Language is much more than just ‘means of communication’. It is a “medium of domination and social force; it serves to legitimize relations of organized power” (Habermas, 1977: 259 cited in Wodak and Meyer, 2001).
And discourse is “a set of statements which construct an object” (Parker, 1992). According to Brown and Yule (1983) “[t]he analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use”. Discourse is then language in action and analysis of discourse is then analysis of language.
In Michel Foucault’s view “everything is discourse” (Gee, 1999) whereas Fairclough used the term discourse to make the connection between texts (anything written or spoken) and their social processes (Fairclough, 1992). But in his later publication, he included multi-modal texts, i.e. mixing language and visual image of the television and internet. These are the two most popular views about discourse and how they should be analyzed.
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
In 1984 Teun van Dijk published his book named Prejudice in Discourse, which was followed by Ruth Wodak’s Power and Ideology (1989), Fairclough’s Language and Power (1989), and van Dijk’s journal Discourse and Society(1990). Together these publications formed the basis which is presently known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). But it formally began in the 1990s after Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Theon Van Leeuwen, and Ruth Wodak had the opportunity to discuss the very issue in a small symposium hosted by the University of Amsterdam (Wodak and Meyer, 2001).
The term Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Linguistics (CL) are often interchangeably used (Wodak and Meyer, 2001). They defined both as “fundamentally concerned with analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control as manifested in language” (Wodak and Meyer, 2001).
CDA is a notoriously difficult concept to define as many definitions coexist in epistemology. Among those first one argues, CDA and Critical Linguistics can be used interchangeably and both are “fundamentally concerned with analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control as manifested in language” (Wodak and Meyer, 2001); while the second one considers CDA as “a 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” Dijk (1998); and the third one argues that CDA has incorporated the critical nature of social analysis into linguistics and that it is particularly focused on discourse and its relation with other social processes (Fairclough, 2010).
Fairclough borrowed Marx’s view about ‘social reality (as conceptually mediated and are subject to interpretation and representation) and the idea of ‘dialectics, based on which he argued that as social reality has a reflexive nature thus there must be a dialectical relation between material and semiotic (Fairclough, 2010). To analyze these relations is the goal of CDA. Thus, CDA analyzes it into multiple fronts, i.e. normative and explanatory. On this point, Wodak and Meyer (2001) argued that CDA is “as much theory as method” and identified it as “transdisciplinary”, not interdisciplinary, in nature to which Fairclough also agrees (Fairclough, 2010). They argue, “CDA is biased and proud of it” (Wodak and Meyer, 2001) which further establishes Fairclough’s reflexive claims.
Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis
Fairclough argues that earlier works of Critical Literature suffer from two basic problems, (a) it assumes that interpretations of analysts and of general people are indifferent; (b) the scope of analysis should not be limited to textual analysis only. Fairclough covered both areas successfully in his Critical Discourse Analysis. He argued that as discourse has many meanings and definitions, it is better to use ‘semiosis’ where it is “an element of the social process which is dialectically related to others” (Fairclough, 2010). But this does not mean semiosis focuses just only on this but it also focuses on ‘semiotics and other social elements’ and thus the relationship between institutions and organization varies according to time and place and it must be established through analysis (Fairclough, 2010). In other words, Fairclough once again draws attention to the reflexive nature and multiplicity of social processes, semiosis or social reality.
Fairclough claims that CDA focuses on two types of dialectical relationships- (a) between structures and events; (b) and semiotic and other elements within each (structure and event) of them. He then claimed that there are three main ways according to which semiosis can be related with other elements of social practices and other elements. Those are-
1.As a facet of action
2.In the construal of aspects of the world
3.In the constitution of identities
He identified three semiotic or discourse analytical categories regarding these above-mentioned ‘ways of semiosis’. Those are-
1.Genre (semiotic ways of acting and interacting, i.e. action)
2.Discourse (semiotic ways of construing aspects of the world)
3.Style (semiotic ways of being or identities)
Then there is ‘Orders of discourse’ which means “the semiotic dimension or network of social practices that constitute social fields, institutions, organizations” (Fairclough, 2010). In other words, it is a “social structuring of semiotic difference, a particular social ordering of relationships between different ways of making meaning” (Fairclough, 2010) through different genres, discourses and styles. As Fairclough argues that CDA focuses on two types of dialectical relationships, it is necessarily the exploration of –
- Changing relation between genres, discourses, and styles
- Any change in the social structuring in the relation between them that has made its place permanently or temporarily in the orders of discourse
- The ongoing relationship of them in texts, i.e. (written, spoken, and multi-modal text)
Fairclough’s CDA framework
Fairclough presented a trans-disciplinary research methodology for CDA which has four stages and some of those stages have multiple steps in them. This framework is based on Roy Bhasker’s concept of ‘explanatory critique’ (Fairclough, 2010).
Fairclough’s CDA model
In recent decades, the world has gone through many changes which deeply affected people, their language, and discourses. The most important aspect of these changes is that they are thought of as ‘part of nature’ (Chauliaraki and Fairclough, 1999). Thus, CDA is important to explore, understand and theorize the transformations of society, people, language and discourses, its nature, and underlying reasons of its making and remaking of reality. andIn Fairclough’s CDA language is viewed as a form of social practice. He assumed that any case of language is essentially a “communicative event” and his whole CDA model is developed around this. His CDA model has three categories which he labeled as ‘dimensions’ are-
- Text (speech, writing, images or a mixture of all three forms)
- Discursive practice (production or constitution of text)
- Social practice
(social/organizational structures in effect)
These three dimensions can be used to analyze any given discourse at various levels. In dimension 1, the analysis takes place at the word level; In dimension 2, the analysis takes place at the text level and in dimension 3, the analysis takes place at norm level. This ‘three-dimensional model’ of Fairclough closely resembles Vin Dijk’s three dimensions of ideology analysis. The main difference between these two models is in the role of the second dimension. Dijk views the role of his 2nd dimension is mediating between discourse and social whereas Fairclough view that this task is assumed by practices of discourse.
