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What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
*Anwar El-Said El-Sharkawy
Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Translation
Lecturer of English, Afif College of Education- English
Department, Shaqra University,
*A Ph. D. holder of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), lecturer of English and translator, faculty of education, Shaqra University, interested in linguistic, discursive, and pragmatic writings and researches. Email: [email protected]
Table of Contents
- 3 ........................................................................................................Introduction 1. 3 What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
- 3 .........................................................................................CDA: Historical Outline 1.
- 8 ...............................................................................................What is Discourse? 1.
- 11 ................................................................................Discourse as Social Practice 1.
- 14 ..............................................................................Text, Discourse, and Semiosis 1.
- 26 ..................................................................What is Critical in Discourse Analysis? 1.
- 31 ................................................................Intertextuality and (Inter) disciplinarity 1.
- 31 .............................................................................................Intertextuality 1.7.
- 35 ........................................................................................Interdisciplinarity 1.7.
- 37 .......................................................................................Transdisciplinarity 1.7.
- 38 ............................................................................................The critique of CDA 1.
- 41 ........................................................................................................Conclusion 1.
- 1.0 Introduction
- 1.1 CDA: Historical Outline
- 1.2 What is Discourse?
- 1.3 Discourse as Social Practice
- 1.4 Text, Discourse, and Semiosis
- 1.6 What is Critical in Discourse Analysis?
- 1.7 Intertextuality and (Inter) disciplinarity
- 1.7.1 Intertextuality
- 1.7.2 Interdisciplinarity
- 1.7.3 Transdisciplinarity
- 1.8 The critique of CDA
- 1.9 Conclusion
introduced by social theorists (e.g., Foucault 1972; Bourdieu 1974), linguists (e.g., Saussure 1959; Schiffrin et al, 2001) such as ‘discursive formations’, ‘discursive practices’, and 'discursive regularities' and used in relations to representations of knowledge, ideology, and power in institutions and society (Chavalin Svetanant, 2009). The current focus of CDA on language and discourse was initiated with Critical Linguistics that emerged mostly in the UK and Australia at the end of the 1970s (Fowler et al, 1979). Though CDA is based on Critical Linguistics (CL) (Rogers, 2004), it stepped CL in such a way that CL stepped Chomskyian formal grammar and description, which Halliday (1978) showed:
- It is a means of representing patterns of experience ... It enables human beings to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them. Halliday's functional grammar added two things to formal grammar: 'patterns of experience' and 'patterns of ideologies'. For example, the usage of different grammatical structures of passive and active voice may refer to different ideological interpretations. Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language in use as simultaneously performing three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. Ideational function concerns the external world, e.g., ideas, ideologies, and theories. Interpersonal function expresses the speaker role in the speech situation, e.g., the personal commitment and the interaction with others. Textual function concerns the creation of text, e.g., how information is structured and related. It is the text- forming function, which provides the texture and the relation of language to its environment, including both verbal and nonverbal acts. Halliday's view of language as a "social act" is central to many of CDA's practitioners (Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1993;
Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Fowler et al., 1979). According to Fowler et al. (1979, p. 185), CL asserts "that there are strong and pervasive connections between linguistic structure and social structure". CL, thus, took the fundamental step of interpreting grammatical categories as potential traces of ideological mystification, and introduced a tradition on which CDA developed (van Leeuwen, 2009). It provided the fundamental insight that made it possible to move linguistic analysis beyond formal description and use it as basis for social critique (Halliday, 1973, 1978). To Fairclough (1989), CL and CDA are complementary to each other, as both consider language as socially and ideologically driven (Sheyholislami, 2001). Van Leeuwen (2006) pointed out that the emergence of CDA as a term may be traced in Fairclough's works from 1989 to 1995. In his (1989), he used other terms interchangeably besides critical discourse analysis, such as Critical Language Awareness (CLA) and Critical Language Studies (CLS). In his edited (1992), he used Critical Language Awareness (CLA) and used critical discourse analysis without specially abbreviating it to ‘CDA’. In this work, he positioned critical discourse analysis as a form of CLS. In his (1995), a decisive terminological shift was made when Fairclough published his book Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995). In the same stream, van Dijk (1993) shows that CDA and CL "are at most a shared perspective on doing linguistic, semiotic or discourse analysis” (p. 131). CDA has also counterparts in critical developments in sociolinguistics, psychology, and the social sciences, some of them already dating back to the early 1970s (Billig, 2002; Wodak, 1996). As is the case in these neighboring disciplines, CDA may be seen as a reaction against the dominant formal (often "asocial" or "uncritical") paradigms of the 1960s and 1970s.
discourses, political discourses, organizational discourses or dimensions of identity research (Wodak, 2001a). The notions of "ideology", "power", hierarchy, and gender together with sociological variables were all seen as relevant for an interpretation or explanation of text and the subjects under investigation may differ according to different approaches and scholars who apply CDA. However, CDA does not primarily aim to contribute to a specific discipline, paradigm, school or discourse theory (van Dijk,1993; Fairclough, 2003; Weiss and Wodak, 2003). It is not a linguistic system like Fredinand de sassure's langue and parole, nor is it a closed theory like Chomsky’s Generative Transformational Grammar, nor is it similar to Michael Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics, because it is not determined by individual choice, but it is determined by social structures and social differentiation (Fairclough, 1989). It is also a changeable system and it never provides one single or specific theory, nor is it considered a specific methodological characteristic of research. It is a multidisciplinary approach to discourse, derived from quite different theoretical backgrounds, oriented towards very different data and methodologies (Wodak, 2007). It is founded on the insight that text and talk play a key role in maintaining and legitimating inequality, injustice, and oppression in society. It uses variable methods of discourse analysis to show how this is done, and it seeks to spread awareness of this aspect of language use in society, and to argue explicitly for change on the basis of its findings (Leeuwen, 2006). It is primarily interested and motivated by pressing social issues, which it hopes to better understand through discourse analysis. Theories, descriptions, methods and empirical work are chosen or elaborated as a function of their relevance for the realization of such a sociopolitical goal. Because of the complexity of social problems, a
multidisciplinary approach to discourse and highly sophisticated theories are required to make understanding of such problems is possible. After introducing the historical background that CDA based and derived from, in the following sections some issues about discourse and CDA should be clarified and answered.
1.2 What is Discourse?
The term ‘discourse’ is used in several ways within the broad field of discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1993). It is defined differently in terms of two main paradigms: structural and functional. Structurally, It is a particular unit of language (above the sentence), and functionally, a particular focus, e.g., on language use (Schiffrin, 1994). Structuralists are concerned mostly with the language form, e.g. grammar, considering language as innate and individual property (Andersen, 1988), whereas functionalists are interested in language use, e.g. content. Differences in paradigms influence definitions of discourse: a definition based on the structuralist paradigm views discourse as language above the sentence (e.g., a type of structure), and a definition derived from the functionalist paradigm views discourse as language use (Shiffrin, 1994). However, some linguists (e.g., Schiffirin, 1994) study both paradigms of language structure and language function as they complement and feed each other, introducing an alternative discourse definition (i.e., discourse as utterance). Defining discourse as utterances seems to balance both the functional emphasis on how language is used in context and formal emphasis on extended patterns. The functional approach fills the gap that the structural approach left in the linguistic theory. The utterance is the realized meaning(s) to the abstract meaning of a sentence (Lyons, 1977b; Schiffrin, 1994). For example the abstract sentence “I’m cold” can occur in
particular historical moment" (Hall, 1981, p. 291). Discourse, Foucault argues, constructs the topic. It governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully talked about. It also influences how ideas are put into practice and used to regulate the conduct of others. This in turn means that discourse (or discourses in the social theoretical sense) can limit and restrict other ways of talking and producing knowledge about it (e.g. discussing working-class crime as an individual problem in the media can marginalize an alternative conception of it being a social problem) (p.8). CDA develops discourse socially in such a way that it involves social conditions of production (e.g., text) as well as social conditions of interpretation. It is the linguistic form of social interaction that is either embedded in social context of situation or that it interprets the social system that constitutes the culture of institutions or society as a whole. It is a product of its environment and it functions in that environment through the process of interaction and semantic choice. Text is the realization of such environment. It treats discourse as a type of social practice including visual images, music, gestures, and the like that represent and endorse it. On the other hand, texts are produced by socially situated speakers and writers. For participants in discourse, their relations in producing texts are not always equal: there will be a range from complete solidarity to complete inequality. Meanings come about through interaction between readers and receivers and linguistic features come about as a result of social processes, which are never arbitrary. In most interactions, users of language bring with them different dispositions toward language, which are closely related to social status (Fairclough, 1989). In CDA, discourse is defined in terms of social practice.
1.3 Discourse as Social Practice
In CDA, discourse is defined as a type of social practice and the context of language is crucial (Fairclough, 1989, 1993, 2003; van Dijk 1993, 1997, 2001; Gee, 1990; van Leeuwen, 2006; Wodak, 1996, 2000, 2001; Scollon 2001; and Wodak, 2000). Discourse involves both written and spoken language as a form of social practice (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997, p. 35). Following Fairclough (1995), Reisigl and Wodak (2000) consider discourse as "a way of signifying a particular domain of social practice from a particular perspective". In seeing discourse as a social practice, Fairclough (1989) shows that a critical analyst is not only concerned with analyzing texts, but with analyzing the relationships between texts, processes, and their social conditions. In doing so, three dimensions of critical discourse analysis arise accordingly: description that concerns the formal properties of the text that concerns with what a text says, interpretation that concerns the relationship between text and interaction, and explanation that concerns the relationship between interaction and social context, (Fairclough, 1989). There is a dialectical relationship between particular discursive practices and the specific fields of action (including situations, institutional frames and social structures) in which they are embedded. Social settings affect and are affected by discourse. In other words, discourse shape social settings and it is shaped by them (Wodak, 2007). Social structures as well as social events are parts of social reality and the relationship between social structures and social events depends upon mediating categories, which Fairclough called ‘social practices’, the forms of social activities, which are articulated together to constitute social fields, institutions, and organizations (Fairclough, 2003). In this sense, discourse is a particular type of social structure which creates social practices within the social network. Following Focault (1985b), Faiclough
the style, rhetoric, or meaning of texts for strategies that aim at the concealment of social power relations, for instance by playing down, leaving implicit or understating responsible agency of powerful social actors in the events represented in the text. CDA, hence, studies the relation between society, discourse and social cognition, which is the necessary theoretical and empirical interface that should be examined in detail. Social cognition is the missing link between discourse and dominance, a feature that distinguishes CDA from other non-critical approaches. In CDA, discourse involves social conditions of production (e.g., text) as well as social conditions of interpretation. It is the linguistic form of social interaction that is either embedded in social context of situation or that it interprets the social system that constitutes the culture of institutions or society as a whole. It is a product of its environment and it functions in that environment through the process of interaction and semantic choice. Text is the realization of such environment. CDA treats discourse as a type of social practice including visual images, music, gestures, and the like that represent and endorse it. Texts are produced by socially situated speakers and writers. For participants in discourse, their relations in producing texts are not always equal: there will be a range from complete solidarity to complete inequality. Meanings come about through interaction between readers and receivers and linguistic features come about as a result of social processes, which are never arbitrary. In most interactions, users of language bring with them different dispositions toward language, which are closely related to social status (Fairclough, 1989).
1.4 Text, Discourse, and Semiosis
Fairclough (2005) uses text in a generalized sense for the discoursal element of social events (i.e., not just written but also spoken interaction). Texts are understood in the light of their relation to other elements of social events and social structures, as well as of their relation to social practices, the mediating forms between social events and social structures and the forms of social activity, which include social relations, social identities, and social subjects. He also uses the term 'semiosis' rather than ‘discourse’ to refer in a general way to language and other semiotic modes such as visual image, and the term ‘text’ for semiotic elements of social events (i.e., written, spoken, or combined as in the case of television texts). Faiclough (1989) defined text as a product rather than a process; and discourse in the whole is the process of social interaction. Elsewhere (2003, 2005), he uses the term ‘discourse’ for linguistic and other semiotic elements (such as visual images and ‘body language’) of the social, and considers text as the linguistic/semiotic elements of social events, analytically isolable parts of the social process. It is a particular way of representing certain parts or aspects of the (physical, social, psychological) world; for instance, there are different political discourses (liberal, conservative, social- democratic etc) which represent social groups and relations between social groups in a society in different ways. To him, text is any actual instance of language in use, whereas discourse can be used in either a general or a particular way: (a) general meaning: language in use as an element of social life which is closely interconnected with other elements and (b) particular meaning, such as New Labour ‘Third Way’ discourse (Fairclough, 2003). He also differentiates between discourse, genre, and style. A genre is a particular way of acting socially, which means acting together, i.e., interacting; for instance, there are different genres for consulting, discussing or
articulation of meaningful content, or the expression of an individual or collective psychology. Instead, it is analyzed not only at the level of 'things said,' (i.e., linguistic analysis), the level at which statements have their 'conditions of possibility' and their conditions of relation to one another but at the level of semiotic features (Foucault, 1972). Thus, discourse is not just a set of articulated propositions, nor is it the trace of an otherwise hidden psychology, spirit, or encompassing historical idea; it is the set of relations within which all of these other factors gain their sense. Fairclough (2003) called such analysis of text as 'Interdiscursive', which includes linguistic and semiotic analysis of text features that allows the analyst to assess the relationship and tension between the causal effects of agency in the concrete event and the causal effects of practices and structures, and to detect shifts in the relationship between orders of discourse and networks of social practices as these are registered in the interdiscursivity (mixing of genres, discourses, styles) of texts. In sum, semiosis is the social aspect of discourse, whereas text is a product and process of discourse. It is a product because it can be stored, retrieved, bought and sold, cited and summarized and so forth, and it is a process because it is grasped through regarding what we might call ‘texturing’ (Fairclough 2003). In other words, texts are instances and representations of social actions, of social production, or makings of meanings, understandings, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, social relations, social and personal identities. The role of critical discourse analyst is to analyze relations between discourse and other elements of the social, and to analyze relations between linguistic/semiotic elements of social events and linguistic/semiotic facets of social structure and social practice (Fairclough, 1993). All linguistic forms, including language use, text, talk, and every kind of verbal and written communication, form what we call 'discourse': a form of social practice (Fairclough,
1992, 2001, and 2003), a part of communicative event (van Dijk, 1997), and a form of knowledge and memory, whereas text illustrates concrete oral utterances or written documents (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001).
1.5 What is CDA?
To Fairclough (1993), CDA is defined as a branch of discourse analysis, which is concerned with analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language as he wrote:
- discourse analysis which aims to systematically 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. (p.
In a similar vein, van Dijk (1998) argued that CDA 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. In other words, CDA aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed, signaled, constituted, legitimized and so on by language use (or in discourse). Jaffer Sheyholislami (2001, p. 1) put it as simple as that "CDA aims at making transparent
Many theorists in CDA present the general principles of CDA in their own terms (van Dijk, 1993; Wodak, 1996; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-80) summarize the main tenets of CDA as follows:
- CDA addresses social problems
- Power relations are discursive
- Discourse constitutes society and culture
- Discourse does ideological work
- Discourse is historical
- The link between text and society is mediated
- Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory
- Discourse is a form of social action. The first principle is that CDA addresses social problems. CDA not only focuses on language and language use, but also on the linguistic characteristics of social and cultural processes. CDA follows a critical approach to social problems in its endeavors to make explicit power relationships which are frequently hidden. It aims to derive results which are of practical relevance to the social, cultural, political and even economic contexts (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). In CDA, social cognition is the missing link between discourse and society. Van Dijk (1993, p.252) argues that: in order to relate discourse and society, and hence discourse and the reproduction of dominance and inequality, we need to examine in detail the role of social representations in the minds of social actors. More specifically, we hope to show that social cognition is the necessary theoretical (and empirical) interface , if not the missing link , between discourse and dominance. In our opinion, neglect of such social cognitions has been one of
the major theoretical shortcomings of most work in critical linguistics and discourse analysis. Here, CDA stepped beyond Critical Linguistics and Discourse Analysis since it concerns most with social cognition in van Dijk's terms or the orders of discourse and social practice in Fairclough's. The second principle of CDA is that power relations are discursive. That is CDA explains how social relations of power are exercised and negotiated in and through discourse (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). The third principle is that discourse constitutes society and culture. This means that every instance of language use makes its own contribution to reproducing and transforming society and culture, including relations of power (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). The fourth principle is that discourse does ideological work. In other words, ideologies are often produced through discourse. To understand how ideologies are produced, it is not enough to analyze texts; the discursive practice (how the texts are interpreted and received and what social effects they have) must also be considered (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). The fifth principle is that discourse is historical. Thus discourses can only be understood with reference to their historical context. In this perspective, CDA refers to extralinguistic factors such as culture, society and ideology in historical terms (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 1996, 2001). The sixth principle is that discourse is mediated between text and society. CDA is not a deterministic approach, but invokes an idea of mediation (Fairclough, 1993). Fairclough studies this mediated relationship between text and society by looking at ‘orders of discourse’ (Fairclough, 1989; 1993). Van Dijk (1997) introduces a ‘sociocognitive level’ to his analysis, and Scollon studies mediation by looking at ‘mediated action’ and ‘mediational means’ (Scollon, 2001). The seventh principle is that CDA is interpretative and explanatory. CDA goes beyond textual analysis. It is
