live in their
words, and only if they could be explored methodologically. Language can, so, be
regarded as form of life and house of being.
In order to interpret, understand, and analyze the production, practice, and
effects of (such politically, ideologically, and) inevitably charged discourses, Critical
Discourse Analysis has offered the best analytical tools ever developed; its analytical
procedure operates in as organized a fashion as shown below in a self-explanatory
figure (1):

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Figure 1: Analytical procedure of CDA: how is CDA done?
1.1 Politics (ideology), Power, and Language
Politics, power, and language constitute a broader triangle of organization,
struggle and expression. All of them are inseparably operational with one another:
political agenda are unpractical without power; power is dumb without language, and
language is least effective without power. The real instrument in the hands of political
players is not power, but powerful language i.e. language of power. Language of
power does not mean merely authoritative or dictatorial language, but it also involves
powerful play upon words emerged strictly and solely from power-oriented purposes.
These power-oriented purposes may be open and/or secret in one’s discourse.
Therefore, politics is the game of power mainly played upon the ground of words. In
addition to many others, these three phenomena (politic, power, and language) mainly
mark the ambit of ambition at higher organizational levels. However, politics remains
to be an umbrella term involving necessarily power and language (of power) within it.
1.2 Evolution of the exercise and expression of Power

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The history of politics is reflected in the origin, development, and economics
of the institutions of government, the state. The origin of the state is to be found in the
development of the art of warfare i.e. confrontation of power(s). Historically
speaking, all political communities of the modern type owe their existence to
successful warfare at their back.
Emperors and other such unshared office-bearers were once considered to be
divine in a number of countries notably China and Japan etc. Inherited royalty was
considered to be rather divine line in many a country of the world (especially ancient)
until French Revolution blocked the way of this "divine right of kings". Nevertheless,
the monarchy appears to be one of the longest-lasting political institutions: roughly,
from 2100 BC Sumerian kingship to the 21st
century AD British Monarchy.
The kings of absolute monarchies used to rule their kingdoms with the
assistance of an elite group of advisors- an executive council which was quite
instrumental to the maintenance of their (kings’) powers. As these executives often
had to negotiate for power with the one outside the monarchy, the constitutional
monarchies started emerging. This was, probably, the genesis of constitutional
developments. Before such councils gave way to the embryo of democracy, they
rendered invaluable support and service to the institution of kingship by:
 Securing the institution of kingship through heredity.
 Maintaining the traditions of the social order under the monarch.
 Providing the king with a good deal of knowledge and action dutifully
An unripe conqueror waged war, generally, upon the weak neighbour(s) for
vengeance or plunder, but well-established kingdoms used to prefer extracting
tributes. Councils were also responsible to keep the kings’ coffers full. Another

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significant task of the council was to monitor and manage the needs of military
service satisfactorily and the establishment of lordships on behalf of the kings for the
collection of taxes smoothly. ‘Cabinet’ of modern day is the most developed form of
the same ‘council’.
Nature intends a happy life for man, and it is the one led in accordance with
virtue. Political community has, therefore, historically been recommended to arrange
for securing life of virtue in the citizenry.
Today politics is, thence, the theory and practice of influencing other people(s)
on global, civil, and/or individual levels. It, more narrowly, refers to attaining,
holding, and exercising offices of governance i.e. an organized influence over a
human community, mainly a state. What is more, politics is the theory and/or practice
of how to distribute and organize power and resources within a specific social group
as well as between/among groups. Various methods are applied in politics including
promotion of individual political agenda; inter political-parties dialogues, legislation,
and exercising power involving warfare against resisters. Politics is exercised in
almost all the spheres of society, including all the layers of social formations from
clans and tribes to nation-states and, at times, the whole globe even. A political
system, today, refers to a framework of power-entrusting and defining peacefully
acceptable codes and methods of power within a particular society in order to
perpetuate a particular ideological operation by trying continuously avert socio-
political collisions.
1.3 Language of power and power of language
Whenever the word ‘power’ is received/perceived, the impressions which
click the minds first of all are that of influence of one over the other, influence, terror,

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suppression, and command and control etc. In this connection, political play i.e.
power, is the key factor behind all the social evils as well as social good at a time.
This renders the phenomenon of power extremely complex, and it comes to involve
the power of language. Power of language refers, at once, to the language which can
serve power as well as which can challenge or sabotage power. Power of language is,
concisely interpreting, language of power. Relation between language and power is
one of the quite complex and ambiguous kind. All types of power ultimately use
language as the most influential tool. Power is vested and manifested in language, and
it is conveyed through it; it commands and dictates through language, and others have
to hear attentively and obey formally when power plays.
1.4 Instrumentalization of language
Power mainly instrumentalizes language for its exercise. This
instrumentalization of language involves skillful use of political rhetoric,
representation of a particular ideology, and seduction or trap through words i.e.
‘persuasion’. It extends from an individual political speaker to broader/collective
political representations, from speaking-style to the way of thinking, from quality to
the quantity of a political discourse. Implications of power-language also include the
discourses of the dominating (the rulers) and the dominated (the ruled). As far as
convincing through words is concerned (i.e. use of persuasive strategies), powerful
language can be observed in every day matters, display of advertisement, tricks of
marketing, at workplaces, and even at family level.
1.5 CDA perspective of ideology
Kress (1990) holds that any linguistic form when viewed in isolation has no
specific meaning; it enjoys no ideological importance. It denotes that the linguistic

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choices (particularly in political discourse) are indeterminate in themselves; they find
meaning only when they are contextualized in a voluntary set of ideology-oriented
expressions/lexis involving syntactic arrangements. Language does not appear by
itself, it always finds way through the need of conveying/sharing a particular
idea/ideology. It indicates that idea or at least need of it gives birth to particular
linguistic terms and choices. Users of a particular language always bind their
discursiveness with their particular sociology and personality etc.
According to Fairclough (2001a), therefore, ideology indispensably resides in
language, and it should be ranked among the major themes of modern social sciences.
CDA has often resorted to his another definition of ideology which reads ideology as
necessarily joined in power relation. In Teun A. van Dijk’s (2006) opinion, ideology
refers to a set of ideas which appears in the form of a belief-system; it is more a
cognitive composition and less an act of ideological practices and social
performances; ideology is a mark of identity with a particular social group, and it does
not require any verification on both deep (structure) and surface (structure) levels; it is
not only a belief socially partaken, but is also instinctively fundamental and
unavoidably axiomatic in nature; it is acquired and not learnt, and can change but
through life time(s) or generations. He has also defined ideology as the sole driving
force behind the socio-political cognition of a specific group. From Simpson’s (1993)
point of view, politico-cultural believes and assumptions together with the
institutional exercises in a particular society shape the mosaic pattern of the ideology
there.
1.6 Function of ideology

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Having defined ideology, the question arises that as to, after all, what is the
function of ideology in the life of a particular social group? How does it address their
lives in connection with particular socio-individual ends, and at last owing to what
characteristic(s) does a particular ideology hold its people through life times? Van
Dijk has tried to meet such issues by holding that ideology can fulfill mainly these
functions:
 self-representing of a particular social group
 maintaining the identity and membership of its members
 prescribing and influencing their socio-cultural practices and struggles
 promoting the interests of its members against the other social (ideological)
groups
1.7 Ideology and discourse process
It is a widely acknowledged assumption that ideology can only be acquired
and expressed through discourse i.e. discourse is the sole medium with ideology. For
example, when political leaders want to explain, inspire, and legitimate their plan and
actions, they more than often arrange it through (ideological) discourse. It, overtly
and/or covertly, packs their individual ideological inclinations within their
painstakingly designed linguistic frames. Amid such ideological bombardments of
lexis and sentences, the concealed idealism may also remain unreached. Such power-
play of policy, however, lends rather a curious charm to the political discourses when
states meet.
1.8 CDA perspective of power

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Van Dijk (1998) has viewed power in relation with control: a particular social
group is in possession of power if it is able to influence and control the minds and acts
(wholly or partially) of another group. This presupposition also hints the group to
arrange the possession of the sources typically scarce in societies like money, force,
fame, status, information, knowledge, and indeed people’s trust and their practical
fellowship.
Discursively speaking, however, in Critical Discourse Analysis power has
referred to the ideological power which could be exercised through discourse, and
through discourse which could influence and control people’s perspectives and
practices, and which has tended to be universal, right and just, and frankly close to
common sense.
1.9 Discourse and types of power
Norman Fairclough declares one is in the possession of power if one could
exercise it to coerce the others to getting along with one’s agenda, or to win the
others’ consent and approval by means of persuading them. Fairclough has
discursively categorized power into two types:
 power in discourse
 power behind discourse
1.9.1 Power in discourse
The notion of power in discourse deals with discourse taking it as a circle
where power relations are literally enacted and exercised. Hence, power in discourse
goes pertinent to the situation in which discursive interaction is face to face between
the unequal participants, and where a powerful participant can control, constrain, and

10
influence the discursive activity of a powerless or less powerful participant. These
constraints may be of relations between the (powerful and powerless) participants,
and the subjects and contents of their discourse. These constraints find roots in the
discourse-types conventions. The powerless or less powerful participant is readily
constrained by the powerful participant via selecting an appropriate and relevant
discourse type. Discourse types refer to that particular ways and formations of
discourse which take birth owing to the mutual relation (nearness and distance,
powerful and otherwise) between the participants of discourse, and which changes
right when the relation between the participants changes; it also includes the particular
discourse situation (also speech situation) which definitely affects the manner and
nature of discourse on the part of the participants involved. Fairclough views that it
conform to the common sense assumptions, and the reciprocated discursivity between
them is right and natural.
Fairclough’s these insights can be very helpful in conducting critical discourse
analysis because they have dictated the need to observe the very context of the
discourse to be analyzed: recognition of participants and their relationship, and the
background of the discourse situation (speech situation in pragmatics) are a few of the
contextual connections Fairclough has brought into limelight. The same can guide an
analyst to approach the way the power exercises in discourse, the way it go through
discourse, the way it influence the stylistics of the participants, the way it controls the
behaviour of the participants in discourse.
However, this insight has mainly centered on the dominating discourse of the
powerful participants and the resisting passivity of the powerless or the less powerful
participants has been entertained at the least; though passive yet continuous power

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struggle inside the non-powerful participant reduces/minimizes the very passivity in
its own active way.
Ian Hutchby (1996) has found power as a set of potentials; these potentials are
socially ever present, and the social agents can variably exercise, shift, resist, and
struggle for these potentials. Foucault (1977), on the other hand, has maintained that
power is not something possessed by one and lacked by the other; rather, it is a socio-
political potential involving equally the powerful and the (ones) accepting or resisting
the powerful.
The issue of dealing with the discourse of the participants, who get engaged in
discourse while being in different temporal and geographical zones, becomes more
interesting and striking too. This sort of discursive interaction mainly goes through
mass media: television, radio, and newspaper etc. In this age of internet, social media
has surpassed all the other modes of media for its everyday discursive interaction
involving the entire globe. There is no doubt in that discourse aired through media is
altogether different from the one face to face. It is rather a type of one-sided
discourse. In such sort of discourse events, the nature of power does not appear to be
so clear. The discursive activity, in this case, falls to be an abstraction at large for the
interpersonal and material implications of the participants are filtered out through the
broadcast.
1.9.2 Power behind discourse
Norman Fairclough has examined as how the order of discourse is itself
created and formed by power relations, especially when order of discourse appears to
be connected with institutional order in a given society. That is, power in discourse
refers to discourse as being a sphere in which power is practically/physically

12
exercised and enacted whereas power behind discourse denotes that the discourse is a
stake in the struggle for power; the former deals with discourse of a powerful
participant when it is in possession of power, and the later take into account the
discourse of a powerful participant when it is in the struggle for
possessing/perpetuating power among others with the like intentions.
This notion, however, faces extreme complication when it observes that the
powerful participant who is in possession and practice of power has also, at the same
time, to compete and struggle (for power) in order to maintain his possessed power.
The only contenting idea, as yet, can be that every participant with more or less power
in its possession is bound to play a double role at once: one practicing whatever
amount of power the participant has, and other, struggling (for power) to maintain the
whatever amount of power the participant already has. It, therefore, establishes that
one has to look into/after both of the fronts at once: power in one’s discourse, and
power behind one’s discourse.
Fairclough has opined that power behind discourse is, in fact, an impact of
power through which certain discourse types come into working generally from the
side of institution(s). He holds that the struggle among communications for the
preservation of the existing power and for importing more power into that has become
the most salient feature of contemporary political discourse.
1.10 Discourse and power
It is evident that groups/individuals having more power are more likely to use
their specific discourse type, and the likelihood of their control over others’ minds
multiplies accordingly. Since actions are solely to be controlled by the minds, having
got control over others’ minds through their ideologies and opinions, the powerful

13
come to (wholly or partially) control the others’ actions at last. As people’s minds
typically accept influence from talk and text, discourse can thus control their minds as
well as actions by employing manipulation and various persuasive strategies in
language use. These strategies may be overt as well as covert or both at once.
1.10.1 Discourse control
The idea of discourse control can be comprehended by juxtaposing it with the
idea of discourse access. Both are relative concepts: discourse access is related to
context whereas discourse control relates to the text. Discourse access speaks of
context control whereas discourse control informs of text control: context control
emphasizes the participant’s control over context-related aspects mainly including
internal and external situation, time-and-space setting, while text control stresses
control over the lexical and structural choices (etc.) of the text via phonetic and other
kinesthetically applicable techniques. The main discourse strategy to control text is
positive self-presentation against the negative other-presentation.
1.10.2 Mind Control
Though mainly contextual yet textual drives are also involved in the
conditions of mind control. In addition to contextual implication, in other words, the
selection of certain lexical choices and forms in discourse can more influence the
people’s minds in according proportion, for example the choice of right words in a
give situation. Here again, the typical practices of persuasive strategies including
manipulation and linguistic spin claim to be vital in mind control. The discursive tools
and techniques of mind control at global level and at local level differ sharply. It is to
say that the health of information to be communicated can discursively be tampered
with by altering discourse structures in one’s communication. This, when used by a

14
political leader, can be instrumental to control the discourse of general public; the
more the people’s discourse is controlled, the greater their minds are dictated.
1.11 Discourse as social practice
CDA holds discourse as a social practice. The idea of social practice denotes
that language first and foremost is a social phenomena; it takes birth socially (i.e.
from society), it grows socially, and it dies socially (i.e. when a society falls extinct).
It can involve a good deal of socio-linguistic elaborations. The relation between
society and language is cultural and dialectical, and also of a parasitic type. Society
and language share an inevitable and complementary relationship via social agents
(individuals). Since individual is the product of society and since the very society is
married to the very individual in an unbreakable connection, individual carries
linguistic implications (competence and performance) as unquestionably cognitive, if
not innate. It is not, thus, the individual who speaks language, it is the language which
speaks the individual. Text is, therefore, product of the socio-individual collaboration.
Language is first a social phenomenon and then a linguistic one. It is in the
sense, whenever individuals speak, listen, read, and write, they can play on society
and society alone. Society is all pervasive even in non-verbal communication
including interjections and gestures. Society is the totality of individuals’ knowledge
and information. There is no society outside language and there is no language outside
society; in language is the entire society and in society is the entire language.
Language finds contexts from society and, in turn, gives it text. Both can be
considered as living organisms in their own right. This is how the language becomes a
social practice. Language being a social practice also provides that language is a
social process.

15
1.12 Difference between discourse and text
Though the phrases discourse and text have been used interchangeably yet
there exist very minute and critical differences between the both. Text is a product
whereas discourse is wider and, say, an all-encompassing process – a process of social
interaction between/among social agents. Interestingly, text appears to be rather a part
of this macro process, and interestingly more, the process of text production of which
the text becomes a product is itself a part of that very wider process i.e. discourses.
Besides, the process of interpretation of which the text is a (re)source also falls within
the dimensions of discourse. This can further be comprehended by juxtaposing the
definitions of discourse and text proposed by some renowned linguists, as following:
Discourse (Crystal 1992):
“A continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than the
sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or
narrative.” (p. 25).
Text (Crystal 1992):
“A piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified
for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable communicative
function, such as a conversation, a poster.” (p. 72).
Discourse (Cook 1989): “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified,
and purposive.” (p. 156).
Text (Cook 1989): “a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context.” (p.
158).
Discourse (Fowler 1986): “whole complicated process of linguistic interaction
between people uttering and comprehending texts.” (p. 86).
Text (Fowler 1986): “unit of communication seen as a coherent syntactic and semantic
structure which can be spoken or written down.” (p. 85).

16
Discourse (Schiffrin 1994):
“is utterances... Discourse is "above" (larger than) other units of language...
[it] arises not as a collection of decontextualized units of language structure, but as a
collection of inherently contextualized units of language use.” (p. 39).
Text (Schiffrin 1994): “the linguistic content of utterances: the stable semantic
meanings of words, expressions and sentences... the "what is said" part of utterances.”
(pp. 378-9).
In the light of above mentioned propositions, discourse analysis enwraps not
only text-analysis but also analysis of the productive and interpretive backgrounds
and foregrounds of text. While analyzing discourse, the analysts have to examine not
only the text but also the processes of production and interpretation, the production-
text-interpretation relationship, and the context of course i.e. immediate as well
remote socio-personal and institutional implications behind the text. These facets can
concisely be triangulated as figured below (Figure 2):
Text production
Social practice Discourse practice
Figure 2: Extrapolation of Critical Discourse Analysis
The differences within CDA community are noticeable because there is no
unanimous agreement on the steps and applications taken up by CDA practitioners so
far. Difference analysts may find different procedures to be useful in their analytical
applications, and it chiefly hinges on what definitions of ‘discourse’, ‘critical’, and
Critical
Discourse
Analysis

17
‘analysis’ an analyst proposes. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis vary in being
context-centered, text-centered, and interpretation-centered. What method or
combination of methods is to be adopted for analysis principally depends on to what
goals and expectation an analyst pins with discourse before/while processing it.
1.13 Power lies in language or speaking?
There is a critical distinction between language and speaking: language is
social, psychological, and an abstract data whereas speaking is the act and way of
verbally using this abstract data in social contexts, and it is purely physical behaviour
known as the act of uttering. However, both of the aspects take full part in the
exercise of power.
It is also an ironic fact that there is no concept of power at all especially
display of power through language until it finds some challenge, objection, or
opposition before it on which it could exert it exercise. It is to say that language of
power contains the germs of a sort of counter-power within itself. Thus, most
interestingly, language of power not only speaks power but, at the same time, has full
capability to undermine it. It is a reasonable perception that, other than policies, it is
language which makes and/or breaks the rulers. By analyzing the force of language,
one can see through and unmask the actual power working behind the language and
exercise of power therein. The inherent function of language is simply communication
and not the show of power through it. Demonstration of power through language is,
therefore, a utility purely ‘given’ to the language. Power, in this way, brings language
into work which is not natural with it; instead, it is entirely plotted and efficacy-
oriented.
1.14 Indispensability of language

18
By and large, all legitimate and illegitimate authorities indispensably have to
rely on the play of language; the undeniable significance of language renders it as one
of the most vulnerable spots in the exercise and assertion of command and control.
Analysis of language can also predict the consequences one might have to face in case
of obeying or disobeying the command. Undoubtedly, other than being merely power-
oriented, language can become the best tool of rhetorical persuasion whatever be the
purpose thereof. Every attempt of persuasion through language is, at heart, an effort to
convince the others and to make them understand and comprehend a particular
agenda. It evidently means that persuasion is directly proportionate to comprehension.
Nothing is as much influential as is the non-violent force of convincing argument.
1.15 Inequality and power: -ful versus -less
Inequality is the mother of (the concept of) power. Power generally implies
that one is in the possession of weapons, money, or other such resources, and the
other is not. It indicates that power is a concept rising from a binary, from between
possessing and missing. This is what ultimately prevails as one’s power over the
other. Broadly speaking, the game of power rises out of ‘-ful’ and ‘-less’. Owing to
this very fact, language of power is significantly a presentation of contrast,
competition, and also tussle(s) between two or more agents. Difference is the root,
preference becomes trunk, on this trunk the stands the privileges as branches, and
power is cultivated as fruit; in order to maintain this growth, power remains
corresponding mainly with privilege; this power-projection goes like this (Figure 3):

19
Figure 3: Model of power-projection
Dictates of power are very much necessary and healthy for the dominating
and, at the same time, for the dominated. It is the dictum of power which can maintain
a peaceful balance and distance between the ruler and his subjects, between the
powerful and non-powerful. Language of power also clearly demarks the safe zone of
activism the counter-players have to act within. In this way, language of powerful
people can be taken as a calculated guarantee of their own assertions as well as the
security of the people who have less or no power against them. This is how language
can play magic in certain political deadlocks and other types of negotiations, and can
turn the tables gradually and sometimes within no time.
1.16 Empowerment through languages
Power-plugged language can make another wonder happen, and that is
empowerment through language. It is an attractive end offered by the leaders and
preachers to their audience. Power-possessed language has enough momentum to
charge and wash the brains of the audience towards some specifically designed end.

20
Such practice of empowerment through language is observable significantly in
democratic societies where the ruler and political leaders have to be more pro-public
and less self-centered, where they are, theoretically at least, more offering and less
taking/usurping. In such communities, political speakers pay special attention to their
political discourses. They acquire special skills and rehearsals in order to lend more
and more refinement and momentum to their discourse(s). Quoting as the real power
is the common man has become the core catch-phrase of the leaders in democracies
throughout the planet. It is, essentially, a sort of empowerment of people through
discourse. Sociolinguists and feminists have also entertained the show of power and
vigour in language in connection with gender. It is, most probably, because the gender
in most of the communities of the world may be determined as well as empowered
through language socially if not biologically.
1.17 Efficacy of language in religious and mythical texts
It is the exertion of power working behind words which decides the fate of
discourse. Religious and mythical texts, in spite of being soothing, pleasing, and
aesthetic, have always been considered the highest amounts of awe, wonder, capture
and rapture. These and other such arresting and moving elements are supplied through
the elevated working of an unmatchably fabulous figure who may be God, god(s), or a
(super)man, but who ever appears to be a hero. The momentous magic in the language
of an epic and/or tragedy is the orientation of power which the pivotal figure relates.
The powers provided to a religious/mythical figure are often the ones which are
generally above the human order. Then, whatever pours from the pedestal of power
becomes prominent, powerful, sacred, and sublime. Profound learning and cosmic
comprehension through the elements of warning and fear run as undercurrents
throughout. All this is accorded with the like intensity of diction.

21
1.18 Transitivity: tracing true trends
Detection of the underlying meanings in a particular discourse can be tried
through examining the linguistic choices the discourse offers. A speaker practices
language obeying its social context; his choice of words varies as the purpose of
discourse varies. Halliday’s Systematic Functional Grammar (also known as
Systematic Functional Linguistics or SFL) has examined language from the viewpoint
of its functions. Halliday (1994) has gathered:
“Language has developed in response to three kinds of social-functional
needs. The first is to be able to construe experience in terms of what is going on
around us and inside us. The second is to interact with the social world by negotiating
social roles and attitudes. The third and final need is to be able to create messages
with which we can package our meanings in terms of what is new or given.” (p. 11).
He has discovered three functions (meta-functions) of language i.e. ideational,
interpersonal, and textual. Hallidian type of grammar (SFL) has tried the linguistic
systems and linguistic tools to analysis. For example, (though unequally yet) all the
three linguistic functions - ideational, interpersonal, and textual - have been served to
form the notion know as transitivity. Though transitivity is peculiar to ideational
function yet this notion, as a whole, could create a full-fledged and applicable
framework of discourse investigation known as Transitivity Analysis. As per Sudarto
(2011), “Transitivity is the grammar of the clause for construction our experience of a
process, participants directly involved in that process and circumstance.” (p. 349)
This analytical framework has further involved various process types namely
material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural, and existential; it has also raised the
circumstances discursively related to language as well as research in language: detail
thereof has been provided in the following part of this research.
1.19 This study and its significance

22
This research has conducted critical discourse analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s
selected formal addresses with reference to the treatment of ideology and the use of
persuasive strategies as exercised in the selected data. It tried to evaluate the selected
speeches from a triangulated point of view: ideology, power, and language. The data
has been investigated in the light of Halliday and Norman Fairclaugh’s theoretical
reflections on reaching the core implications structured in discourse including the
representation of meaning, power and ideology. Persuasive strategies have also been
examined as used in the data.
This study is an attempt to critically and objectively analyze as to how Benazir
Bhutto invests her discursive input for the indoctrination of the ideology her political
party advocated. In capacity of being the chief representative of a political faction, she
has been found to be exercising calculated play upon words in her speeches. Amid the
then troubled political phase faced by the country, she represented her political
agenda as being fully fair, rightful, needful, and democratic. She referred to the
political vision of her late father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Qauid-i-Azam Muhammad
Ali Jinnah as being the origin and inspiration of her idealism. Though given to a tough
contest by the competitors, she attempted to convey her democratic blueprint, and to
convince her audience that the country cannot afford dictatorship, and that
democratization is the only way Pakistan must go ahead. She not only imparts a
particular political ideology but also uses rhetoric strategies carefully calculated to
persuade the audience.
Significance of this study lies in that it critically analyzed the political
discourse of a political leader who, at the same time, was:
1. A leader

23
2. An in-office ruler
3. Ruler of an ideological nation-state (Pakistan)
4. Conscious not only of orientalism but also occidentalism
5. Herself chairperson of the party
6. Addressing one speech right on the day of her victory: victory is an event on
which voluntarily manipulating the thought and words faces psychological
difficulty against the involuntary stream of naturally overflowing joy,
excitement, and emotions right away; the other speech was addressed on
Pakistan’s Independence Day which was the day of extreme national
significance.
7. A female, and
8. The first ever elected female head of state in Pakistan and in the entire Muslim
world
It is pertinent to mention here that the seasons and events of political
campaigns and of showing political power and performance have always been marked
with intense competition among various political factions in Pakistan. It is nothing
other than a positive trend overall in which political discourse of almost every
political party appears to be participating as well as contributing.
1.20 Statement of the problem
In democratic states, the political leaders belong to a particular political party
the overall interests of which are in debt to the victory of their respective
representatives/leaders. On the other hand, these interests and affiliations have more
often to be compromised in order to import progress and prosperity to the general
masses. Striking is that various political parties practice and proclaim likewise in the

24
same time and space, and amid such situation where everyone claims to be credibly
right, only one particular political party has to and manages to stand out by retaining
or making most of the public believe in it (the particular party). It becomes, however,
problematic to ascertain and measure the credibility and integrity of all the political
players through their discourse in such perplexing situation.
1.21 Research questions
1. In spite of harbouring self-centered motives of authority (power), can the
formal words of a political speaker really convey an ideology covering all or
majority of the individuals/segments of society?
2. How does a political speaker play his/her propaganda to persuasion?
3. Does the ideology of a political leader remain/become really objective,
masses-oriented, and self(and ‘otherness’)-negating, or does it merely look so
at the surface?
4. Can there be power without ideology?
1.22 Hypotheses
1. Political speeches involve some sort of ideology in one way or the other, and
at the same time, they are always power-oriented; hence, a credible ideology is
the real power.
2. The victory of a particular political entity is an evidence of its credibility.
1.23 Research objectives
1. To study the manner in which a political leader pursues and propagates his/her
own and/or shared ideology through the use of language.

25
2. To analyze the formal political discourse of a political leader when she was
unpracticed, and when she got experienced.
3. To evaluate the role of party-politics in achieving specified ends.
4. To investigate whether the political speakers artfully employ persuasive
strategies in order to indoctrinate their selected ideologies or it happens
automatically under genuine impulse.
5. To reach whether their national concerns remain/become really pro-public, or
it remains/becomes merely a manipulative drama.
1.24 Research methodology
Data has been selected from the speeches addressed by Benazir Bhutto at
different occasions of formal import. The source of data was internet. Critical
Discourse Analysis of the selected speeches has been undertaken in the light of the
theories regarding meaning, power, ideology, and persuasion presented by prominent
critical discourse analysts including Halliday and Norman Fairclough. It would be a
qualitative type of research.
1.25 Conclusion
Pondering the power-plugged journey of language from its earliest clues to
this day’s modern nation-state system, it becomes obvious that the discourse offered
by the powerful and also the power-seeking does not go un-striking in whatever
context and form it is represented, and whether it is symbolic/metaphoric or literal in
use. Inspired by the above narrated usage of language, this research is an attempt to
critically document all the possible dimensions of the selected discourse from CDA
point of view. Therefore, all the critical aspects of discourse analysis have particularly
been entertained. The researcher has, in this regard, also coined a term ‘criticals’ in

26
order to encompass the related aspects of critical importance in such analyzes. By the
‘Criticals’ of Discourse Analysis, he has broadly meant: all the major aspects of
discourse and relationship among them ineluctable while analyzing, as the following
self-explanatory figure (4) has illustrated:
Figure 4: The ‘Criticals’ of Discourse Analysis

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
It is the well-sifted literature-review portion which provides theoretical and
empirical background as well as foreground to a successful research project. Though
it is altogether a traditional part in each research work, however, the researcher
believes that the individual measures and methods of every new research can render
this portion unique every time. Believing, therefore, in the worth and weightage of
literature-review section, the researcher has tried to reviewing only the inevitably
relevant slices of theory from CDA background in this research.
2.1 Theoretical background
Political campaigns, debates, demonstrations, and parliamentary proceedings
all are the fields of ideological fight. It should not be surprising because, as van Dijk
(2004) observes,
“it is eminently here that different and opposed groups, power, struggle and
interests are at stake. In order to be able to compete, political groups need to be
ideologically conscious and organized.” (p. 11).
One of the keys behind the political figures’ reaching their objectives and
winning the general public agreement in this nonstop power-battle is their capacity to
influence and inspire their audience. Teittinen (2000) finds,
“The winner is a party whose language, words, terms and symbolic
expressions are dominant once reality and the context have been defined.” (p.1).
This is where the need for perusing and perceiving is exceedingly felt in order
to come across to what the truth is and how it is bended through sensitive and
designed usage of language.
2.2 What is discourse?

28
Before proceeding to what CDA is, it appears to be facilitating to refresh as to
what discourse and discourse analysis are. Discourse has been referred to the creation
and organization of the segments of a language above as well as below the sentence. It
is segments of naturally occurring language which may be bigger or smaller than a
single sentence but the adduced meaning is always beyond the sentence. The term
discourse applies to both spoken and written language, in fact to any sample of
language used for any purpose. Any series of speech events or any combination of
sentences in written form wherein successive sentences or utterances hang together is
discourse. Discourse cannot be confined to sentential boundaries. It is something that
goes beyond the limits of sentence. In other words, discourse is any coherent
succession of sentences, spoken or written.
2.3 What is Discourse Analysis (DA)?
Discourse Analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number
of approaches to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant
semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis i.e. discourse, writing, conversation,
communicative event etc. are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of
sentences, propositions, speech, or turns at talk. In contrast to conventional linguistics,
discourse analysts peruse not only language use beyond the sentence-boundary, but
also analyze naturally occurring language use, and not devised language and
examples. Text linguistics is a closely related area. The essential difference between
DA and text linguistics is that it aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics
of individual(s) rather than text structure as in text linguistics. DA has been taken up
in a variety of social and philological sciences like communication studies, linguistics,
education, sociology, anthropology, social work, cognitive psychology, social
psychology, area studies, cultural studies, international relations, human geography,

29
and translation studies etc. Each of them is subject to its own assumptions,
methodologies, and dimensions of analysis.
2.4 What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
Van Dijk (1998a) holds that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) refers to a
method which studies and analyzes written as well as spoken language/texts to
discover the issues related to power, potency, differences and bias, associations, and
other possible propaganda in a particular discourse. It investigates the maintenance
and reproduction of these factors in relevant socio-political environment and in its
conventional frames. Likewise, Fairclough has described (1993) CDA as a discourse
analysis which systematically unearths often blurred relationships between discourse
practice, texts and contexts, and the broader socio-cultural patterns, connections and
operations; it also tries to evaluate as to how all these discursive phenomena are
formed out of ideology, power, and the practical links between them (ideology and
power); it further involves the investigation as to how the relationship between society
and discourse is itself a tool to attain power and hegemony. (p. 135).
CDA is, therefore, a framework designed for not only determining but also
clarifying the possible syntheses and analyses of socio-discursive patterns-and-
practices from socio-political and psychological points of view within a given society.
Following figure (5) reads the broader objective Critical Discourse Analysis hunts:

30
Figure 5: Objective of CDA
2.5 Maturity of CDA
A group of linguists and literary theorists of the University of East Anglia
(Fowler et al., 1979; Kress & Hodge, 1979) developed Critical Linguistics in the late
1970s. Critical Linguistics (CL) was based on Halliday's Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL), its aim was "isolating ideology in discourse" and revealing "how
ideology and ideological processes are manifested as systems of linguistic
characteristics and processes." The developing of SFL-based CL's analytical tools
(Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991) was only for the sake of pursuing this agenda.
CL practitioners, under Hallidian influence, find that language serves these
three functions (also considered as meta-functions): ideational, interpersonal, and
textual. Ideational function, according to Fowler (1991, p. 71), and Fairclough
(1995b, p. 25), refers to the speakers’ experience of the world and its phenomena; the
interpersonal function involves the addition of speakers’ own views and attitudes in
the phenomena, along with setting relation between speakers and listeners; textual
function is rather instrumental to the ideational and interpersonal ones because the
speakers can produce comprehensible discourse owing only to the textual fuction.

31
This function is the really operational one because it connects discourse with its
context. These three functions of language can be illustrated in the following figured
manner (Figure 6):
Figure 6: Halliday’s discursive functions of language
In addition to these three functions, Hallidian School has prescribed six
different process types of language when set in a particular discourse. It is held that
the verb of each clause in a sentence determines its process type. These process types
are: material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural, and existential. The following
figure (7) further explains the work and worth of these process types involved in
discourse analysis:

32
Figure 7: Halliday’s process types
The afore-mentioned linguistic functions and process types discursively
operate in collaboration with a range of discursive circumstances which include:
extent and location, manner (means, quality, and comparison), cause (reason,
purpose, and behalf), contingency (condition, concession, and default),
accompaniment (comitative and additive), role (guise and product), matter and angle.
Critical discourse analysts take Halliday's notion of language as a "social act"
and central to their practice (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 1989, 1992,
1993, 1995b, 1995a; Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979).
According to Fowler et al. (1979), CL is close to sociolinguistics because it also
suggests "there are strong and pervasive connections between linguistic structure and
social structure" (p. 185). Sociolinguistics, however, finds "the concepts 'language'
and 'society' are divided…so that one is forced to talk of 'links between the two'", but
CL views "language is an integral part of social process" (Fowler et al., 1979, p. 189).
CDA and SFL agree that speakers exercise choices of vocabulary and
grammar; these choices are consciously and/or unconsciously "principled and

33
systematic"(Fowler et al., 1979, p. 188). These choices, hence, are ideology-based.
According to Fowler et al. (1979), the "relation between form and content is not
arbitrary or conventional, but . . . form signifies content" (p. 188). Language is,
therefore, purely a social act, and operates, so, ideologically.
2.6 Recent Advancements
Recently, however, CL and what is now more frequently referred to as CDA
(Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; van Dijk, 1998a) have further been intermingled as
well as broadened. These recent developments have represented further issues such
as: firstly, CL’s interpretation of the role of audiences and discourse appears to be
different from that of the discourse analysis; secondly, the scope of analysis should go
beyond the textual, to the intertextual analysis. Fairclough (1995b), in turn, has taken
up both issues. He informs that the initial work in CL could focus on the "interpretive
practices of audiences", but that remained inadequate. CL has mainly established that,
he traces, the audiences, and the analysts interpret texts the same way. Similarly,
Boyd-Barrett (1994), commenting on Fowler (1991), views that there is "a tendency
towards the classic fallacy of attributing particular 'readings' to readers, or media
'effects,' solely on the basis of textual analysis" (p. 31).
Fairclough (1995b) claims that earlier contributions in CL were of more
grammatical and lexical analysis and less intertextual analysis of texts: "the linguistic
analysis is very much focused upon clauses, with little attention to higher-level
organization properties of whole texts" (p. 28). Fairclough (1995b) further adds,
"mention of these limitations is not meant to minimize the achievement of
critical linguistics--they largely reflect shifts of focus and developments of theory in
the past twenty years or so." (p. 28).
These ‘shifts’ and ‘developments’ do not offer a single concentrated
theoretical design to analysis.

34
Today CDA, according to Bell & Garret (1998), "is best viewed as a shared
perspective encompassing a range of approaches rather than as just one school" (p. 7).
Van Dijk (1998a) informs that CDA "is not a specific direction of research" so "it
does not have a unitary theoretical framework." He (1998a) further asserts, "given the
common perspective and the general aims of CDA, we may also find overall
conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related."
The scholars whose reflections have significantly contributed to the growth of
CDA in recent times are mainly van Dijk (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998b, 1998a),
Wodak (1995, 1996, 1999), and Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1993, 1995a, 1995b, 1999).
2.6.1 Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach
Van Dijk is one of the most sought-after and oft-quoted discourse analysts in
the critical evaluations of media discourse, even in the analyses which are not
considerably proper to the CDA circle (e.g. Karim, 2000; Ezewudo, 1998). He, in the
1980s, started applying his discourse analysis design to the media texts which were
specific to representing ethnic and minority communities in Europe. His News
Analysis (1988) incorporates his general theory of discourse to the discourse of press-
news, wherein he applies the same to a variety of news reports at national and
international levels. His stress on analyzing media discourse at not only textual and
structural levels but also at the production and “reception” or comprehension levels
has distinguished him along with his analysis-framework (1988) from other critical
discourse analysts (Boyd-Barrett, 1994).
Structural analysis means, according to van Dijk, an analysis of "structures at
various levels of description" i.e. grammatical, phonological, morphological and
semantic levels; it also includes the analysis of "higher level properties" like
coherence, collective themes and topics in news stories, involving the whole

35
schematic patterns and rhetorical facets of texts. However, he interestingly asserts that
such an apparently holistic analysis too may be insufficient because discourse is not
something isolated or individual rather it is, at once, shared by and associated with a
range of discourses around it. It is a complex discourse-event with a particular social
context, varying characteristic, participants, and production and reception processes
(van Dijk, 1988, p. 2).
According to van Dijk, "production processes" refers to journalistic and
institutional exercises of news-making and the socio-economic factors involved
therein which become major driving force behind media discourse.
In van Dijk's analysis, "reception processes" of news evaluation includes both
"memorization and reproduction" of news information. Analyzing Dijk's analysis of
media (1988, 1991, 1993), it tries to display the relationships between the three
degrees of the text making of news (structure, production and comprehension
processes), and their relation with the facts that lie within the vast social circle. For
the identification of these relationships, we have two levels of van Dijk's analysis: the
first level is microstructure and second level is macrostructure.
At the microstructure level, analysis deals with the semantic relations between
propositions, syntactic, lexical and other rhetorical facets which are basic to give a
coherent structure in the text, and other rhetorical elements such as quotations, direct
or indirect reporting that add to the authenticity of the news reporting.
According to van Dijk's analysis of news reports, the central analysis is of
macrostructure which involves the thematic/topic structure of the news stories and
their complete schematics. The headlines and lead paragraphs demonstrate themes
and subjects.

36
The headlines, according to van Dijk (1988), "define the overall coherence or
semantic unity of discourse, and also what information readers memorize best from a
news report"(p. 248). He also believes that the cognitive model of the journalists and
their judgments and definitions of news events mostly find their expression in the
headline and the leading paragraph. Though the readers possess different knowledge
and believe yet, while dealing with the important information about a news event,
they will normally use the same subjective media definitions. (p. 248).
Van Dijk (1988) has designed the news schematics ("superstructure schema")
in a typical narrative pattern that can be divided in the following parts: summary
(headline and the lead paragraph), story (situation consisting of episode and
backgrounds), and consequences (final comments and conclusions). These parts of a
news event are arranged in the order of "relevance," according to this arrangement, it
is evident that the summary, the headline and the leading paragraph are the main
ingredients of the general information. According to van Dijk, it is the best for
readers’ memorization and recollection. (pp. 14-16).
Discourse analysis of van Dijk (1995) is mostly perceived as an ideology
analysis, as he himself writes,
"ideologies are typically, though not exclusively, expressed and reproduced in
discourse and communication, including non-verbal semiotic messages, such as
pictures, photographs and movies." (p. 17).
For analyzing ideologies we find three types of analyses in his works: social
analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis. (p. 30).
Here the social analysis deals with the examination of the "overall societal
structures," (the context), and the discourse analysis is primarily text based (syntax,
lexicon, local semantics, topics, schematic structures, etc.). Van Dijk's approach has
blended two traditional approaches in media education which are: interpretive (text

37
based) and social tradition (context based), into an analytical one. However, cognitive
analysis is such a distinctive feature of van Dijk’s approach that it distinguishes his
approach from other approaches in CDA.
According to van Dijk, this approach is the sociocognition—cognition at
personal as well as social level—it creates a link between society and discourse. He
defines social cognition in these words "the system of mental representations and
processes of group members" (p. 18). It shows, for van Dijk, "ideologies … are the
overall, abstract mental systems that organize … socially shared attitudes" (p. 18).
Ideologies, thus, "indirectly influence the personal cognition of group members" for
understanding the discourse found in other actions and interactions (p. 19). For the
mental representations of various persons during such social actions and interactions,
he has used the term “models". He believes, "models control how people act, speak or
write, or how they understand the social practices of others" (p. 2). Similarly
according to van Dijk, mental representations
"are often articulated along Us versus Them dimensions, in which speakers of
one group will generally tend to present themselves or their own group in positive
terms, and other groups in negative terms." (p. 22).
To analyze and display this contrasting dimension of Us versus Them, van
Dijk's has attached central importance to the theme in most of his research work and
writings (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998a, 1998b). He (1998b) devises a proper
way to analyze ideological dichotomy in the discourse transparently (pp. 61-63), the
said way goes through the following steps:
a. To examine the context of the discourse: historical, political or social
scenario of a conflict and its important participants
b. To evaluate all the concerned groups, power relations and conflicts
c. To identify positive and negative viewpoints of all (Us and Others)

38
d. To make the things explicit in relation to the presupposed and the implied
e. To examine the complete structure: lexical choice and syntactic structure, in
a way which helps to emphasize polarized group opinions
2.6.2 Wodak and the Vienna School of Discourse Analysis
In the works of Wodak and her colleagues in Vienna (The Vienna School of
Discourse Analysis), another direction in CDA is also found which is called
Discourse Sociolinguistics. Wodak’s (1995) model is based "on sociolinguistics in the
Bernsteinian tradition, and on the ideas of the Frankfurt school, especially those of
Jürgen Habermas"( p. 209).Wodak (1996) believes that Discourse Sociolinguistic is a
sociolinguistics which involves not only the study and analysis of the text in context,
but also attaches the same importance to the both factors. This approach can identify
and explain the underlying mechanisms and disorders in discourse which are traceable
in a particular context. They may be in the structure and function of the media, or in
institutions like a hospital or a school. They undoubtedly affect communication/text as
well. (p. 3).
Wodak has expanded his research in various institutional setups such as
courts, schools, and hospitals, and on a number of social issues such as sexism, racism
and anti-Semitism. Wodak's work on the discourse of anti-Semitism in 1990 made
way for another approach which is called discourse historical method. The term
historical carries main importance in this approach. Wodak (1995) has tried through
this approach "to integrate systematically all the available background information in
the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of a written or spoken text" (p. 209).
The results of Wodak and her colleagues' study (Wodak et. al., 1990) revealed “the
context of the discourse had a significant impact on the structure, function, and
context of the anti- Semitic utterances" (p. 209). The feature of using historical

39
contexts of discourse while explaining and interpreting lends this approach difference
as compared to all the other approaches of CDA especially that of van Dijk.
In the discourse historical method approach, (nearing Fairclough) it is
believed that language "manifests social processes and interaction" and "constitutes"
those processes as well (Wodak & Ludwig, 1999, p. 12). According to Wodak &
Ludwig (1999), analyzing language that way entails three things at least. First,
discourse "always involves power and ideologies. No interaction exists where power
relations do not prevail and where values and norms do not have a relevant role" (p.
12). Second,
"discourse … is always historical, that is, it is connected synchronically and
diachronically with other communicative events which are happening at the same
time or which have happened before" (p. 12).
This idea is similar to Fairclough's idea of intertextuality. Third part of Wodak's
approach is that of interpretation. According to Wodak & Ludwig (1999), readers and
listeners, differ in their background knowledge and information and their positions
that is why they may interpret the same communicative event differently (p. 13).
Therefore, Wodak & Ludwig (1999) stress:
"THE RIGHT interpretation does not exist; a hermeneutic approach is
necessary. Interpretations can be more or less plausible or adequate, but they cannot
be true" (emphasis in original) (p. 13).
Fairclough (1995b) also agreed to this notion (pp. 15-16).
Another inevitably relevant approach considered to be very significant in CDA
is that of Fairclough’s. Over the recent decade, his theory has come to enjoy central
position in CDA.
2.6.3 Fairclough’s contribution
In his primary works Fairclough (1989) termed this approach to language and
discourse as the Critical Language Study (p. 5). According to his (1989) viewpoint,

40
the main objective of his approach was "a contribution to the general raising of
consciousness of exploitative social relations, through focusing upon language" (p. 4).
He continued his research work with the same objective and now his approach is one
of the most developed and refined frameworks of CDA (Fairclough, 1992, 1993,
1995a, 1995b; Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999).
Here, for analyzing media discourse, attempt has been made to present a
comprehensive note on Fairclough's works in CDA because, in addition to Halliday’s,
the researcher has applied Fairclough’s reflection also in the course of this research.
For Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), CDA "brings social science and
linguistics … together within a single theoretical and analytical framework, setting up
a dialogue between them"(p. 6). The linguistic theory referred here is the Systematic
Functional Linguistics.
Like many others, Fairclough’s analytical framework was also based on
Linguistics (SFL) (Fowler et. al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979).
Fairclough's (1989, 1992, 1995a, 1995b) approach also draws upon many critical
social theorists, such as Foucault (i.e. concept of orders of discourse), Gramsci
(concept of hegemony), Habermas (i.e. concept of colonization of discourses).
Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) posit that CDA has contributed a lot to make
discursive sense. They believe that, "the past two decades or so have been a period of
profound economic social transformation on a global scale" (p. 30). They perceive the
changes which are due to peculiar actions by people as "part of nature" (p. 4), that is,
changes and transformations are being perceived as natural and not because of
people's general actions. At present, the economic and social changes, according to
Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), "are to a significant degree . . . transformations in
the language, and discourse" (p. 4). So, CDA contributes by theorizing modifications

41
and creating awareness "of what is, how it has come to be, and what it might become,
on the basis of which people may be able to make and remake their lives" (p. 4). With
this aim in mind, Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) believe that CDA of a
communicative interaction displays that the semiotic and linguistic features of the
interaction are systematically attached with what is happening in society, and
whatever happens in society is no doubt is happening, one way or the other,
semiotically or linguistically. In other words, CDA charts relationships of
modification between the symbolic and non-symbolic, between discourse and the
non-discursive. (p. 113).
To analyze any communicative event, this approach of CDA involves three
main analytical interactions. These three interactions are text (e.g. a news report),
discourse practice (e.g. the process of production and consumption), and
sociocultural practice (e.g. social and cultural structures which give rise to the
communicative event) (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 57; Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999, p.
113). These are similar to van Dijk's three dimensions of ideology analysis: discourse,
sociocognition, and social analysis [analysis of social structures]. The main difference
between Fairclough's approach and that of van Dijk appears to be in the second
dimension, which mediates between the other two. Whereas van Dijk perceives social
cognition and mental models as conciliating between discourse and the social,
Fairclough (1995b) believes that this task is assumed by discourse practices: text
production and consumption (p. 59). In this case, these two approaches of CDA are
"similar in conception" (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 59).
Hence, ideology operates through text or discourse as a result of the combined
working of certain macro-structural contexts of socio-cultural nature. This wide(st)
texcont (text-context) ambit of ideology can be perused in the following figure (8):

42
Figure 8: Texcont-ambit of ideology
2.6.3.1 Fairclough's framework for analyzing a communicative event
Fairclough prescribes the investigation of three different facets of discourse
i.e. text, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice.
A) Text: Text is the first analytical concern of Fairclough's (1995b) three-part view.
Analysis of text includes linguistic analysis in the sense of vocabulary, grammar,
semantics, the sound system, and cohesion-organization above the sentence level (p.
57). Linguistic analysis is applied to text's lexical-grammatical and semantic
properties. These two aspects affect each other (pp. 57-58). Following SFL,
Fairclough also perceives text as multifunctional. He believes that analysis can be
offered to any sentence in a text in the sense of the articulation of these functions,
which he has renamed as representations, relations, and identities:
 Particular representations and re-contextualizations of social practice
(ideational function) -- perhaps carrying peculiar ideologies.
Discourse
Context
Text

43
 Particular formations of writer and reader identities (for example, in terms of
what is highlighted -- whether status and role aspects of identity, or individual
and personality aspects of identity)
 A specific formation of the relationship between writer and reader (as, for
instance, formal or informal, close or distant). (p. 58).
According to Fairclough (1995), linguistic analysis is concerned with
presences as well as absences in texts that could include "representations, categories
of participant, constructions of participant identity or participant relations" (p. 58).
B) Discourse practice: According to Fairclough’s findings (1995), there are two
aspects of this dimension: institutional process (e.g. editorial procedures), and
discourse processes (changes the text going through in production and consumption).
(pp. 58-59). For Fairclough, "discourse practice straddles the division between society
and culture on the one hand, and discourse, language and text on the other" (p. 60).
The main concept of this approach is intertextuality. This concept can
profoundly explain discourse processes. Fairclough’s (1995b) ‘intertextuality and
intertextual analysis’ assumes that while there is linguistic analysis at the text level,
there is also linguistic analysis at the discourse practice level. When analysis is at both
these levels, Fairclough calls it "intertextual analysis" (p. 61). According to
Fairclough (1995b), intertextual analysis is concerned with the borderline between
text and discourse practice in the analytical work. Intertextual analysis is looking at
the text from the perspective of discourse practice, and looking at the traces of the
discourse practice in the text. (p. 16).
According to Fairclough, "linguistic analysis is descriptive in nature, whereas
intertextual analysis is more interpretative" (p. 16). Fairclough (1992) defines
intertextuality as,

44
"basically the property texts have of being full of snatches of other texts,
which may be explicitly demarcated or merged in, and which the text may assimilate,
contradict, ironically echo, and so forth." (p. 84).
Fairclough (1992) refers to two types of intertextuality: "manifest
intertextuality" and "constitutive intertextuality." (p. 85). Constitutive intertextuality
refers to the heterogeneous formation of texts by which “specific other texts are
overtly drawn upon within a text.” This kind of intertextuality is marked by explicit
signs such as quotation marks, indicating the presence of other texts. Constitutive
intertextuality, on the other hand, refers to the “heterogeneous constitution of texts out
of elements (types of convention) of orders of discourse (interdiscursivity)” (p. 104).
This kind of intertextuality manifests the structure of discourse-conventions going
into the production of new text.
Fairclough (1992) gives various examples of these processes of intertextuality.
Like, he analyzed an article published in a British national paper, The Sun. That was
basically a report about an official document about drug trafficking prepared by a
committee of the British House of Commons. He described two main things: (1) there
are linguistic forms that do not clearly express the official document. They are sub-
reports supposed about the issue which are not present in the official document; (p. 2)
(2) there are linguistic and semantic signs which show the relationship between The
Sun and the official document. This is quite obvious that The Sun suggests the same
recommendations as the official document makes to the House of Commons. But at
the same time, The Sun is different because it does not only repeat the official
document as it is, rather rephrases things and expresses them in its own words and
language.
This is performed in two ways: (1) by taking a shift from the formal language
and legal jargon to a conversational vocabulary and spoken language (e.g.

45
"traffickers" becomes "peddlers"), (2) by changing the written monologue of the
official document to a conversational dialogue. That is, the newspaper turns an
official document into a popular speech that inspires a good deal of appeal all around.
This example of intertextuality shows that though The Sun report relates to
previous text, it responds to the future utterances and expectations of its readers by
changing the original text into its own discourse type.
Fairclough (1995) believes that intertextual properties of a text are identified
“in its linguistic features” since it is assumption that texts “may be linguistically
heterogeneous.” (p. 189)
Nevertheless, Fairclough (1995b) asserts that, linguistic analysis is descriptive
in nature, while interpretative analysis is more interpretative. Linguistic features of
texts provide evidences which can be used in intertextual analysis, and intertextual
analysis is a specific kind of interpretation of that evidence. (p. 61).
C) Sociocultural practice: For Fairclough (1995b), analysis in this dimension involves
three dimensions of the sociocultural context of a communicative event: economic
(i.e. economy of the media), political (i.e. power and ideology of the media), and
cultural (i.e. issues of values). (p. 62).
According to Fairclough’s approach, it is not necessary to perform analysis at
all levels but any level that may "be relevant to understanding the particular event" (p.
62).
Fairclough (1995b) posits,
"an account of communication in the mass media must consider the economics
and politics of the mass media: the nature of the market which the mass media are
operating within, and their relationship to the state, and so forth" (p. 36).

46
Among the various aspects and traits of mass media which are considered to
be the centers of attention are: access to the media, economics of the media, politics of
the media, and practices of media text production and consumption.
a) Access to the media: Access to media is one of the most important aspects.
It is an important issue that who has access to mass media and what implications it
bears. The answer to this question has regarded the place of the media in society. As
Fairclough (1995b) believes, there are many individuals and social groups who do not
have an equal access to the mass media in the sense of writing, speaking or
broadcasting. Fairclough argues that this is because
"media output is very much under professional and institutional control, and in
general it is those who already have other forms of economic, political or cultural
power that have the best access to the media" (p. 40).
According to van Dijk (199?), access to discourse is more important than that
of the media because access to discourse is a major (scarce) social resource for
people, and that in general the elites may also be defined in terms of their preferential
access to, if not control over, public discourse. Such control may extend to the
features of the context (time, place, participants), as well as to the various features of
the text (topics, style, and so on). (p. 10)
b) Economy of the media: Another important feature of media is its economics,
because according to Fairclough (1995b), "the economics of an institution is an
important determinant of its practices and its texts" (p. 40). Same is the case with the
mass media. Like other profit making institutions, the media have a product to sell.
Their product is the audience of interest to advertisers (Chomsky, 1989; Fairclough,
1995b). Fairclough views that, as a result, the mass media "are very much open to the
effects of commercial pressures" (p. 42). For the press, for instance, these effects are
also important in identifying what is selected as news and in what ways such news is

47
published (Fowler, 1991, p. 20). This issue of the effects of the economic aspects of
media, particularly its advertising practices, has been the center of much discussion in
critical media studies (Achbar, 1994; Chomsky, 1989; Hackett, 1991; Winter &
Hassanpour, 1994).
Closely related to the issue of advertising is the issue of ownership and more
specifically concentrated ownership of the mass media, which according to many
analysts causes an essential impact on media discourse (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 43;
Chomsky, 1989; Hackett, 1991, p. 65; Winter & Hassanpour, 1994). According to
Fairclough, a few large corporations own most of the commercial media in the West.
For example, according to Winter & Hassanpour (1994), two corporations, [Southam
chain and Thomson corporation-the owner of the Globe & Mail], control 59 per cent
of Canadian daily newspaper circulation, and they are corporations with wide interest
outside the newspaper industry, run by the corporate elite. (p. 15).
The impact of concentration of ownership, Fairclough (1995b) holds,
"manifests itself in various ways, including the manner in which media
organizations are structured to ensure that the dominant voices are those of the
political and social establishment, and in the constraints on access to the media …" (p.
43).
c) The politics of media: The politics of media, according to Fairclough (1995b),
should also be considered in media analysis (p. 36). Many theorizers, (Chomsky,
1989; Fairclough, 1995b; Fishman, 1980; Fowler, 1991; Hackett, 1991; van Dijk,
1991, 1993), debate that the commercial mainstream media works ideologically and is
in the service of the powerful, the elite, and the state. Fairclough (1995b) argues that
media discourses "contribute to reproducing social relations of domination and
exploitation" (p. 44). At the same time, he (1995b) observes that sometimes the
interests of the media are in contrast with the state, for example in the case of the
Vietnam War when American television, by showing images of the war changed the

48
public opinion against the war (p. 45). Gowing (1991) and Schorr (1991) also talk
about the impact of television, in 1991, in persuading the Bush administration to
interfere in Northern Iraq to help the Kurdish refugees.
Chomsky, however, believes that periodical criticisms of the state or major
corporations by the media are a part of the doctrine of dominant elite groups to
"aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general
community interest" (as cited in Achbar, 1994, p. 53). The same critics of the media,
however, admit that the state in the West does not overtly dictate to the mass media.
Now question arises how the media is so powerful?
To explain this, Fairclough and other analysts such as Hackett (1991),
following Gramsci, use the concept of hegemony. Chomsky (1989) and van Dijk
(1998a), similarly point to the media's power of manufacturing consent. According to
Fairclough & Chouliaraki (1999), hegemony in relations of domination is based upon
consent rather than coercion, involving the naturalization of practices and their social
relations as well as relations between practices as matters of common sense; hence,
the concept of hegemony emphasizes the importance of ideology in achieving and
maintaining relations of domination. (p. 24).
The mainstream media, according to Hackett (1991), are "agents of
hegemony" (p. 56). According to Hackett, no power could last forever through
imposing force. As he observes, this is particularly true of democratic countries such
as the U.S. and Canada where the public is mostly literate, has a history of
experiencing the freedom of expression, and has a right to vote (pp. 56-57). In these
countries, the ruling class needs to achieve the public consent through persuasion in
order to maintain its domination, and the mass media is one of the essential elements

49
in manufacturing this consent (Chomsky, 1989; van Dijk, 1998a; Hackett, 1991;
Fowler, 1991).
d) Practices of media text production and consumption: Production and consumption
of media texts are two other important dimensions of media and their institutional
practices. Production involves a set of institutional routines, such as news gathering,
news selection, writing, and editing (Fairclough, 1995b; Fowler, 1991; van Dijk,
1993). Consumption mainly refers to the ways in which readers, in case of the written
text (i.e. the press), read and comprehend text.
Selecting news reports is one of the important practices of text production.
Mass media always have far more material than space; therefore, not all the news
makes it to the newscast (Fowler, 1991, p. 11). This means that there is a process of
selecting news, what to weed out and what to publish. In terms of criteria for such
selections, according to Carruthers (2000, p. 16) and Eaman (1987, p. 51),
newsworthiness is not an inherent characteristic of events and news items. It is rather
determined by the news production and institutional practices. So, according to
Eaman (1987),
"events become news when transformed by the news perspective, and not
because of their objective characteristics . . . news is consciously created to serve the
interest of the ruling class" (p. 51).
As a result, Fowler (1991) holds, "the world of the Press is not the real world",
rather a partial one, which is "skewed and judged" (p.11).
Selection by journalists and the media is also involved in selecting the sources
of information, for example: who is to be interviewed or who is to be quoted or heard
in news. According to Fairclough (1995b), one striking feature of news formation is
the overwhelming reliance of journalists on a tightly limited set of officials and

50
otherwise legal sources which are systematically drawn upon, through a network of
contacts and procedures, and sources of 'facts' and to substantiate other 'facts.' (p. 49)
In contrast to officials, ordinary people, whenever they are used as sources, are
mostly allowed to speak about their personal experience rather than expressing
opinions on an issue (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 49). According to Fairclough (1995b) and
Fowler (1991, p. 22-23), this heavy reliance on officials as sources of information is
tied to the media's dependence on the status quo to keep their ownership, and continue
their profitability.
The consequence of this, according to Fairclough (1995b), is "a predominantly
established view of the world, manifested textually in, for instance, ways in which the
reporting of speech is treated" (p. 49).
Once a news item goes through the production process it becomes ready to be
read and comprehended, in other words, it becomes ready for consumption, but how it
will be consumed has been the center of much discussion, from the viewpoint of the
analysis of media discourse in particular (Boyd- Barrett, 1994; Fairclough, 1995b;
Fowler, 1991; Widdowson, 1998). Discourse analysts naturally make assumptions
about how audiences read and comprehend texts. They even appear to interpret texts
on behalf of the audiences. The issue at stake here is how a discourse analyst knows
how audiences consume media discourse, how and what they comprehend or what
sorts of impacts these reports have. I think it is safe to say that all analysts, including
CDA practitioners, agree that different audiences may interpret texts differently. This,
however, is one of the strongest arguments that critics of CDA have brought forward
against discourse analysts who base their conclusions on their own interpretations,
regarding the impact of media discourse on audiences (Fairclough, 1996; Widdowson,
1995). CDA practitioners are the first to acknowledge that different readers might

51
read similar texts differently (Fairclough, 1995b, pp. 15-16). In a similar vein, van
Dijk (1993) states that "media recipients [are] active, and up to a point independent,
information users" and they may form interpretations and opinions of news reports
different from those the newspaper projected or implied (pp. 242). This seems to
indicate that it is not possible to say, for instance, how people read and interpret a
news report.
However, CDA practitioners have reasons to believe otherwise. There are at
least two reasons. First, readers usually are not trained to be critical readers of texts
(Fowler, 1991, p. 11; van Dijk, 1991). Second, audiences interpret texts against their
background knowledge and the information they already have about the subject in
question (van Dijk, 1993, p. 242). Ironically, van Dijk (1993) discovers,
"for specific types of social and political events . . . the news media are the
main source of information and beliefs used to form the interpretation framework for
such events . . ." (pp. 242-243).
It shows that describing and analyzing the media discourse could be helpful in
determining the influence of the media on audiences. Fairclough asserts that texts
have no particular meanings; meanings of texts are based on the interpretations of
readers (1995b). He states,
“It strikes me as self-evident that although readings may vary, any reading is a
product of an interface between the properties of the text and the interpretative
resources and practices which the interpreter brings to bear upon the text. The range
of potential interpretations will be limited and delimited according to the nature of the
text.” (p. 16)
Fairclough (1995b) believes that reception studies (for example, asking the
audiences about their actual interpretations of texts) could help discourse analysis in
identifying meanings and effects of texts. Nonetheless, he believes that text analysis
should be the central element in media analysis provided that it is accompanied by
analysis of text production and consumption (p. 16).

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