UNIT 5. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Flashcards
What is critical discourse analysis?
Is an approach to discourse whose origin can be found in critical linguistics, which focused on the analysis of language as text or discourse.
What grammar is critical linguistics against and which one in favor of?
This branch of linguistics is based on Halliday’s systemic/functional grammar.
What grammar is critical linguistics against and which one in favor of?
This branch of linguistics is based on Halliday’s systemic/functional grammar and it’s against Chomsky’s generative grammar who saw language analysis as studying isolated sentences.
What premise are critical linguistic studies based on?
On the premise that grammar is an ideological instrument for categorization of things that occur in the world.
What is CDA aim? what gap does it try bridge?
To be a form of social action and to use the analysis of discourse to make people aware of social and political issues.
It tries to bridge the gao between micro and macro levels of social order.
Can you give an example of how CDA unifies the micro and the macro?
Imagine a racist speech in parliament, it’s a discourse at the microlevel of social interaction in the specific situation of a debate, but at the macrolevel -and at the same time- it may enact or be a constituent part of a legislation or the reproduction of racism.
What does CDA focus on?
Social Cognition (i.e. social representations in the minds of social actors) as the empirical missing link between discourse and dominance, by attempting to show the nature of its relationship with discourse and society.
What is Teun Van Dijk’s understanding of critical discourse analysis?
That CDA is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power, abuse and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. With such dissident research, critical discourse analysts take explicit position, and thus want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality.
What is Ideology? How does it resemble language?
A key notion in CDA, for it’s considered to establish the connection between discourse and society.
Ideology resembles natural languages in that they are essentially social. Meaning that they are shared by the members of a group to have an effective communicative interaction.
How does Van Dijk see ideology?
He explains how ideologies control social groups and their discourse. Arguing that ideologies are developed by dominant groups to reproduce and legitimate their domination. Thus, for instance, groups may have ideological racist or sexist beliefs that condition their discourse and social practices.
What are the steps to follow when doing CDA according to Wetherel et all?
1) Focus on a social problem that has a semiotic aspect.
2) Identify obstacles to the social problem being tackled.
3) Consider if the social order (network of practices) “needs” the problem.
4) Identify possible ways past the obstacles
5) Reflect critically on the analysis (stages 1-4)
Why does Schlegoff criticise CDA?
Because he says that the type of research carried out by CDA doesn’t include a detailed and systematic analysis of discourse. So that critical discourse analysts end up ironically imposing tehir own view based on their own references and discourse performing an acr of intellectual hegemony.
What is Norman Fairclough’s theory of CDA?
He develops the following program to link discourse, power and social structure by exploring the three dimensions of discourse:
- Texts (the objects of linguistic analysis)
- Discourse practices (the production, distribution and consumption of texts)
- Social practices (the power relations, ideologies and hegemonic struggles that discourses reproduce, challenge or restructure).
What is Ruth Wodak’s approach to Critical Linguistics?
An interdisciplinary approach to language study with a critical point of view which intends to study language behaviour in natural speech situations of social relevance.
What is Semiosis?
semiosis is a process involving an entity that operates as a sign.
