Critical Discourse Analysis

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Critical Discourse Analysis

Jan blommaert and Chris Bulcaen makes a brief introduction to the study of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA intends to use social-theoretical method in discourse analysis and is primarily linguistically based (Blommaet & Bulcaen, 2000, p.447). It intends to analyze the structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control through a textual study (Blommaet & Bulcaen, 2000, p.448). Based on the assumption that social discourse is constructed and socially conditioned, CDA explores the power dynamics in this process.

According to Fairclough, CDA analysis can be divided into three-dimensions: first, discours-as-text which analyzes the textual linguistic elements as concrete instances of discourse; second, discourse-as-discursive-practice, especially focusing on discourse processes like speech act, coherence and intertexuality; third, discourse-as-social-practice which examines the effects and the hegemonic process in the discourse (Blommaet & Bulcaen, 2000, p.448-9). While both the second and the third dimension consider the arrangement of text elements or quotes as intertexuality, the second dimension makes the interaction between text and context visible and the third dimension makes the discursive power dynamic visible as well.

Moreover, they point out that CDA aims to undertake a social responsibility to correct particular discourses for “change, empowerment, and practice-orientedness” (Blommaet & Bulcaen, 2000, p.449). Because of this, CDA pay large attention to social topics and works on two main directions: power and ideology, and change of the structuralist determinism (Blommaet & Bulcaen, 2000, p.452). Although it ambitiously put such great emphasis on social phenomena o...

... middle of paper ...

...te in the 1960s which reflected two opposite public opinions on Television and radio respectively. More current example could be the different experience of a same news text people read on a mainstream newspaper and on a facebook sharing page. As Blommaert and Bulcaen suggest the incorporation of linguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions, this could be taken into consideration in further studies.

Reference:

Blommaert, J., & Bulcaen, C. (2000). Critical discourse analysis. Annual

Review of Anthropology,29, 447-66.

Schroder, K.C. (2007). Media discourse analysis: researching cultural

meaning from inception to reception. Texual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation 2, 2, 77-99.

Steensland, B. (2008). Why do policy frames change? actor-idea

coevolution in debates on welfare reform. Social Forces, 86(3), 1027-54.

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