Critical discourse analysis is a contemporary approach to the study of language and discourses in social institutions. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory and critical linguistics, it focuses on how social relations, identity, knowledge and power are constructed through written and spoken texts in communities, schools and classrooms.
Critical discourse analysis refers to the use of an ensemble of techniques for the study of textual practice and language use as social and cultural practices (Fairclough, 1992b). It builds from three broad theoretical orientations. First, it draws from poststructuralism the view that discourse operates laterally across local institutional sites, and that texts have a constructive function in forming up and shaping human identities and actions. Second, it draws from Bourdieu's sociology the assumption that actual textual practices and interactions with texts become "embodied" forms of "cultural capital" with exchange value in particular social fields. Third, it draws from neomarxist cultural theory the assumption that these discourses are produced and used within political economies, and that they thus produce and articulate broader ideological interests, social formations and movements within those fields (see Hall 1996).
Given the power of the written and spoken word, CDA is necessary for describing, interpreting, analyzing, and critiquing social life reflected in text. CDA is concerned with studying and analyzing written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific social, economic, political, and historical contexts (Van Dijk, 1988). It tries to illuminate ways in which the dominant forces in a society construct versions of reality that favor their interests.
The purpose of CDA is to help the analyst understand social problems that are mediated by mainstream ideology and power relationships, all perpetuated by the use of written texts in our daily and professional lives to uncover the ideological assumptions that are hidden in the words of our written text or oral speech in order to resist and overcome various forms of power over or to gain an appreciation that we are exercising "power over,” unbeknownst to us to systematically explore often opaque relationships between discursive practices, texts, and events and wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes. It strives to explore how these non-transparent relationships are a factor in securing power and hegemony, and it draws attention to power imbalances, social inequities, non-democratic practices, and other injustices in hopes of spurring people to corrective actions
Three central tenets of CDA, Discourse is shaped and constrained by: (a) social structure (class, status, age, ethnic identity, and gender) , (b) culture, (c) Discourse (the words and language we use) helps shape and constrain our identities, relationships, and systems of knowledge and beliefs.
Critical discourse analysis begins from the assumption that systematic asymmetries of power and resources between speakers and listeners, readers and writers can be linked to their unequal access to linguistic and social resources.
CDA tries to unite, and determine the relationship between, three levels of analysis: (a) the actual text; (b) the discursive practices (that is the process involved in creating, writing, speaking, reading, and hearing); and (c) the larger social context that bears upon the text and the discursive practices (Fairclough, 2000).
The principal unit of analysis for critical discourse analysis is the text. Texts are taken to be social actions, meaningful and coherent instances of spoken and written language use. Yet their shape and form is not random or arbitrary. Specific text types or "genres" serve conventional social uses and functions. That is, particular kinds of texts attempt to `do things' in social institutions with predictable ideational and material effects. These include functional written texts (e.g., business letters, forms, policies, textbooks), spoken face-to-face interactions (e.g., clinical exchanges, service exchanges, classroom lessons), and multimodal visual, electronic and gestural texts (e.g., internet home pages). Taken as historically and culturally specific social actions, genres are dynamic and continually subject to innovation and reinvention. They remain affiliated nonetheless with particular conventionalised discourses. For example, business letters are likely to feature discourses of finance and business; tabloid news reports would be sites for discourses of romance and sexuality. As conventional forms, then, genres and sub-genres thus both constrain and enable meanings and social relations between speakers and listeners, writers and readers.
Critical discourse analysis also focuses on sentence and word-level analysis, drawing analytic methods from systemic functional linguistics. Halliday (1985) argues that lexical and grammatical features of texts have identifiable functions: (a) they represent and portray the social and natural world ("field"); (b) they construct and effect social relations ("tenor"); and, (c) they develop conventions as coherent, identifiable texts in particular media ("mode"). A range of other descriptions of language functions have been developed. According to Kress (1989), written and spoken texts represent particular selective views of the world or "subject positions" (i.e., field) and they set out social relations of "reading positions" (i.e., tenor). By establishing reading positions, texts can interpellate readers, situating and positioning them in identifiable relations of power and agency in relation to texts.
Analytic Concepts of CDA:
1. Word/phrase level concepts include classification, connotation, metaphor, lexical
presupposition, modality, and register.
· Classification refers to how one chooses to name and label things. In today’s abortion debate, for example, the decision to use the term “prochoice” (or, alternatively, “pro-abortion”) is one that positions the writer as favoring one side in the debate.
· Connotation refers to the associations and nuances of meaning that go beyond a word’s dictionary definition. A special type of connotation is found in code words, words whose nuances of meaning are meant to be understood only by a subset of the general population (Fish; Scholes). The term “family values” in today’s political landscape, for example, is a code term for social conservatism.
· As mentioned above, the use of metaphor is another way of casting ideas in a certain light. Indeed, as is pointed out by George Lakoff and colleagues, much of our thinking and communicating is done in metaphorical terms (Lakoff and Johnson), and this is often exploited in political discourse (Lakoff; Gee).
· Presuppositions are another type of linguistic device that can be used at the word/phrase
level to manipulate readers. These are words or phrases that assume the truth of the statements in which they are found. For example, in the sentence, “President Clinton’s liberal views are not popular with many Congressional Republicans,” it is presupposed that President Clinton has “liberal” views. In this case, it is the possessive form (Clinton’s) that triggers the presupposition; many other kinds of linguistic constructions can also serve as presupposition triggers (Simpson; Jalbert).
· Modality is the use of modal verbs and phrases like might, should, will, we think, and commands to project a certain authorial “voice” or attitude (Simpson). Modal constructions facilitate various forms of manipulation including the hedging of claims in advertisements and reporters’ accounts of statements from sources.
· Register refers to the linguistic style of a discourse that connects it to a particular
discursive activity or group (Biber et al.). Academic writing constitutes a distinct register, as does surfboarding slang or journalese. Politicians, entertainers, and other performers are adept at shifting from one register to another, sometimes within the same stretch of discourse.
2. At the sentence/utterance level, the most useful analytic concepts are transitivity,
deletion, topicalization, register, politeness, presupposition, insinuation, and
intertextuality.
· Transitivity refers to the agent-patient relations in a sentence, or how the main action of a sentence is encoded (Fairclough). It answers the question, Who is doing what to whom? In most cases, the semantic agent (or actor) in a sentence is depicted as having more power than the patient. If a text consistently has the same agent from sentence to sentence, it may reflect a perspective favoring that agent’s status.
· Deletion refers to the deliberate omission of information in a sentence (Jalbert). A common instance of this occurs when a writer chooses, for one reason or another, to omit
mentioning the agent of an action. For example, in the sentence, “Many women are subjected to domestic violence,” the causative agent (in this case, “by men”) has been omitted. This type of construction, known as the agentless passive, is one of the most common forms of agent-deletion. Agents can also be deleted through the use of heavily nominalized sentences, as in, “Many women are victims of domestic violence.”
· Topicalization is the positioning of a sentence element at the beginning of the sentence so
as to give it prominence (or foregrounding). In the sentence above, many women has been topicalized.
· Register is determined not only by word and phrase usage, as noted above, but also by sentence structure. The well-known shifts of register that occur in advertisements, for example, are due as much to syntactic differences as to lexical ones.
· Politeness refers to the interpersonal stance effected in the discourse by cues such as
pronoun usage, terms of address, and register (Brown and Levinson). As illustrated below, “positive” politeness seeks to establish solidarity with the reader or listener while “negative” politeness seeks to maintain independence and privacy.
· Presupposition can be enacted through sentence structure as well. In the sentence, “The FBI kept tabs on King, Carmichael, and other trouble makers,” it is presupposed that King and Carmichael were troublemakers.
· Insinuation is another sentence-level device used for manipulative purposes. Whereas all that is needed to identify a presupposition is a knowledge of the language, insinuation requires also some background knowledge. For example, if the above sentence about the FBI were followed by this one, “Director Hoover wanted to preserve American traditions,” it would insinuate, at least for some readers, that Hoover was opposed to full-scale racial integration.
· Intertextuality, or the recognizable “borrowing” of words or phrases from another source (Selzer), sometimes occurs with entire sentences. Sayings, aphorisms, and other fixed phrases are examples of this.
3. Text level concepts include genre, heteroglossia, coherence, framing, extended
metaphor, foregrounding/backgrounding, omission, and auxiliary embellishments.
· Genre refers to the recognizable type of text that a piece of discourse embodies (Swales). A genre is a patterned response to similar rhetorical situations (Miller). But genres can be manipulated for rhetorical effect (Bazerman; Myers; Berkenkotter and Huckin), thus making them of interest to the critical discourse analyst.
· Heteroglossia is the inclusion of discursive differences, register shifts, or multiple “voices” (Bakhtin) in a text. Identifying these different voices enables the analyst to point out intertextual linkages (Lemke), thus situating the text more firmly in a sociocultural context.
· Coherence refers to the ability of a text to “hang together.” Although textual coherence requires certain textual cues including consistent use of verb tense, sentence topics, pronoun reference, and so on, it also requires active interpretation on the part of the reader, drawing on his/her background knowledge (Brown and Yule). By studying the coherence of a text, the critical discourse analyst can see what kind of background knowledge the text is evoking.
· Framing is the slant or “spin” an author gives to a text (Parenti; Mumby & Clair). The ability to cast a story in a certain light is one of the most powerful weapons at an author’s disposal. Extended metaphors are those that continue beyond a single sentence. They contribute to textual coherence and can serve as framing devices.
· Foregrounding means the prominence given to parts of a text, either by their physical placement or size or by the emphasis given them through word choice or syntactic structure. The opposite of foregrounding is backgrounding. The choice of whether to emphasize or de-emphasize a piece of information through foregrounding or backgrounding, respectively, is yet another authorial resource, one that critical discourse analysts should pay close attention to.
· The ultimate form of backgrounding is omission, or leaving relevant information out of a text. In some cases, such textual silences are of a broad ideological sort (Chomsky), in others they are more tactical (Jaworski). In any case, what is left unsaid is often more important that what is said.
· Auxiliary embellishments are the non-linguistic aspects of a text: graphics, sound effects, and so on (Parenti). They draw attention and so can make a quick and powerful impression.
4. Higher level concepts. As mentioned earlier, critical discourse analysis involves the integrated study of text, discursive practices, and broader social context. The concepts just discussed belong only to the first of these categories. At higher levels of analysis-- those involving discursive processes and broader contextual factors—certain other, more general concepts typically come into play. As in the case of textual analysis, these concepts are felt to be especially pertinent to the abuse of power. Following are some of the higher-level concepts that critical discourse analysts have found useful in explaining how particular discourses can lead to abuses of power.
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