Critical_Discourse_Analysis_An_overview

ASSIST. PROF. ADEL AL -THAMERY (PHD)
D E P A R T M E N T O F E N G L I S H
C O L L E G E O F A R T S
Critical Discourse Analysis: An
Overview

Outline
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Assist. Prof. Adel Al-Thamery (PhD)
 Definition of CDA
 Development of CDA
 Theoretical Origins
 Models:
 Dialectical – Relational ( Fairclough)
 Socio-cognitive ( Van Dijk)
 Discourse Historical (Wodak)

Definition of CDA
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According to van Dijk (1998a) Critical Discourse
Analysis is a field that is concerned with studying
and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal
the discursive sources of power, dominance,
inequality and bias. It examines how these
discursive sources are maintained and reproduced
within specific social, political and historical
contexts.

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Fairclough (1993) defines CDA as discourse analysis
which aims to explore often opaque relationships of
causality and determination between (a) discursive
practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and
cultural structures, relations and processes; to
investigate how such practices, events and texts
arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations
of power and struggles over power; and to explore
how the opacity of these relationships between
discourse and society is itself a factor securing
power and hegemony.

Being Critical
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The term ‘critical’ can be particularly associated with the
Frankfurt School of Philosophy. The Frankfurt School
re-examines the foundations of Marxist thought.
Kantian ‘critique’ entails the use of rational analysis to
question the limits of human knowledge and
understanding of, for example, the physical world. The
Frankfurt School extends this to an analysis of cultural
forms of various kinds, which are seen as central to the
reproduction of capitalist social relations. According to
Jürgen Habermas, a critical science has to be self
reflexive (reflecting on the interests that underlie it)
and it must also consider the historical context in
which linguistic and social interactions take place.

Development of CDA
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In the late 1970s, Critical Linguistics was developed
by a group of linguists and literary theorists at the
University of East Anglia. Their approach was
based on Halliday's Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL). CL practitioners aimed at
"isolating ideology in discourse" and showing "how
ideology and ideological processes are manifested
as systems of linguistic characteristics and
processes.". Following Halliday, these CL
practitioners view language in use as
simultaneously performing three functions:
ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions.

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Halliday's view of language as a "social act" is central
to many of CDA's practitioners .According to
Fowler et al. (1979, 185), CL, like sociolinguistics,
asserts that, "there are strong and pervasive
connections between linguistic structure and social
structure" However, whereas in sociolinguistics
"the concepts 'language' and 'society' are
divided…so that one is forced to talk of 'links
between the two'", for CL "language is an integral
part of social process" (Fowler et al., 1979, p. 189).

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Another central assumption of CDA and SFL is that
speakers make choices regarding vocabulary and
grammar, and that these choices are consciously or
unconsciously "principled and systematic"(Fowler
et al., 1979, p. 188). Thus choices are ideologically
based. According to Fowler et al. (1979), the
"relation between form and content is not arbitrary
or conventional, but . . . form signifies content" .In
sum, language is a social act that is ideologically
driven.

Theoretical Origins
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CDA, in its various forms, has its academic origins in
‘Western Marxism’. In broad terms, Western
Marxism places a particular emphasis on the role
of cultural dimensions in reproducing capitalist
social relations. This necessarily implies a focus on
meaning (semiosis) and ideology as key
mechanisms in this process. Western Marxism
includes key figures and movements in twentieth-
century social and political thought – Antonio
Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, Louis Althusser.
Critical discourse analysts do not always explicitly
place themselves within this legacy, but
nevertheless it frames their work.

Gramsci
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Gramsci’s observation that the maintenance of
contemporary power rests not only on coercive force
but also on ‘hegemony’ (winning the consent of the
majority) has been particularly influential in CDA.
The emphasis on hegemony entails an emphasis on
ideology, and on how the structures and practices of
ordinary life routinely normalize capitalist social
relations.

Althusser
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Althusser made a major contribution to the theory of
ideology, demonstrating how these are linked to
material practices embedded in social institutions
(e.g. school teaching). He also showed their
capacity to position people as social ‘subjects’,
although he tended toward an overly deterministic
(structuralist) version of this process which left
little room for action by subjects.

Foucault
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Directed against such structuralist accounts of
ideology, Foucault’s work on discourse has generated
immense interest in discourse analysis, but also
analysis of a rather abstract sort that is not anchored
in a close analysis of particular texts. For Foucault ,
discourses are knowledge systems of the human
sciences (medicine, economics, linguistics, etc.) that
inform the social and governmental ‘technologies’
which constitute power in modern society

Bourdieu
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A further influential figure has been the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in particular his (1991)
work on the relationship between language, social
position and symbolic value in the dynamics of
power relations.

Bakhtin
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From within linguistics and literary studies the work of
Bakhtin has also been important in discourse
analysis. Volosinov (1973) work is the first linguistic
theory of ideology. It claims that linguistic signs are
the material of ideology, and that all language use is
ideological. As well as developing a theory of genre,
Bakhtin’s work emphasizes the dialogical properties
of texts, introducing the idea of ‘intertextuality’ (see
Kristeva, 1986). This is the idea that any text is a link
in a chain of texts, reacting to, drawing on, and
transforming other texts.

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Models of Critical Discourse Analysis

Norman Fairclough’s Dialectal-
Relational Approach (DRA)

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Looking at language as discourse and social practice, someone cannot
analyse the text only, not just analyse the process of production and
interpretation, but also analyse the texts, processes, and their social
conditions. Accordingly, Fairclough distinguishes three stages of Critical
Discourse Analysis:
 Description is the stage which is concerned with formal properties of the
text.
 Interpretation is concerned with the relationship between text and
interaction ; viewing the text as the product of a process of production,
and as a resource in the process of interpretation.
 Explanation is concerned with the relationship between interaction and
social context with social determination of the process of production and
interpretation, and their social effects.

Van Dijk's Socio-Cognitive
Approach(SCA)
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Socio-Cognitive Discourse Analysis is an approach
characterised by the interaction between cognition,
discourse and society. It began in formal text
linguistics and subsequently incorporated elements
of the standard psychological model of memory,
together with the idea of frame taken from
cognitive science. A large part of van Dijk's
practical investigation deals with stereotypes, the
reproduction of ethnic prejudice, and power abuse
by elites and resistance by dominated groups.

The Discourse-Historical
Approach (DHA)
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This approach was developed by Ruth Wodak and
other scholars in Vienna working in the traditions of
Bernsteinian sociolinguistics and the Frankfurt
School. The approach is particularly associated with
large programmes of research in interdisciplinary
research teams focusing on sexism, antisemitism and
racism. One of the major aims of this kind of critical
research has been its practical application

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Thank You

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