Textual construction of Knowledge Flashcards
CDA
“type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.” (Van Djik)
Fairclough and Wodak (1997) tenets of CDA:
- 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
CDA bridges the gap between the two approaches via…
- Members-groups:
- Actions-process:
- Context-social structure:
- Personal and social cognition:
Members-groups (micro-macro bridging)
Users engage in discourse as members of groups - groups may act ‘by’ their members
Actions-process (micro-macro bridging)
Social acts of indiv. Actors → parts of group actions and social processes e.g. legislation
Context-social structure (micro-macro bridging)
Discursive interaction situations part of social structure e.g. press conference.
Personal and social cognition (micro-macro bridging)
Actors have both personal and social/cultural memories, knowledge and opinions
Context (definition)
Mentally represented structure of social situation properties, relevant for the production/comprehension of discourse.
Context (categories)
- overall definition of the situation
- Setting (time, place)
- Ongoing actions (incl. discourse)
- Participants in various roles, as well as their mental representations (goals, knowledge…)
Control over structures of text and talk - Discursive conditions
Decisions on the possible discourse genres or speech acts e.g. requiring a direct answer and not a personal story. This includes meaning, form and style control, as well as that of topics and topic change.
Topics
Semantic macrostructures
The two fundamental ways to reproduce dominance and hegemony (Van Dijk)
- Control over discourse
- Control over people’s minds (complicated)
3 Ideas behind power and dominance involvement in mind control
- Recipients tend to accept Bel/Kn/Ops through discourse from what they see as credible sources (Nesler)
- Sometimes participants obliged to be recips e.g. job instructions (Giroux)
- Many times no PDs that provide info from which alternative Bels can be derived (Downing)
- Recips. may not have Kn / Bels needed to challenge discourses exposed to .
Naturalism
The idea that social practices, labels and programs represent reality
rationality
the assumption that truth is a result of science and logic
neutrality
the assumption that truth does not reflect any particular interests
“critical” research interpretations
- Aims for dialectic between individual agency and structural determinism.
- Focus on relationship between the form and function of language - why are certain networks of F-F rtshp more valued?
- CDA addresses social problems - aims to solve them through analysis and accompanying social/political action
Determinism
the doctrine that all events are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will.
Gee (1996) qualities of Discourse
- Discourses inherently ideological
- They are resistant to internal criticism and self-scrutiny as uttering viewpoints that seriously undermine them defines one as being outside of them
- Discourse-defined positions are defined both internally, and as standpoints in relation to other opposing Discourses.
- Any Discourse puts forward certain objects, concepts, viewpoints and values at the expense of others
- They are related to distribution of social power and hierarchical structure.
CDA approach to Discourse
A ‘set of consumptive, productive, and reproductive processes that is in relation to the social world’.
Fairclough (1992a, 1992b, 1995) 3- tiered model of CDA
- Local - particular text
- Institutional - social institutions that enable and constrain local domain
- Societal - policies and meta-narratives shaping and shaped by other domains.
(Note, later developed to include genre, discourse and style in all tiers)
Gee (1999) analytic procedures CDA
Set of tasks:
1. semiotic building
2. world building
3. Activity building
4. Socioculturally situated identity building
5. Political building
6. Connection building
language “mode”
lang encoded in certain genres e.g. poetry, sermon, informal talk
Tenor
that every utterance enacts (acts out) certain social relationships
Field of language
every utterance operates within a larger framework of what is possible given cultural constraints
3 terms from SFL
mode, tenor and field
