Critical Discourse Analysis

Aysha Bahaa
Introduction
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a field that is
concerned with studying and analyzing written and
spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power,
dominance, inequality and bias.

It aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is

expressed, and constituted by language use (or in
discourse).
Introduction
Critical discourse analysis starts with the assumption
that language use is always social and that discourse both
‘reflects and constructs the social world’ (Rogers 2011 : 1).

It explores the connections between the use of language

and the social and political contexts in which it occurs.

In addition, it analyzes issues such as gender, ethnicity,

cultural difference, ideology and identity and how these
are both constructed and reflected in texts.
Introduction
Also, it investigates ways in which language constructs
and is constructed by social relationships.

A critical analysis includes tracing underlying

ideologies from the linguistic features of a text,
unpacking particular biases and ideological
presuppositions underlying the text, and relating the
text to other texts and to people’s experiences and
beliefs.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
Fairclough and Wodak ( 1997 ), describes the following
principles for critical discourse analysis:

1. Social and political issues are constructed and

reflected in discourse.
2. Power relations are negotiated and performed
through discourse.
3. Discourse both reflects and reproduces social
relations.
4. Ideologies are produced and reflected in the use of
discourse.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
1. Social and political issues are constructed and
reflected in discourse

The first of Fairclough and Wodak’s principles is that

critical discourse analysis addressess ocial and political
issues and examines ways in which these are
constructed and reflected in the use of certain
discourse strategies and choices, e.g. Teo’s (2005)study
of slogans for Singapore’s ‘Speak Mandarin’campaign.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
2. Power relations are negotiated and performed
through discourse

According to this principle, power relations are both

negotiated and performed through discourse. One way
in which this can be looked at is through an analysis of
who controls conversational interactions, who allows a
person to speak and how they do this, e.g. Hutchby’s
(1996) study of power-issues in British radio talk
shows arguments.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
3. Discourse both reflects and reproduces social
relations

A further principle of critical discourse analysis is that

discourse not only reflects social relations but is also
part of, and reproduces, social relations. That is, social
relations are both established and maintained through
the use of discourse.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
3. Discourse both reflects and reproduces social
relations

Page’s ( 2003 ) study of representations in the media of

Cherie Blair, wife of the former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. Page shows how representations of Cherie
Blair in the media as a lawyer, a wife and, especially, a
working mother aim to establish a certain relationship
between her and the public and, in particular, other
working mothers.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
3. Discourse both reflects and reproduces social
relations

While Cherie Blair is largely presented by the media as a

success story for managing her role as a working
mother, as Page points out, working mothers are more
typically presented in negative terms in everyday
discourse in a way that produces quite different
readings of the term and, in turn, different views of
working women who have children.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
4. Ideologies are produced and reflected in the use
of discourse

Another key principle of critical discourse analysis is

that ideologies are produced and reflected in the use
of discourse. This includes ways of representing and
constructing society such as relations of power, and
relations based on gender, class and ethnicity, e.g. the
study of Mallinson and Brewster of US restaurant
workers’ views of their customers.
Principles of critical discourse analysis
4. Ideologies are produced and reflected in the use of discourse
Critical discourse studies, then, aim to make connections between
social and cultural practices and the values and assumptions that
underlie the discourse.
It aims to unpack what people say and do in their use of discourse in
relation to their views of the world, themselves and their
relationships with each other.
 It takes the view that the relationship between language and
meaning is never arbitrary in that the choice of a particular genre or
rhetorical strategy brings with it particular presuppositions,
meanings, ideologies and intentions.
Doing critical discourse analysis
Critical discourse analysis ‘includes not only a description
and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers
an explanation of why and how discourses work’ (Rogers
2004 : 2).

Researchers working within this perspective are

concerned with a critical theory of the social world, the
relationship of language and discourse in the construction
and representation of the social world, and a methodology
that allows them to describe, interpret and explain such
relationships (Rogers 2011 : 3).
Doing critical discourse analysis
Accordingly, a critical discourse analysis starts with:

1. Genre – deciding what discourse type, or genre, the text represents.

To what extent and in what way the text conforms to it (or not). It
may also consider to what extent the producer of the text has gone
beyond the normal boundaries for the genre to create a particular
effect.

2. Text framing – how the content of the text is presented, and the sort
of perspective the writer or speaker is taking.

3. Foregrounding and backgrounding – what concepts and issues

are emphasized (foregrounded), as well as what concepts and issues
are played down (backgrounded) in the text.
Doing critical discourse analysis
At the sentence level, the following features need to be
considered:

1. Topicalization of sentences – what has been put at

the front of each sentence to indicate what it is ‘about’.
2. agent-patient relations in the discourse – ‘who is
doing what to whom’. That is, who has the most
authority and power in the discourse. It may also
consider what agents have been left out of sentences
such as when the passive voice is used, and why this has
been done.
Doing critical discourse analysis
At the word and phrase level, the following features
might be considered:
Connotations of particular words and phrases.
Degree of formality or informality of the text.
Degree of technicality.
Degrees of certainty and attitude which are
expressed by the choice of words.
Doing critical discourse analysis
The procedure an analyst follows in this kind of

analysis depends on the research situation, the

research question and the texts that are being
studied. What is essential, however, is that there is
some attention to the critical, discourse and analysis in
whatever focus is taken up in the analysis (Rogers
2011).
Critical discourse analysis and genre
A critical discourse analysis considers the genre(s) that
have been chosen for achieving a particular discourse
goal, e.g. Flowerdew (2004) study of the Hong Kong
government’s promotion campaign of Hong Kong as a
‘world-class city’ in which he discusses the various
genres that were involved in constructing this view of
Hong Kong, and how each of the genres played a role
in the construction of this particular view of Hong
Kong.
Critical discourse analysis and genre
He then carries out an analysis of three different genres
which made this claim: a public consultation document,
the Hong Kong annual yearbook and a video that was
produced to promote Hong Kong as ‘Asia’s World City’.

He also shows how the genre (the public consultation

document) is involved in the construction of his view.
That is, the language used is of ‘telling’ rather than of
‘asking’. The tone of the text was prescriptive in its use of
the modal verb will, for example, as in every Hong Kong
resident will, and This will ensure.
Critical discourse analysis and framing
A further way of doing a critical analysis is to examine
the way in which the content of a text is used; that is,
the way in which the content of the text is presented to
its audience, and the sort of perspective, and slant the
writer or speaker is taking.

Related to this is what is foregrounded and what is

backgrounded in the text; that is, what the author has
chosen to emphasize, de-emphasize or, indeed, leave
out of the text (Huckin 1997).
Critical discourse analysis and framing
The text framing of a newspaper report on a
demonstration at a nuclear test site in the U.S. reflects
that a ‘police versus protesters’ frame is foregrounded,
and also presented, rather than the social, public
health or environmental issues they are protesting
about. Thus, The protesters are presented negatively,
as trespassers, rather than as people with a concern for
the environmental future of their country.
Critical discourse analysis and framing
The topicalization in the text. As Huckin shows, the
topic of the sentences support his claim that the text is
‘about’ protesters versus officials, not the issues that
provoked the demonstration. Notice the the topic of
each sentence in following examples:
 More than 700 people were arrested Saturday during an
anti-nuclear protest at the Nevada Test Site.
 Thousands turned out for the demonstration.
 A sponsor of the protest, American Peace Test , said the
crowd was 3,000 to 4,000 strong.
Critical discourse analysis and framing

The tactics used by the writer put a particular slant on

the text and encourage the reading of the text in a

particular way. Analyses of this kind, thus, aim to
bring hidden meanings to the surface by unpacking
the assumptions, priorities and values that underlie
texts.
Critical discourse analysis and larger data sets

Much of the work in critical discourse analysis often

draws its discussion from the analysis of only a few
texts which have sometimes been criticized for being
overly selective and lacking in objectivity.

One way in which the scale of texts used for a critical

analysis can be expanded is through the use of texts
that are available on the world wide web.
Critical discourse analysis and larger data sets
According to Mautner 2005, the following issues need
to be considered when using data from the world wide
web for a critical (or indeed any kind of) discourse
study:
Identify the source of texts on the web.
Determining which texts have more authority on a
topic than others on the web.
Identifying the person writing on the web.
The multimodal nature of texts.
Critical discourse analysis and larger data sets
An example which draws on the strengths of the web’s
capacity to collect a lot of relevant data and shows the
enormous potential of using the world wide web for the
critical study of the use of discourse is that of Mautner’s
(2005b ) study of the term ‘the entrepreneurial university’.
She observed that the use of the term entrepreneurial
university brings together the discourses of business and
economics with the discourse of the university.
Moreover, the term was not used positively in all the texts
that she examined.
Criticisms of critical discourse analysis
Critical discourse analysis has been criticized for the
following reasons:
 It is very similar to earlier stylistic analyses that took place
in the area of literary criticism.
 It does not always consider the role of the reader in the
consumption and interpretation of a text, sometimes
mistaking themselves for a member of the audience the
text is aimed at.
 It does not always provide sufficiently detailed, and
systematic, analyses of the texts that it examines.
Criticisms of critical discourse analysis
 Furthermore, there have been calls for critical discourse
analysts to be more critical and demanding of their tools of
analysis, as well as aim for more thoroughness and strength of
evidence for the claims that they make.
 Writers such as Cameron (2001) discuss textual interpretation
in critical discourse analysis saying it is an exaggeration to say
that any reading of a text is a possible or valid one.
 She also agrees with the view that a weakness in critical
discourse analysis is its reliance on just the analyst’s
interpretation of the texts.
Criticisms of critical discourse analysis
There have also been some suggestions as ways of
responding to the previously mentioned criticisms:
 Critical discourse studies could be enhanced through a
more detailed linguistic analysis of its texts than
sometimes occurs.
 In addition, critical discourse studies can be expended
by drawing on work such as schema theory and work
in the area of language and cognition.
Criticisms of critical discourse analysis
Threadgold (2003) proposes a greater bringing
together of work in the area of cultural studies with
work in the area of critical discourse analysis,
suggesting the issue of performativity can be given
greater prominence in this work to give a better
explanation and understanding of what people ‘do’ in
their use of spoken and written discourse.
Thank You