Critical discourse analysis

Critical discourse analysis is a methodology that enables a vigorous

assessment of what is meant when language is used to describe and explain.
There is a proliferation of terms within critical discourse analysis which is
reflective of the various influences in the development of the methodology.
There is however a broadly agreed agenda in these studies;

‘to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and

determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b)
wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate
how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically
shaped by relations of power and struggles over power’ (Fairclough 1995:
132).

Texts, language, communication should therefore always be considered in

their social context, they both shape and are informed by wider processes
within society. In this manner texts do not merely passively report upon the
world, but they imbue it with meaning, fabricate it, shape perspectives and
call the world into being. The broad term discourse can be employed in these
circumstances as it refers to the various ways in which communication
between people is achieved. Discourse can be considered as an ‘active
relation to reality’ (Fairclough 1992: 41). Fairclough (2003: 26) has delineated
three characteristics of discourse which describe its operation within social
life, as ‘part of the action.’ These are;

Genres (ways of acting)

Discourses (ways of representing)

Styles (ways of being)

‘Genres’ refer to a particular way of manipulating and framing discourse;

examples of genres are church sermons, interviews and political speeches.
Genres are significant because they provide a framework for an audience to
comprehend discourse, though evidently due to this quality, ‘genres’ can be
the locus of power, domination and resistance. ‘Discourses/representation’ is
crucial in assessing the means by which apparently similar aspects of the
world can be appreciated and understood from different perspectives or
positions. Finally, ‘styles’ are the ways in which discourse is used to
constitute a sense of being and identity, how identification is located through
the application and manner of particular discourses.

Discourse is thereby a means of being and doing and the way this specific
practice is understood and interpreted is demonstrative of a further three
analytical elements of study; production, form and reception. The structure
and relationship of these three and their interplay through political and
cultural concerns develop the myriad of social effects of discourse
(Fairclough 2003: 11). This social effect is dependent upon the audience
accessing, comprehending, using and resisting this discourse. Discourse
should not be considered in isolation; rather, discourses act upon and
influence one another in an act of intertextuality. This term concerns the way
that specific discourses are understood only with reference to separate
discourses. The Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (1986) described this
situation as ‘dialogism’, discourses referencing implicitly or explicitly other
discourses as a further indication of the social life of discourse. Bakhtin
(1986, 121) stated that, ‘the author has his own inalienable right to the word,
but the listener also has his own rights, and those whose voices are heard in
the word before the author comes upon it also have their rights.’

The subtle use of dialogism implied by Bakhtin is that discourses relate to

other past forms of communication whilst foreseeing future modes of
discourse. Intertextuality or dialogism is a means by which discourse situates
itself within a web of social, political and cultural concerns. The plethora of
discourse however ensures that forms are always competing against one
another for dominance, power and control (after Foucault 1980: 35). Within
society certain discourses are more powerful than others. This is not to deny
the power of agency within the reception of discourse, rather it reveals the
subtle means by which agents make themselves into subjects through
discursive features. An obvious example would be the government or legal
codes which prescribe the boundaries of operation in everyday life. There are
however more subtle domineering discourses which function to maintain
perceptions and attitudes. These may operate on a subtle level; van Dijk
(1991) for instance examined the racist discourses which operated within the
British press. By practising certain modes of exclusionary discourse,
particularly the use of pronouns, ’we’, ‘us’, ‘them’, newspapers in Britain
were shown to participate and propagate in a discourse of a dominating,
white, overwhelming middle-class Britain. The mode of reporting was shown
to be less subtle as the, ‘dominant definition of ethnic affairs has consistently
been a negative and stereotypical one: minorities or immigrants are seen as
a problem or a threat, and are portrayed preferably in association with crime,
violence, conflict, unacceptable cultural differences, or other forms of
deviance (van Dijk 1991: 20). This discourse is certainly opposed and
disputed by alternative discourses, but the power of the position the Press
hold ensures that it is the former discourse which is heard. Bakhtin (1984)
referred to this variety of discourse as ‘heteroglossia’, a term which
recognises the multitude of forms of discourse and the means in which some
succeed in their dominance.

Critical discourse analysis therefore examines the form, structure and

content of discourse, from the grammar and wording employed in its
creation to its reception and interpretation by a wider audience. The
employment of verbs, pronouns and nouns within discourse is as much part
of this analysis as the assessment of the content and tone of the discourse.
The methodology facilitates an assessment based upon more than simple
quotations but upon what the discourse is doing and what it is being asked to
do in its production, dissemination and consumption.

Bibliography

Bakhtin, M. (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, (Theory and History of

Literature, Volume 8). Edited and translated by C. Emerson. Manchester.
Manchester University Press.

Bakhtin, M. (1986) Speech genres and other late essays. Trans. By V.W.
McGee. Austin. University of Texas Press.

Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Polity Press. Cambridge.

Fairclough, N. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis. Longman. London.

Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual analysis for social

research. New York and London. Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: selected interviews and other writings

1972-1977. Edited by C. Gordon. Brighton. Harvester Press.
Van Dijk, T. (1991) Racism and the Press. New York and London. Routledge.

Discourse studies, says Jan Renkema, refers to “the discipline devoted to the
investigation of the relationship between form and function in verbal
communication” (Introduction to Discourse Studies, 2004). Dutch linguist
Teun van Dijk, author of The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (1985) and the
founder of several journals, is generally regarded as the “founding father” of
contemporary discourse studies.

Etymology: from the Latin, “run about”

“Discourse in context may consist of only one or two words as in stop or no

smoking. Alternatively, a piece of discourse can be hundreds of thousands of
words in length, as some novels are. A typical piece of discourse is
somewhere between these two extremes.”

(Eli Hinkel and Sandra Fotos, New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in

Second Language Classrooms. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002)

“Discourse is the way in which language is used socially to convey broad

historical meanings. It is language identified by the social conditions of its
use, by who is using it and under what conditions. Language can never be
‘neutral’ because it bridges our personal and social worlds.”

(Frances Henry and Carol Tator, Discourses of Domination. University of

Toronto Press, 2002)

Contexts and Topics of Discourse

“Discourse can also be used to refer to particular contexts of language use,

and in this sense it becomes similar to concepts like genre or text type. For
example, we can conceptualize political discourse (the sort of language used
in political contexts) or media discourse (language used in the media). In
addition, some writers have conceived of discourse as related to particular
topics, such as an environmental discourse or colonial discourse (which may
occur in many different genres). Such labels sometimes suggest a particular
attitude towards a topic (e.g. people engaging in environmental discourse
would generally be expected to be concerned with protecting the
environment rather than wasting resources. Related to this, Foucault (1972:
49) defines discourse more ideologically as ‘practices which systematically
form the objects of which they speak.’”

(Paul Baker and Sibonile Ellece, Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. Continuum,
2011)

Discourse and Text

“’Discourse’ is sometimes used in contrast with ‘text,’ where ‘text’ refers to

actual written or spoken data, and ‘discourse’ refers to the whole act of
communication involving production and comprehension, not necessarily
entirely verbal. . . . The study of discourse, then, can involve matters like
context, background information or knowledge shared between a speaker
and hearer.”

(Meriel Bloor and Thomas Bloor, The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis:
an Introduction. Routledge, 2013)

Discourse as a Joint Activity

“[D]iscourse is more than a message between sender and receiver. In fact

sender and receiver are metaphors that obfuscate what is really going on in
communication. Specific illocutions have to be linked to the message
depending on the situation in which discourse takes place. . . .
[Psycholinguist Herbert] Clark compares language in use with a business
transaction, paddling together in a canoe, playing cards or performing music
in an orchestra.
“A central notion in Clark’s study is common ground. The joint activity is
undertaken to accumulate the common ground of the participants. With
common ground is meant the sum of the joint and mutual knowledge, beliefs
and suppositions of the participants.”

(Jan Renkeme, Introduction to Discourse Studies. John Benjamins, 2004)

Discourse in the Social Sciences

“Within social science, . . . discourse is mainly used to describe verbal

reports of individuals. In particular, discourse is analyzed by those who are
interested in language and talk and what people are doing with their speech.
...

“The term discourse is also used to refer to meanings at the more macro
level. This approach does not study the individual words spoken by people
but the language used to describe aspects of the world, and has tended to
be taken by those using a sociological perspective.”(Jane Ogden, Health and
the Construction of the Individual. Psychology Press, 2002)

Atta Ur Rahman Jadoon

These questions may help you prepare for the contest:

1/ would it be limiting to suggest that discourse analysis is mainly concerned

with two major functions: the interpersonal and the textual?

2/ Halliday (1985) claims that impeccably well-formed language is typical of

casual, spontaneous speech… in this view, he is completely at odds with
Chomsky (1965) who assumes that actual language is ‘degenerate’ and
deviates from the rules of grammar” Discuss.

3/ Discuss fully this statement made by Chomsky 1972:

Personally, I am primarily intrigued by the possibility of learning something

from the study of lge that will bring to light inherent properties of the human
mind”

4/ Discuss Chomsky’s main contributions to the study of linguistic universals.

5/ language contact doesn’t lead only to linguistic confusion. Demonstrate

with appropriate examples

7/ Account for the different contributions of Discourse analysis to lge

teaching

8/ Account for the shift of focus from the teacher to the learner and its
effects on the foreign lge teaching methodology

9/ the learner nowadays is viewed as the central element in the process of

learning and teaching . How can applied linguistics bring its contribution to
achieve such a goal?

10/ what is the status of ELT in Algeria?

11/ According to academic research, linguists have demonstrated that there

is not one single best teaching method for everyone in all contexts.
Comment!
12/ Harmer believes that the failure in EFL teaching is largely due to the fact
that many approaches and methods are based on the very western idea of
what constitutes good learning. Comment on this statement with reference
to ELT in Algeria.

13/ Discuss the implications of deductive Vs inductive teaching of grammar

in terms of students’ reaction and differences in effectiveness