CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SHORT STORY “THE NEW

CONSTITUTION” BY SAADAT HASSAN MANTO

Student names:

Laiba Rehman

Fatma

Department of English Literature and Applied linguistics

Government Post Graduate College Timergara
Session 2018-22
Date of submission:
 CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that the thesis entitled “CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS of the short story
“THE NEW CONSTITUTION” by “SAADAT HASAN MANTO” submitted by Laiba Rehman
and Fatma, is worth the standard as a fulfillment for awarding the degree of BS (4YEARS) in
English Literature and Linguistics.

SUPERVISOR
__________________________

Mr. Sulaiman Ali Shah

Lecturer,

Department of English

CHAIRMAN

__________________________

Mr. Sirajuddin

Department of English
 DEDICATION

We dedicate this work to our honorable and beloved parents, whose prayers and best wishes
always accompanied us in the tough journey of our life. We also dedicate it to our respectable
and kind teacher Mr. Sulaiman Ali Shah who has been so supportive to us throughout this study
as well as our academic journey of 4 years education through the Department of English
literature and linguistics, Department of English Literature and Applied linguistics Government
Post Graduate College Timergara.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, we are grateful to Allah almighty, the most merciful, omnipotent and omnipresent
who gave us the courage and wisdom to undertake and successfully accomplish this task.

We humbly express our foremost appreciation and indebtedness to Mr. Sulaiman Ali Shah
Lecturer in English, and Government Post Graduate College Timergara. whose special
interest in our research and kind supervision enabled us to perform the present task. We will
always be indebted to our supervisor who helped us in our research during this pandemic.
Without his help and assistance this thesis could not have been completed in its present form
during this time of crisis. Last but not the least, we are thankful to our parents who made us
believe in ourselves. They have faith in us and we will always make them proud by striving until
the last drop of ink in our pen.
 ABSTRACT:
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a tool used to analyses the spoken and written texts to
expose the unrevealed ideologies. The purpose of the research is how the author has controlled
the mind of people through the writing in short story “New Constitution”. The objective of the
research is to highlight that what kind of lexicons (discourse markers, modifiers) are being used
to control the minds of readers. The researchers have manually collected all kinds of lexicons
(discourse markers and modifiers) from the story. This present study answers two questions: 1)
what kind of discourse markers and modifiers are used by Saadat Hassan Manto to control the
minds of readers? 2) How these discourse markers and modifiers are helping to clarify the main
theme of the story “New Constitution”? For the analysis of data, Van Dijk’s Sociocognitive
model (2006) based on ideology and discourse, has been applied to explain the mind control.
The result of the study is that the author has extensively used the lexicons which control the
minds of her readers and engaged them in story.

KEYWORDS: Discourse markers, Modifiers, Van Dijk Model.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter-1............................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................2

1.1What is discourse ...................................................................................................................................3

1.2 Critical discourse analysis.....................................................................................................................4
1.3 Scope of critical discourse analysis.......................................................................................................5
1.4 Van Dijk Socio-cognitive Model...........................................................................................................6
1.5 story and critical discourse analysis.......................................................................................................6
1.6 Statement of the problem.......................................................................................................................6
1.7 Objectives .............................................................................................................................................7
1.8 Research questions................................................................................................................................7
1.9 Purpose………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

1.10 Rationale………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

1.11 Significance……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

1.12 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Chapter-2............................................................................................................................................7

LITRETURE REIEW........................................................................................................................7

2.1 Distinction of the study

2.2 what is discourse analysis......................................................................................................................8

2.3 Approches to discourse analysis............................................................................................................9
2.4 Critical discourse analysis.....................................................................................................................9
2.5 Approaches to CDA…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2.6 Van Dijk Socio-cognitive Model……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2.7 Researches on short story……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Chapter 3....................................................................................................................................................12

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................................12

3.1 Overview................................................................................................................................................12
3.2 Research tools........................................................................................................................................13

3.3 Theoritical framework...........................................................................................................................14

Chapter 4................................................................................................22

ANALYSIS AND
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………….

4.1 Overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

4.2 Data analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Chaper-5...................................................................................................................................................40

CONCLUSION AND RESULT..............................................................................................................40

 Chapter-1
INDRODUCTION

The greatest mass movement of humanity in history was that of partition of

the sub-continent in August 197.In which fourteen million people moved and
two million died. The partition turned Muslim, Hindu and Sikh against each
other. It was having a disasters effect on mind of people because the
partition was bloody and brutal. Sadat Hassan Manto was one of the victims
of brutal partition; to him the partition appeared senseless. He was an
established writer before August 197 but the stories he wrote after partition
cement his reputation Sadat Hassan Manto was born on 11 May 1912 in
Ludhiana and died on 18 January 1955, lived both in Bombay and Lahore. He
loved collecting shoes and fountain pens.
Manto composed images that reflects and builds pre- and post-colonial
realities with stylishness, originality, simplicity and harsh, cold honesty. He
was indeed a greatest short story writer. He was introduced to Russian and
French authors because of influence of the scholar and writer Abdul Bari Alig.
First, he translates Hugo’s The Last Day of a Condemned Man in Urdu which
was publishes as Sarguzasht-E-Aseer.In Bomby he became friend with
Naushad, Ismat chugtai and Ashok Kumar. In Bombay for a film magazine, he
was an editor. Then he left the job move to Delhi to work for All India Radio’s
Urdu service. (Theguardian,2016).
He was a writer, playwright and author. Writing mainly in Urdu; he produced
22 collections of short stories, a novel, five series of radio plays, three
collections of essays and two collections of personal sketches. Theme of his
writing is mainly about sex and desires, alcoholics and prostitutes. He was
charged six times with obscenity. His best-known short stories are held in
high esteem by writers and critics. He is best known for his stories about the
partition of India, which he opposed immediately following independence in
1947. (Wikipeia,2013). Manto is known predominantly as a shot story writer,
but he also wrote in different genres such as personality sketches, essays
and radio plays. He is described as the chronicler of fiction on Partition and
many of his memorable stories are woven around the horrors of the event.
2012 was Mantos centenary year and the Government of Pakistan finally
decided to honor Manto with the Nishan-e Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civilian
honor. (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oct 2008). Due to addiction
to alcohol his life was short, he died at the age of forty-three.
(Theguardian,2016)).
Manto’s stories show that the margin can speak to the center. Manto
investigates both practice and language of colonial power in many ways.
Sometimes, he narrates the impact of colonial power on life, at other times
he writes on the effects of colonial policies on the low strata of colonial India
as in “The New Constitution”. (InternationalTheNews,2019). The choice of
words he made in the story shows that how he has exposed the situation in
British India, their imperialism and the unawareness of people in Colonial
India. By choosing the protagonist of his story from common people of
society he has conveyed the themes in more effective way.
In the Short story, ‘The New Constitution’ Manto talks about the bitter
truths of British Colonial system. He very successfully projects the
highhandedness, cruelty and callousness of the British soldiers on the
common Indian including the Muslims. The British Raj in India produced an
uninviting story of cruelty and arrogance on the part of English rulers who
considered the Indians as a lower creation of God. The courts were like
puppets in the hands of goras the Indians were having no legal protection.
government, an administration. There was having no concept of human
rights for Indians. The story is related to the era before World War second.
The anti-Raj activities was on peak and the control of British Raj was
weakening’s Indians were getting awareness about their rights. The
antigovernment parties were fueling their activities up bomb blasts and
arrests were observation of every day.so in such circumstances the innocent
people of Inia take the introduction of new law as a whiff of fresh air. One of
the best characters portraying the innocence, sincerity a fervor of command
people is Ustad Mangu. Due to his incomplete knowledge and innocent faith
on the lies of petitions he starts dreaming revolutionary changes in the state.
Common people were dying without fulfilling of promises of good life. In this
way Ustad Mangon is representing whole class of suffered people whose
rights is violated by British readjusted Mango is among those people who is
very enthusiastic about this act. He thought it a way of freedom. Thus, the
Government of India Act 1935 was a lollypop for the enslaved people of
India.
Every day Ustad Mango went out with his tonga and use to hear discussion
about the new act on its results. He heard some lawyers talking of the
technical aspects of the new act. He was so happy by dreaming of free India
and his expectations were mounting day by day. On first April he went out
with proper preparation a confidence that they WILL get freedom.
He hates gorras so much and use to call them human monkeys and white
mice. He even called them lepers and disliked their white complexion
equating them to the rotten dead bodies. The attitude of goras in general
and gora soldiers in particular aroused strong reaction in his heart and they
said that they order Indians, as they were their fathers seventh was sick of
the Urdu o Hindi spoken by them and contemptuously called it puppet.
He thought that this act is going to change the fate of Indians who were
suffering from slavery and unwanted rules. His misunderstandings give him a
new confidence and he dared to confront a gora soldier who had been
insolent a harsh to him a year before. He misbehaved with the gorra he
mercilessly thrashed him and was out of control. People tried to control him
but he was hitting the gora and shouting that it was a new day with a new
law for Indians. But he was mistaken and some policeman came and arrest
him. Even behind the bars he was shouting about the new law. But he was
silenced when they told him the reality of presence of same old law
according to which the Indians were the slaves. (Notesforbs,2016).

1.1 What is Discourse?

The word "discourse" has derived from a Latin word “discurses” which
means conversation, or speech. But modern science gives discourse rather
broad meanings. So, discourse covers wide area of human life but here term
"discourse" is explained in the context of Linguistic Especially Applied
Linguistics. Two groups of the Linguists are denoting the discourse. One
group says it “Texts” only while other says it as “Speech”. Two broad
categories have described by Fairclough (1992) as Discourse as an abstract
noun emphasis on large units such as paragraphs, utterances, whole texts or
genre. Discourse as a countable noun presenting a practice signifying the
word.
According to Cook (1990), novels, short conversations, or groans might be
named “discourse”. Hodge and Kress (1988) revealed the difference
between message, Text and discourse. The message is the smallest semiotic
form, which characterized by a social content, purpose, a source and a goal.
There are two larger units as Text and Discourse. Hodge and Kress (1988)
distinguish the texts and discourses as ‘Text’ is a structure of message while
they define discourse as “the Social process in which texts are embedded”.
Texts have their place in dynamic social system of sign. So, texts are the site
which continually changed and the material realization of systems of signs.

1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study
of discourse that views language as a form of social practice. Scholars
working in the tradition of CDA generally argue that (non-linguistic) social
practice and linguistic practice constitute one another and focus on
investigating how societal power relations are established and reinforced
through language use. (Wikipedia, 2022).
Critical Discourse Studies, also known as Critical Discourse Analysis, is a
multi-methodical and multidisciplinary field interested in the discursive
manifestation and reproduction of dominance, social control, power abuse,
and of social inequalities. It is primarily interested in discourses produced by
social actors who control public discourse, such as the political elite, business
corporations or the media. Critical Discourse Studies takes discourse as a
form of social practice and analyses its relationship with the social structures
by which it is shaped. Critical discourse analysts typically inquire about, for
example, the discursive legitimating and persuasion strategies of right-wing
populist parties, and the impact of anti-immigrant/racist discourses on the
community in the prevailing socio-political context (Wodak&Meyer, 2015).
In the Late 1970s a group of Linguists and educationists (presented). Literary
theory that concerned with Critical Linguistics in the beginning. CL may be
set of Linguistic procedures to text to uncover the hidden cultural and
ideological meanings. So, the basic aim of CL is to unveil the hidden ideology
and the same is the central point of analysis of Critical Discourse Analysis.
Finally, C L gave birth to CDA and with the works of Fairclough and Wodak
etc. In educational research, CDA has become a separate field.
Critical Discourse is basically an analytical research technique which
examines the way social power abuse or dominates. In Critical Discourse
Analysis, the word critical is self-explanatory which discourse the hidden
ideology and social power.

1.3 Scope of Critical Discourse Analysis

The discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis can be summarized as under:
 Critical Discourse Analysis deals with historical social orders.
 Critical Discourse Analysis deals with individual social orders and social
processes.
 Critical Discourse Analysis deals with ideology.
 Critical Discourse Analysis deals with power relations both individual and
society.
 Critical Discourse Analysis views people’s social behaviors which
represented in their discourses.
 Critical Discourse Analysis discusses the relation between text and
society.
 Critical Discourse Analysis uncovers the individual and social position.

1.4 Van Dijk Socio-cognitive Model

Within the overall framework of Critical Discourse Studies, the Socio-
cognitive Approach (hereinafter SCA) developed by Teun A. Van Dijk focuses
on the cognitive aspects of discourse production and comprehension (Van
Dijk2018).Van Dijk argues that, there is no direct or linear correspondence
between discourse structures and social structures but discourses function
through a cognitive interface: “the mental representations of language users
as individuals and as social members” (Van Dijk 2015). As Van Dijk points
out, although discourse is socially conditioned and impacts upon the
functioning of society, both the formulation and interpretation of discourse is
the aggregate function of the participants underlying cognitive processes,
personal and socially shared knowledge.
Discourse is thus defined as a form of social interaction in society and at the
same time as the expression and reproduction of social cognition. Local and
global social structures condition discourse but they do so through the
cognitive mediation of the socially shared knowledge, ideologies and
personal mental models of social members as they subjectively define
communicative events as context models. (Van Dijk 2014).

1.5 Story and Critical Discourse Analysis

Van Dijk (1983) describes that when the Sociolinguists analyze a story or
novel according to Socio-linguistics, s views they have concluded that story
telling has not only different structural categories according to the cultures
but also story telling puts particular cons traits on,
 Who can tell
 To whom
 Under what circumstances
 How in particular culture, greetings, rituals or speech events are taking
place (Van Dijk 1983) So, for analyzing a story or a novel four points are
important that are mentioned above.

1.6 Statement of the problem

Critical discourse analysis is emerged at the University of East Anglia from
critical linguistics by Roger Fowler and follow scholars in 1970s, this research
aims to expose the hidden contextual facts in the text of the short story ‘The
New Constitution’ by Saadat Hasan Manto. This master piece of fiction has
been taken from B.A course a short story, to find out that how the writer has
used different Markers and Modifiers to expose the situation in British India,
their imperialism and the unawareness of people in society.

1.7 Objectives
1. To discover discourse markers and modifiers used by Saadat Hasan Manto
for controlling the minds of readers.
2. To find out discourse markers and modifiers which helps to clarify the
main theme of the story ‘The New Constitution’.

1.8 Research questions

1. What kind of discourse markers and modifiers are used by Saadat Hassan
Manto to control the minds of readers?
2. How discourse markers and modifiers help to clarify the main theme of the
story ‘The New Constitution’?

1.9 Purpose
The purpose of the study is to discover and describe discourse markers and
modifiers and to analyze their impacts on the reader’s mind.
1.11 Rationale
Numerous researchers have investigated the short story ‘The New
Constitution’ by Saadat Hasan Manto but they have study other aspects as,
Pragmatic Analysis of the short story and many works has done on his other
short stories. This research aims to investigate this short story through the
perspective of Van Dijk Socio-Cognitive Model.

1.12 Significance
This study is very important because it aims to investigate Saadat Hasan
Manto short story ‘The New Constitution’ through the perspective of Van Dijk
Socio-Cognitive Model. Second, it shall help in enhancing reader’s
understanding. Third, it shall attract the attention of readers towards the
works of Saadat Hasan Manto. Finally, it shall be helpful for researchers who
want to investigate Saadat Hassan Manto works in Pakistani literature in
English.

1.13 Limitations
Our investigation shall be limited to find out those discourse makers and
discourse modifiers which are used by Saadat Hasan Manto to control the
mind of readers. This research only focuses on this.

Chapter-2
LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review means the research work of other, authors on Saadat

Hassan Manto “The New Constitution”, “The New Constitution” was
written by Saadat Hassan Manto in 1938. The story the new constitution is
translation of Manto’s famous story Naya Qanoon written in 1938. The story
is about Mangu, a tongawalla who hates the British and is look inking forward
to the new constitution which in his view will transform the fate of India and
change the lives of countless Indian like him. The reference is to the
government of India act, 1935 which granted a large measure of autonomy
to the province of British India and sought to establish a “Federation of
India”. The simple Tongawalla knows nothing of the political and legal
implication of the new act.
He bases his expectations on snippets of conversations which he catches
from his various passengers. The story recreates the political climate of the
times which is filled with hatred against British imperialism and the Desir of
Indians for freedom. The story is laced with humored and irony; Manto not
only makes fun of the naivety of people like Mangu but also seems to
suggests that despite tall promises, nothing really changes for the common
man. “The New Constitution” revels Manto as a political and social
commentator.

2.1 Distinction of this Study

Our research study ‘Critical Discourse Analysis of “The New Constitution”
is different from other researches because there is no work on CDA of this
short story is available. We have other researches on CDA of different kind of
literature and political speeches but we do not have CDA of the “The New
Constitution”. Same as we have different researches on the short story The
“New Constitution” but we are missing CDA approach for analysis of this
short story.

2.2 What is Discourse Analysis?

The term ‘discourse analyses was first used by the sentence linguist, Zelig
Harris in his 1952 article entitled ‘Discourse Analysis’. According to him,
discourse analysis is a method for the analysis of connected speech or
writing, for continuing descriptive linguistics beyond the limit of a simple
sentence at a time (Harris 1952). Meanwhile, scholars have attested to the
difficulty in coming up with a comprehensive and acceptable definition for
discourse analysis. However, a way to simplify the attempt to define
discourse analysis is to say that discourse analysis is ‘the analysis of
discourse’. The next question, therefore, would be ‘what is discourse?
Discourse can simply be seen as language in use (Brown & Yule 1983; Cook
1989). It therefore follows that discourse analysis is the analysis of language
in use. By ‘language in use’, we mean the set of norms, preferences and
expectations which relate language to context. Discourse analysis can also
be seen as the organization of language above the sentence level. The term
‘text’ is, sometimes, used in place of ‘discourse’. The concern of discourse
analysis is not restricted to the study of formal properties of language; it also
takes into consideration what language is used for in social and cultural
contexts.

Discourse analysis, therefore, studies the relationship between language

(written, spoken – conversation, institutionalized forms of talk) and the
contexts in which it is used. What matters is that the text is felt to be
coherent. Guy Cook (1989:6-7) describes discourse as language in use or
language used to communicate something felt to be coherent which may, or
may not correspond to a correct sentence or series of correct sentences.
Discourse analysis, therefore, according to him, is the search for what gives
discourse coherence. He posits that discourse does not have to be
grammatically correct, can be anything from a grunt or simple expletive,
through short conversations and scribbled notes, a novel or a lengthy legal
case. What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it
communicates and is recognized by its receivers as coherent. Similarly,
Stubbs (1983:1) perceives discourse analysis as ‘a conglomeration of
attempts to study the organization of language and therefore to study larger
linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written text.’ Again, we
affirm that what matters in the study of discourse, whether as language in
use or as language beyond the clause, is that language is organized in a
coherent manner such that it communicates something to its receivers.

Discourse analysis evolved from works in different disciplines in the 1960s

and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, anthropology, psychology
and sociology. Some of the scholars and the works that either gave birth to,
or helped in the development of discourse analysis include the following: J.L.
Austin whose How to Do Things with Words (1962) introduced the popular
social theory, speech-act theory. Dell Hymes (1964) provided a sociological
perspective with the study of speech.
John Searle (1969) developed and improved on the work of Austin. The
linguistic philosopher, M.A.K. Halliday greatly influenced the linguistic
properties of discourses (e.g. Halliday 1961), and in the 1970s he provided
sufficient framework for the consideration of the functional approach to
language (e.g. Halliday 1973). H.P. Grice (1975) and Halliday (1978) were
also influential in the study of language as social action reflected in the
formulation of conversational maxims and the emergence of social semiotics.

The work of Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) also developed a model for the
description of teacher-pupil talk. The study grew to be a Discourse Analysis
– Ikenna Kamalu & Ayo Ossawa (2015) ▪ 171 major approaches to discourse.
Some work on conversation analysis also aided the development of discourse
analysis. Some of such works from the ethnomethodological tradition include
the work of Gompers and Hymes 1972. Some other works influential in the
study of conversational norms, turn-taking, and other aspects of spoken
interaction include Goffman (1976, 1979), and Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson
(1974). The brief review above shows that the approach to discourse is
anything but uniform, so below is an attempt to provide a more systematic
insight into some of the approaches to discourse.

2.3 Approaches to Discourse Analysis

The term ‘discourse analyses has been employed by people in a variety of
academic disciplines and departments to describe what they do, how they do
it, or both. Barbara Johnstone (2002: 1) observes that while many of these
people have training in general linguistics, some identify themselves
primarily as linguists, yet others identify themselves primarily with fields of
study as varied and disparate as anthropology, communication, cultural
studies, psychology or education among others. This shows that, under the
label discourse analysis, so many people do their own things in their own
ways, relying on methods and approaches that may be peculiar or relevant
to their disciplines or fields of study. However, the only thing all these
endeavors seem to have in common is their interest in studying language
and its effects.

Consequently, Deborah Schifrin (1994:5) recognizes discourse analysis as

one of the vast, but also one of the least defined areas in linguistics. She
points out that one of the reasons is that our understanding of discourse is
based on scholarship from a number of academic disciplines that are actually
very different from one another. Another is that discourse analysis draws not
just from disciplines such as linguistics, anthropology, sociology and
philosophy, from which models and methods for analyzing discourse first
developed, but also the fact that such models and methods have been
employed and extended in engaging problems that emanate from other
academic domains as communication, social psychology, and artificial
intelligence.

Schifrin in her Approaches to Discourse (1994) discusses and compares

some of the different approaches to the linguistic analysis of discourse:
speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of
communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and variation analysis.
This part of the work, therefore, summarizes the approaches to linguistic
analysis of discourse identified by Schifrin. It aims at introducing the reader
to some of the linguistic approaches to discourse that are available to the
analyst. Thus, the reader is by this exercise (the synopsis presented below),
encouraged to see Schifrin (1994) and other related texts for more on these
approaches.

a) Speech Act Theory

The Speech Act Theory was first formulated by the philosopher John Austin
(1962) and was later developed and presented more systematically by
another philosopher John Searle (1969, 1975). The theory proceeds from the
assumption that language is used to perform actions hence its main concern
is on how meaning and action are related to language. John Austin and John
Searle believe that language is not just used to describe the world, but to
perform a range of other actions that can be indicated in the performance of
the utterance itself. For example, ‘I promise to marry you’ and ‘I sentence
you to death’ perform the functions of promising and sentencing
respectively. However, an utterance may perform more than one act at a
time as in: ‘Can you pass the salt?’ which can be understood as both a
question and a request. But one can hardly understand the utterance as a
question to test the physical ability of the hearer but as a request to perform
the action requested. This kind of utterance is known as an indirect speech
act because its illocutionary force is an outcome of the relationship between
two different speech acts.
Schifrin notes that speech act approach to discourse focuses upon
knowledge of underlying conditions for production and interpretation of acts
through words. The context of the utterance helps the hearer in making
sense of an indirect speech act by separating the multiple functions of
utterances from one another. The literal meanings of words and the
contexts in which they occur may interact in our knowledge of the conditions
underlying the realization of acts and interpretation of acts. She further
contends that although speech act theory was not originally designed as a
means of analyzing discourse, some of its insights have been used by many
scholars to help solve problems basic to discourse analysis.

This includes problems of indirect speech act, multifunctionality and context

dependence as in the last example above. Cook (1989) also acknowledges
that speech act theory enables us to see how meaning has become more
and more slippery. Indirection, according to him, is something which human
beings exploit to their advantage. It enables them to avoid committing
themselves and to retreat in front of danger; and this is one of the major
reasons why people speak indirectly.

b) Interactional Sociolinguistic

The approach to discourse known as ‘interactional sociolinguistics’ is

essentially derived from the works of the anthropologist John Gompers and
the sociologist Erving Goffman. The approach, according to Schifrin, has the
most diverse disciplinary origins …it is based in anthropology, sociology, and
linguistics, and shares the concerns of all three fields with culture, society,
and language. The contribution to interactional sociolinguistics made by
John Gompers provides an understanding of how people may share
grammatical knowledge of a language, but differently contextualize what is
said – such that very different messages are produced and understood. The
contribution made by Erving Goffman, on the other hand, provides a
description of how language is situated in particular circumstances of life,
and how it reflects, and adds, meaning and structure in those circumstances.

Schifrin identified the interaction between self and the other, and context, as
the two central issues underlying the work of Gompers and Goffman. Thus,
while the work of Gompers focuses on how interpretations of context
are critical to the communication of information and to another’s
understanding of a speaker’s intention and/or discourse strategy, that of
Goffman focuses on how the organization of social life (in institutions,
interactions, and so on) provides contexts in which both the conduct of
self and communication with another can be ‘made sense of’ (both by
those co-present in an interaction and by outside analysts).

Schifrin further contends that the work of both scholars also provides a
view of language as indexical to a social world: for Gompers, language
is an index to the background cultural understandings that provide
hidden – but nevertheless critical - knowledge about how to make
inferences about what is meant through an utterance; for Goffman,
language is one of a number of symbolic resources that provide an
index to the social identities and relationships being continually
constructed during interaction.
Interactional sociolinguistics provides an approach to discourse that focuses
upon situated meaning and scholars taking this approach combine the ideas
of the anthropologist John Gompers and the sociologist Erving Goffman.
According to Schifrin, what Gumperz contributes to this approach is a set of
tools that provide a framework within which to analyze the use of language
during interpersonal communication. He views language as a socially and
culturally constructed symbol system that both reflects and creates macro-
level social meaning and micro-level interpersonal meanings.

Goffman’s work also focuses upon situated knowledge, the self, and social
context in a way that complements Gumperz’s focus on situated inference:
Goffman provides a sociological framework for describing and understanding
the form and meaning of the social and interpersonal contexts that provide
presuppositions for the interpretation meaning. In all, interactional
sociolinguistics views discourse as a social interaction in which the emergent
construction and negotiation of meaning is facilitated by the use of
language. The work of Goffman forces structural attention to the contexts in
which language is used: situations, occasions, encounters, participation
frameworks, and so on, have forms and meanings that are partially created
and/or sustained by language.

Similarly, language is patterned in ways that reflect those contexts of use.

As Schifrin puts it, language and context co-constitute Issues in the Study of
Language and Literature: Theory & Practice one another: language
contextualizes and is contextualized, such that language does not just
function “in” contexts, language also forms and provides context. Social
interaction is identified as an instance of context. Language, culture, and
society are grounded in interaction: they stand in a reflexive relationship
with the self, the other, and the self-other relationship, and it is out of these
mutually constitutive relationships that discourse is created (Schifrin, 1994).

c) The Ethnography of Communication

The Ethnography of Communication, also known as Ethnography of

Speaking, was developed by Dell Hymes in a series of papers written in the
1960s and 1970s (many of which are collected in his Foundations in
Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach [1974]). Hymes argues that
Chomsky’s definition of competence is too narrow, and that an adequate
approach must distinguish and investigate four aspects of competence. The
four aspects include
(I) systematic potential (to what extent is something not yet realized),

(ii) appropriateness (to what extent is something suitable and effective in

some context),
(iii) occurrence (the extent to which something is done), and
(iv) feasibility (the extent to which something is possible).
In essence, therefore, this term is a critical expansion of Noam Chomsky’s
concept of competence which is only concerned with the linguistic
capabilities of the ideal speaker-hearer. Chomsky’s concept backgrounds
the social function of language. Hymes’ Ethnography of Communication is
concerned with the analysis of language use in its socio-cultural setting. This
approach is based on the premise that the meaning of an utterance can be
understood only in relation to the ‘speech event’ or ‘communicative event,’
in which it is embedded (Hymes 1962).
The character of such speech events (for example, a sermon) is culturally
determined. Ethnography of speaking relates to discourse analysis through
the ethnographic approach where conversational inferences play a key role:
participants link the content of an utterance and other verbal, vocal, and
non-vocal cues with background knowledge. Hymes argues further that
any description of ‘ways of speaking’ will need to provide data along four
interrelated dimensions which are: the linguistic resources available to the
speaker; the rules of interpretation; supra-sentential structuring; and the
norms which govern different types of interaction.

Hymes tries to define the concepts of speech community, speech styles and
speech events in relation to the ethnography of speaking. According to him,
a speech community is any group which shares both linguistic resources and
rules for interaction and interpretation. On speech styles, he says it is more
useful to see a speech community as comprising a set of styles (style, here,
is seen as a mode of doing something). The speech styles also include the
consideration of registers.

d) Conversation Analysis

Conversation analysis is an approach to discourse which has been articulated

by a group of scholars known as ethnomethodologists. They are known as
ethnomethodology’s because they set out to discover what methods people
use to participate in and make sense of interaction. The
ethnomethodologists examined what people did with their words, when they
were not consciously producing samples for linguists. They felt that the
examples produced by professional linguists were unnatural, since these
utterances were not embedded in actually occurring talk, because actual
talk, by contrast, was typically found in everyday conversation (Mey,
2001:137).

Mey further argues that contrary to the received bias of official linguistics,
conversation talk was not in the least incoherent or irregular. It was
discovered that the rules that conversation followed were more like the rules
that people had devised for other social activities; and they resembled those
discovered by researchers in sociology and anthropology for all sorts of
social interaction, much more than they resembled linguistic rules. Hence
the need to develop a technique that was in many respects different from
the classical transcription techniques of linguistics. Schifrin (1994:232)
contends that conversation analysis provides its own assumptions, its own
methodology (including its own terminology), and its own way of theorizing.

The focus of the conversation analyst is chiefly on the organization and

structuring of conversation, and not so much its correctness. Schifrin notes
that even though conversation analysis has its roots in sociology, it still
differs from other branches of sociology because rather than analyzing social
order per se, it seeks to discover the methods by which members of a
society produce a sense of social order. It is a source of much of our sense of
social role. Applying the CA approach in the analysis of what she calls “there
+ BE + ITEM” data, Schifrin posits that conversation analysis approaches to
discourse consider how participants in talk construct systematic solutions to
recurrent organizational problems.

Among the many problems that are solved are opening and closing talk, turn
taking, repair, topic management, information receipt, and showing
agreement and disagreement. She mentioned that the solutions to such
problems are discovered through the close analysis of how participants
themselves talk and to what aspect of talk they themselves attend: CA
avoids positing any categories (whether social or linguistic) whose relevance
for participants themselves is not displayed in what is actually said (239).

e) Variation Analysis

The initial methodology and theory underlying the variationist approach to

discourse were those of William Labor. The variationist approach is the only
approach discussed in this section that has its origins solely within
linguistics. The approach is concerned with the study of variation and
change in language. The theory proceeds from the assumptions that
linguistic variation is patterned both socially and linguistically, and that such
patterns can be discovered only through systematic investigation of a
speech community. Thus, variationists set out to discover patterns in the
distribution of alternative ways of saying the same thing, that is, the social
and linguistic factors that are responsible for variation (Schifrin, 1994: 282).

Although traditional variationist studies were chiefly concerned with the

semantically equivalent variants (what Labor calls “alternative ways of
saying the same thing”), such studies have now been extended to texts.
Schifrin also notes that it is in the search for text structure, the analysis of
text-level variants and of how text constrains other forms, that a variationist
approach to discourse has developed. She further contends that one of the
main tasks in variation analysis is to discover constraints on alternative
realizations of an underlying form: such constrains (that can be linguistic
and/ or social) help determine which realization of a single underlying
representation appears in the surface form of utterance.
Again, since variationists try to discover patterns in the distribution of
alternative ways of saying the same thing, that is, the social and linguistic
constraints on linguistic variation, an initial step in variationist studies is to
establish which forms alternate with one another and in which environments
they can do so. Variationists use quantitative methods of analysis to test
hypothesis about constraints on the distribution of forms within connected
speech – these methods differ markedly from those of formal linguists.
Schifrin explains that variationist approaches compare different explanations
by searching for data that confirm (or cast doubt upon) the co-occurrences
predicted by each explanation.

She notes that although this is not a goal unique to variationists, variationist
approaches add the strengths (and limitations) of quantitative analysis to
such efforts. The variationists also consider the social context as part of the
study of discourse units hence the setting in which a story is told allows (or
inhibits) the display of linguistic competence – it considers social context
under certain methodological and analytical circumstances. Schifrin
therefore concludes that the variationist approach to discourse is based
within a socially realistic linguistics – in some ways, linguistics clearly
pervades the variationist approach to discourse. Thus, a variationist
approach to discourse is a linguistically based approach that adds social
context to analyses of the use of language.

f) Discourse Analysis and Social Context

Discourse analysis takes into account how the formal and situational features
of language confer cohesion and coherence on text. The two main
approaches to language identified by Cook (1989: 12) are sentence
linguistics and discourse analysis. The former is mainly concerned with the
study of the formal linguistic properties of language, especially the well-
formedness of a sentence. This approach to language believes that
contextual features, that is, the knowledge of the world outside language,
which enable us to interpret and make meaning in our communication
activities, should be excluded in the analysis of language. To them, the
analysis of language should be based on the system of rules that govern
such language, and not on any external circumstances.

Sentence linguists, therefore, restrict their inquiries to what happens within

the sentence. Sentence linguists perceive discourse as a particular unit of
language above the sentence or above the clause. Schifrin (1994:20)
regards this as a formalist paradigm or view of discourse. The other
perspective to discourse which recognizes the crucial place of context of
situation and context of culture in the analysis of language has been
described as the functionalist paradigm by Schifrin (1994:20).

The functionalists describe discourse as language use. Discourse in the

functionalist perspective, according to Schifrin, is ‘viewed as a system
(socially and culturally organized way of speaking) through which particular
functions are realized’ (32). The functional definitions of discourse assume
an interrelationship between language and context (34). This approach
explores the interconnectedness between language, culture and social
context. The functionalists believe that, as Barbara Johnstone (2002:50) puts
it ‘As people construct discourse, they draw on the resources provided by
culture […] Each instance of discourse is another instance of the laying out
of a grammatical pattern or expression of a belief, so each instance of
discourse reinforces the patterns of language and the beliefs associated with
the culture.

Furthermore, people do things in discourse in new ways, which suggests new

patterns, new ways of thinking about the world.’ Discourse analysis therefore
takes into account non-linguistic issues like the speaker’s race, sex, age,
class, occupation/profession, nationality, religion, location and so in the
analysis of data. Those who approach discourse from the functional
perspective believe that the formal properties of language alone are not
sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of discourse or text. This view
of language or discourse owes much to the inspirational work J.R. Firth and
other neo-Fithians like M.A.K. Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan, John Spenser and
Michael Gregory.

2.4 Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) “is the uncovering of implicit
ideologies in texts. It unveils the underlying ideological prejudices and
therefore the exercise of power in texts” (Widdowson, 2000). This research
enterprise attempts to critically analyze the relationship between language,
ideology, and society. As Teun Van Dijk (1993) puts it, “critical discourse
analysts want to understand, expose, and resist social inequality.” The
roots of CDA are in critical theory which is inextricably tied up with Frankfurt
School of Social Research. “Critical theory is defined as a research
perspective, which has basically a critical attitude towards society” (Langer,
1998, p.3).

More specifically, it is used to refer to “any theory concerned with critique of

ideology and the effects of domination” (Fairclough, 1995, p.20). In the
1970s a group of linguists and literary theorists at the University of East
Anglia developed the idea of critical linguistics. Their approach was based on
M.A.K Halliday’s Systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This branch of
grammar stresses the importance of social context (the context of culture
and context of situation) in the production and development of language. In
addition, functional linguistics, unlike many branches of linguistics, has
always been concerned not only with words and sentences, but also with
longer texts and collection of texts (corpora) above the level of the sentence.
The foundations of CDA have been laid by critical linguists and theorist, and
since the 1980sthanks to the works of the British sociolinguist Norman
Fairclough – has gained a lot of attention. Fairclough (1995) defines CDA as
follows:

By critical discourse analysis I mean discourse analysis which aims 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; and to explore how
the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a
factor securing power and hegemony. (pp. 132-3)

In recent years professionals from a variety of backgrounds have become

interested in discourse issues. Historians, business institutions, lawyers,
politicians and medical professionals to name but a few, have used discourse
analysis to investigate social problems relating to their work. Van Dijk
(1993), who prefers the term Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) for this reason,
described it as “a new cross-discipline that comprises the analysis of the text
and talk in virtually all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.”
This paper will introduce different approaches and schools to CDA and will
discuss their similarities and differences. These approaches differ in terms of
theoretical foundations and the tools they use to analyze discourse, but the
concepts of ideology, critique, and power are present in all of them. In
addition, it will accentuate the interdisciplinary nature of CDA and showing
the dialectic relationship between language, culture, society, and politics.

2.5 Approaches to CDA

In spite of the fact that all the approaches to CDA have the notions of
ideology, Critique, and power in common, they could be classified into three
major ones with respect to the differences in their theoretical foundations
and analyzing tools.

a) Norman Fairclough: Discourse as Social Practice

The British sociolinguist, Norman Fairclough is one of the key figures in the
realm of CDA. In his vantage-point CDA is a method for examining social and
cultural modifications that could be employed in protesting against the
power and control of an elite group on other people. Fairclough believes that
our language, which shapes our social identities and interactions, knowledge
systems, and beliefs, is also shaped by them in turn. Like Kress and Van
Leeuwen, he bases his analyses on Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar.
In Language and Power (1989), he calls his approach Critical Language
Study, and considers the first aim of his approach as helping to correct the
vast negligence in relation to the significance of language in creating,
maintaining and changing the social relations of power.

This first goal tends to be the theoretical part of Fairclough’s approach. The
second one which is helping to raise awareness to the question that how
language can influence the dominance of one group of people over the
others could be considered as the practical aspect of his approach. He
believes that awareness is the first step towards emancipation. To reach the
latter goal Fairclough has put a great emphasis on raising the level of
people’s consciousness, for he assumes that in discourse, the subjects do
not, strictly speaking, know what they are doing, and they are unaware of
the potential social impact of what they do or utter.

b) Text and Discourse

Fairclough considers language as a form of social practice. This way of
thinking implies some other notions. First, language is a part of the society
and not somehow external to it. Second, language is a social process. Third,
language is a socially conditioned process, conditioned that is by other (non-
linguistic) parts of society (Fairclough, 1989, 22). The remarkable point in
Fairclough’s view is that all linguistic phenomena are social, but it is not true
the other way round. For instance, when we are talking about the political
words such as democracy, imperialism, or terrorism we use linguistic
elements, but this is only part of the whole politics. Therefore, the
relationship between language and society does not observe a one-to-one
correspondence; rather, the society is the whole and language is a part of it.

The second implied notion – i.e., language is a social process – is meaningful

only when we take discourse as different from text, like Fairclough.
Fairclough’s notion of text is exactly the same as Halliday’s, and this term
covers both written discourse and spoken discourse. For him text is a
product, not a process. Fairclough employs the term discourse to refer to the
complete process of social interaction. Text is merely a sector of this
process, because he considers three elements for discourse, namely text,
interaction, and social context. In addition to text itself, the process of social
interaction involves the process of text production and text interpretation.
Hence, text analysis is a part of discourse analysis.

c) Ideology and Power

The roots of the first goal of Fairclough’s critical language study can be
traced to his expertise and background in sociolinguistics. Fairclough
believes that in sociolinguistics – the study of language in the social context
– one can propound ideas about language and power; for instance, in the
discussions of standard and non-standard dialects, there is clear-cut
evidence that the dialect of the powerful group will gain the reputation of the
standard one. By the same token, there are studies that pay attention to the
ways in which power is exercised in the people’s conversations.

All of these studies are concerned with the description of power distribution
in terms of sociolinguistic conventions; however, they cannot explain these
conventions. Explaining how the relations of power are shaped and the
struggle on how power is shaped, does not fall in the realm of
sociolinguistics. In his approach, Fairclough endeavors to explain these
conventions; conventions which are the upshots of the relations of power
and the struggles on them.

He accentuates the presuppositions of a common-sense present in the

interlocutions among people that they are usually blind to their existence.
These presuppositions are the very ideology that has a close relationship
with power; for these ideological presuppositions exist in the social
conventions and the nature of the conventions depend on the power
relations that cover them.

The relationship between common sense and ideology was introduced by the
Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. He refers to “‘a form of practical activity’ in
which ‘a philosophy is contained as an implicit theoretical premises’ and ‘a
conception of the world that is implicitly manifest in art, in law, in economic
activity and in all manifestations of individuals and collective life’” (Antonio
Gramsci, 1971, cited in Fairclough, 1989, p.84). This form of practical activity
is the ideology which exists in the background and is usually taken for
granted. Fairclough assumes an ideological nature for the common sense, to
some extent, and believes that this is the common sense which is ideological
in order to be at the disposal of the survival of the unequal relations of power
and to be a justification for it.

Fairclough takes a rather traditional approach towards power, and does not
agree with Foucault. From Fairclough’s (1995, p.17) point of view, Foucault
considers power as a pervasive force and symmetrical relations that is
dominant over the whole society and is not in the hands of one special group
or another; whereas in Fairclough’s thinking, the relations of power are
asymmetrical, unequal, and empowering that belong to a special class or
group.

d) Naturalization and Neutralization in Discourse

If a type of discourse is dominant over an institution in such a way that other

types of discourse are totally oppressed or become a part of that discourse,
this issue will not make the discourse seem an autocratic one; rather it will
cease to be seen as natural and legitimate. Fairclough, like other critical
discourse analysts, calls this phenomenon naturalization. Naturalization has
a relation with the ideological common sense, in the sense that by the
naturalization of the discourse, its ideology will change into the ideological
common sense.

In the process of naturalization and creation of the common sense, the type
of discourse appears to lose its ideological character and tends to become
merely the discourse of the institution itself instead of looking as the
discourse of a special class or group within that institution. In this way, the
struggle on power seems to be neutral, and being neutral means being out of
ideology, that is to say, having no ideological load.

The fact that discourse loses its ideological load, paradoxically, will make a
fundamental ideological effect: “Ideology works through disguising its
nature, pretending to be what it is not” (Fairclough, 1989, p.92). Now, as
long as linguists insist only on the formal aspects of language, they foster
the development of this ideological effect. Thus, naturalization occurs in this
way and people can hardly, if ever, understand that their routine and usual
behaviors make ideological effects on the society.

2.6 Teun Van Dijk: A Socio-cognitive Mode

Teun Van Dijk is one of the leading figures and pioneers of study and
research in domain of CDA. Most of his critical works are concerned with
prejudice and racism in discourse. In his early works, he has considered the
problem that how Netherlander and Californian Caucasians talk about ethnic
minorities, and what role do these conversations play in the reproduction of
ideology. In fact, analysis of the topics that people talk about represents the
things that exist in their minds. In Van Dijk’s viewpoint, those things are
mental and personal tenets about ethnic events. He believes that the major
premise in talking about others includes positive self-representation and
negative other-representation.
In doing CDA, Van Dijk offers some practical principles and guidelines and
asserts that he has no special school or approach. He does not consider CDA
as a branch of discourse analysis, like conversation analysis or psycho-
discourse analysis; for this reason, he suggests researchers to look at the
CDA as an interdisciplinary, and take an eclectic approach towards it using
the findings of other cultures, countries, and other humanities disciplines. On
the basis of his interdisciplinary attitude towards the field he labels his
methodology as reason, discourse analysis and states that despite his
reluctance to labeling, this label shows to what extent studying cognition is
significant in CDA, communication, and interaction. However, this does not
mean that CDA should confine its limits to cognitive and social analysis;
rather, due to the real-world problems, its complexities and people’s needs
CDA should have historical, cultural, socio-economical, philosophical, logical,
and neurological approaches as well.

Van Dijk believes that there is not direct relationship between social
structures and discourse structures and almost always they are connected to
each other through personal and social cognition. This cognition is the lost
segment of many critical linguistic studies and critical discourse analysis;
therefore, he offers the triangle of society, cognition, and discourse. Though
Van Dijk puts a great emphasis on cognition, he believes that since the
nature of discourse is lingual, CDA needs merely linguistic foundations as
well as cognitive foundations.
In Van Dijk’s triangle, in a broad sense, discourse is a communicative event
that includes oral interactions, written text, body movements, pictures, and
other semiotic signifiers. Cognition here refers to personal and social
cognition, beliefs, goals, values, emotions, and other mental structures.
Society includes both local micro structures and political, social and universal
macro structures which are defined in terms of groups and their relationships
such as dominance and inequality. In defining the context of discourse in this
triangle social and cognitive dimensions are deemed. In fact, context is of
two types, micro and macro. Macro context refers to historical, cultural,
political, and social structure in which a communicative event occurs,
whereas micro context shows the features of the immediate situation and
interaction in which a communicative event occurs.
Van Dijk defines micro context based on the concept of cognition and
considers it as a form of a mental model of a communicative situation and
calls it a context model. Context models are mental representations that
control many of the features of text production and comprehension such as
genre, choice of topic, and cohesion on one hand, and speech act, style, and
imagery on the other. These models exist in people’s long-term memory; the
part of memory in which people save their knowledge and view about the
events they experience. In fact, there is no direct relationship between
society and discourse and these models explain how discourse indicates the
social and personal features in itself, and how in a certain social situation
discourse could be different. In other words, devoid of these mental models,
it cannot be explained and described that how social structures affect
discourse, and get affected in turn.
The notion of critique
From Van Dijk’s viewpoint, in contrary to other discourse analysts, critical
discourse analysts must have a clear socio-political position; they ought to
explain their viewpoints, principles, and goals. Of course, in all the stages of
shaping the theory and the analysis, their work is political and their criticisms
of discourse will involve political criticism of those who are responsible for
the reproduction of ascendency and social inequalities; elite groups who are
in power; those who ordain social inequalities and injustice, continue and
legitimize them.
The ultimate goal of critical discourse analysts is to help the deprived part of
the society, the issues that threaten these people’s lives, not small issues
relating to discourse structures. Critical discourse analysts’ criticisms should
not be temporary or personal. In other words, CDA goes beyond here and
now, and attempts to study the roots of fundamental social problems.
CDA’s criteria, as acknowledged by Fairclough, too, is not merely
observational, descriptive or even explanatory, rather CDA’s prosperity is
evaluated in terms of the influence that it has on the macro structure of the
society and the role that it plays in the line of changing, amending, and
removing social inequalities. Van Dijk believes that CDA does not reject
having a special direction, and specifies its social and political direction
clearly and articulately and is proud of having such a direction.

2.7 Researches on short story

.0 Approaches to Discourse
The term ‘discourse analyses has been employed by people in a variety of
academic disciplines and departments to describe what they do, how they
do it, or both. Barbara Johnstone (2002: 1) observes that while many of
these people have training in general linguistics, some identify themselves
primarily as linguists, yet others identify themselves primarily with fields
of study as varied and disparate as anthropology, communication, cultural
studies, psychology or education among others. This shows that, under
the label discourse analysis, so many people do their own things in them
own ways, relying on methods and approaches that may be peculiar or
relevant to their disciplines or fields of study. However, the only thing all
these endeavors seem to have in common is their interest in studying
language and its effects. Consequently, Deborah Schifrin (1994:5)
recognizes discourse analysis as one of the vast, but also one of the least
defined areas in linguistics. She points out that one of the reasons is that
our understanding of discourse is based on scholarship from a number of
academic disciplines that are actually very different from one another.
Another is that discourse analysis draws not just from disciplines such as
linguistics, anthropology, sociology and philosophy, from which models
and methods for analyzing discourse first developed, but also the fact that
such models and methods have been employed and extended in engaging
problems that emanate from other academic domains as communication,
social psychology, and artificial intelligence. Schifrin in her Approaches to
Discourse (1994) discusses and compares some of the different approaches
to the linguistic analysis of discourse: speech act theory, interactional
sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversation
analysis, and variation analysis. This part of the work, therefore,
summarizes the approaches to linguistic analysis of discourse identified by
Schifrin. It aims at introducing the reader to some of the linguistic
approaches to discourse that are available to the analyst. Thus, the reader
is by this exercise (the synopsis presented below), encouraged to see
Schifrin (1994) and other related texts for more on these approaches.
According to Henry van Dyke, “literature consists of those writing which
interpret the meaning of nature in life, in words of charm and power touched
with the personality of the author, in artistic forms of permanent interests”
(Prizi,2013). He was known for writing about the harsh realities of the society
that nobody dared to speak about. He is widely recognized for his writings
about the 1947 partition, which he opposed soon after partition in
1947(pakpedia,2017). It is a powerful story that shows how the common
man looks hopefully at every promise of a change in the political set up. The
New Constitution means the Government of India Act, 1935, which
introduced a democratic setup in India. (English, 20)
1. Shunizia Sheikh and Shahid Saleem have investigated ‘The New
Constitution’ through the perspective of pragmatic analysis. They found out
conventional Implicatures by the analysis of the text from the perspective of
different figures of speech, they had exulted many examples from the text
which are given below in detail:

Percentage
S No CONVENTIONAL FREQUANCY PERCENTAGE
IMPLICATUES
1 Irony 11
22%
2 Simile 10
20%
 3 Personification 09
18%
4 Metaphor 08
16 %
5 Idioms 06
12%
6 Anti-thesis 05
1%
7 Allegory 01
2%

2) Tahir Jokinen and Sher shah Asadullah published their research on 20

December 2019 and attempt to use Toba Tek Singh as a light and find out
the role of mental illness in Manto’s work and life, they use to discuss his
personal experiences, themes of mental illness in the story and the
implication of his writing in the historical context of post partition south Asia.

Chapter-3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Overview

This part of the research deals with the overall methodology used in the
research. It discusses the process and method through which the research is
conducted. Research follows either qualitative or quantitative methodology
in order to conduct the research. The present research is qualitative in
nature and deals with the interpretivist paradigm of research. The research
methodology for this study is qualitative and is based on textual analysis.

3.2 RESERCH TOOLS

We collect the data from the text of the novel. The collection of the data will
be done by reading the text of the novel thoroughly and in depth. The
primary source of our data collection is the short story ‘The New
Constitution’ by Saadat Hasan Manto. Furthermore, we shall collect
secondary data from other sources such as books, internet and library. we
shall use Van Dijk Socio-Cognitive Model as a tool for which close reading of
a textual analysis shall be use. Close reading and textual analysis shall be
use for locating the related data necessary for our research and Van Dijk
Model shall be used as a tool of analysis.

3.3 Theoretical Framework

The researcher will do critical discourse analysis of the story in the frame
work of Van Dijik socio cognitive model (2009), there is no direct or linear
correspondence between discourse structures and social structures but
discourses function through a cognitive interface: “the mental
representations of language users as individuals and as social members”
(Van Dijk 2015). As Van Dijk points out, although discourse is socially
conditioned and impacts upon the functioning of society, both the
formulation and interpretation of discourse is the aggregate function of the
participants underlying cognitive processes, personal and socially shared
knowledge. The current research will be done by doing the critical discourse
analysis, and plying Van Dijik socio cognitive model.

Chapter-4

ANALYSIS

4.1 Overview
This chapter deals with the analysis and discussion of the research. The
researcher has taken textual evidence in order to support the argument. The
study focusses on the critical discourse analysis of the new constitution. for
analysis of data Van Dijk’s socio cognitive model based on ideology and
discourse, has been applied to explain the mind control.

4.2 Data analysis

Critical discourse analysis deals with the idea that language is more than a
simple means of communication and tries to analyze language as a
social/political power can be conveyed trough language.it disuse the relation
between text and society. This analysis of the text of the story is based on
Van Dijk socio cognitive model. According to him to explain how real
language users go about producing discourse; how their personal and shared
beliefs effect discourse production and how these are in turn affected by
discourse.no critical account of discourse is theoretically complete without
such a cognitive interface. (Van dijik,2009) Van Dijk stresses the role
cognition plays in the meditation between discourse structurers and social
structures.
The researcher has collected the discourse markers and modifiers from the
short story “The New Constitution” composed by Saadat Hassan Manto,
manually in a Microsoft Excel file. To discuss the power and mind control, the
researcher has devised first the lists of all the lexicons and tried to explain
the critical discourse analysis of the short story by throwing light upon the
main themes. Critical discourse analysis by using Van Dijk’s model.

Access:
The short story is written by Saadat Hassan Manto. He is showing the actual
situation of British India and the real faces of british.by doing the textual
analysis of the story we found that Manto is accessing to the minds of people
through the text. The choice of words he has made in the story give us a
deep look into or give us a deep look into the British Raj and their
imperialism in the text he has used discourse markers and modifiers through
which he is indirectly showing us the social and political conditions.

And by doing the analysis we found that through the discourse he was
control the minds of the readers like we can see that he has ported the
British as arrogant cruel and selfish people he has shown hat towards them
and when the reader read out the story a kind of some emotion develops in
their mind so this is showing that he is having access to the minds of the
people.He has given insight to the social and political condition of British
India and has controlled the mi minds of the readers through the discourse
for instance he has used the word ‘gore’ in the text again and again.

Now every word is having positive and negative connotation. In readers mind
it evoke feeling of hate. Whenever we hear the word ‘gore’ an arrogant, curl,
disbeliever kind of person comes to our mind and that’s why he has used
those specific words for British. He has accessed our minds through the main
character ‘Mango’. dialogues he has accessed to reader mind and is
devolving the same feelings in the readers as Mango is having for gores. As
he says their red wrinkles faces remind me of dead body whose skin is
rotting away.
He has shown the real faces of British raj by saying that, ‘look at them, came
to the door to borrow a light and the next thing you knew the owned the
whole house. I am sick and tired of these shoots of monkeys. The way they
order us around, you would think we were their fathers’ servants! So, by
these lines Manto actually want to put it in our mind that how much these
people were annoying Indians and were like a Burdon to Indians.

Genre:
Genre is a short story which in different writers’ opinion is, “a short story
must have a single mood and every sentence must build toward it”. The text
type is declarative in nature and through the text of the story he is
describing the social and political condition of India under British Raj. That
how was the condition there, how Goras were controlling the economy and
politics of the country, how they were treating people of India. And as a
result, what was the attitude of people towards them. Through the text the
British Raj imperialism and the Indians hope for freedom is also shown
through the text of the story.

He has shown that what kind of people Indians were? What was their norms
and beliefs like in the start when Gama Choudhry asked Mango where Spain
is he replies very soberly ‘in vilayet, where else? This shoes that they were
innocent. simple and mostly uneducated people. The terms like ‘Italy Wala
and ‘Russia Wala’ he uses when he says, “At the most the Angrez will leave
but the you will get may be the Italy Wala or the Russia Wala. I have heard
that the Russia Wala is one tough fellow “also shoes that the Indian were
ignorant people.

He has also shown the beliefs of Indians at that time, when Mango says
about freedom of India. it is no doubt the result of a holy man curses that
Hindus and Muslims slashing each other up every day, I have heard it said by
my elders that Akbar Badshah once showed disrespect to saint, who angrily
cursed him in these words, ‘Get out of my sight! And yes, your Hindustan will
always be played by riots and disorder. This also shows the value of freedom
that the saint gives the curse of slavery because freedom is precious gift
from God.

The text also declared the political condition of British imperialism were
treating Hindus like their slaves. It is clear from the text that, “they used to
treat him like some lower creation of God, even worse than a dog”. The text
of the story also shows that how much the Indians were thirsty for freedom
‘it is said that from 1 April, there is going to be a new constitution will change
everything? “Not everything, but they say a lot will change. the Indian would
be free” so this shows that they were wanting freedom they were not happy
and free a British Raj.

Communicative acts and social meaning:

The short story developing a discourse among its readers and discussing the
social and political condition of colonized. As Saadat Hassan Manto was the
victim of British imperialism so he is using his Owen experience to described
the India condition under British Ra. He has also discussed the mind set of
native, their hopes and the attitude of British towards them. We can find
many intensifiers and lexicons which act as communication and convey
social meanings like in the stary we find Mango answering the Gama
Chaudhry that where is Spain so he replies in Vilayat, where else? So, here
the phrase and the question mark show Mango’s confidence that he is
confidently answering and making people sure that my information is
correct.

He took deep breath his deep breath shows that he (Mango) is tired not
physically but also mentally. And this also shows happiness from getting
freedom. If we look to the title of the story The New Constitution it also
communicating a social meaning that how British were ruling the country
now much, they have developed hate in hearts of Indians for himself and
how the Indians were impatient for freedom.

The word Russia Wala and Italy Wala, used by the Mango shows that Indians
were unaware people they were believe of rumor that were not having
knowledge about the world. They were mostly simple, innocent and ignorant
people. The word ‘gora’ is also used in negative sense. It is used for harsh,
curl, selfish and arrogant person. It is used to show intensity of hate for
British Raj “I could knock him out cold with blow, but the way he was
throwing his git pit at me, you would have thought he was going to kill me”.
So here the word ‘git-pit’ shows that the Indian were hating them so much
that they have no respect for their language and even don’t want to lesson
them. “I swear on your need, my first urge was to smash the damn fellow’s
skull, but then! Restrain myself I mean it would have been below my digging
to hit this wretch”

So here we can see the intense form of hate of indies for British Raj that
even they considered killing them an act of British were considering them
British inferior. “As God is my witness, I’m sick of suffering and humoring this
Lat sahibs” this show that the Indians were not daring with them. The
(indies) use to have smile on their faces no matter how much hate they have
in their hearts for them. This mean that they were forced to obey them. This
also shows that up to a great extent Indians were also responsible for their
slavery.

‘Lat Sahib’ this word suggest that the British used to consider themselves
superior and powerful but in eyes of Indians they were not superior but was
‘white mice’ who is ruling their country against their will. “Oh! there are
going to be many openings and, in that confusion, we will be able to lay our
hands on something. Yes, yes, why not?” so this show that Indians were like
slaves in their own house. That were not having any authority and jobs. They
were completely dependent on the decisions of British. The word Yes, Yes
shows their hops and happiness foe freedom.

Participant position and roles:

As already mentioned, the short story is written by the author with the
interest in social and political circumstance and apparently having a
significant authority in society as a writer. A remarkable character named
Mango Tongawalla who is the protagonist of the story and is having hateful
attitude towards goras because of their imperialism. He is hopeful that the
new act will change their future and they will get freedom from British Raj.
The story is throwing light on the political climate of the time which is filled
with shattered against British imperialism and the desires of Indians for
freedom.

Ustad Mango Tanga Wala is the main character of the story. He is the
protagonist of the story who Is illiterate and hates British. He is looking
forward to the new constitution. which he hopes that it will change fate of
Indians Mango knows nothing of the political condition and legal implication
through this character the social and political condition of British India is
show. We can find hates for British in his speech like when he uses the words
gore, Lath sahib, Bahadur sahib, Angrez these shows his hate and anger for
British. Also, when he says, “their red wrinkled faces remind me of dead
body whose skin is rotting away”. “Look at this one, resembles a leper! Dead
and rotting”.
This shows the hateful attitude of Indians toward British. Hope for freedom is
also shown by using markers and modifiers through the character of Mango.
For more instance the conversation between Marwaris sent Ustad Mango to
seventh heaven” mean that how much he was happy for the new
constitution, that it will grant freedom to them. Not only Ustad Mango but
other participants like British, lawyers Ghana Chaudhry and the two students
also play role. They are also portraying the themes of freedom and British
imperialism. “It is said that from 1 April, there is going to be a new
constitution. Will that change everything? Not, everything, but they say a lot
will change. The Indian wild be free. “This show that how much they were
happy and excited for the new constitution because for them the new
constitution meant freedom.

Speech act:
The speech acts performed by the author and the other characters are
mostly declarative and expressive, is they are throwing light on the
compelling British Raj imperialism and Indian hoe for freedom. The discourse
markers and modifiers used as speech acts are, the word ‘gore’ used is the
text act as a speech act it is conveying the idea that what kind of people
were British it is used in a negative connotation and has put hate for ‘gores’
in readers mind and that’s how he has control the minds of the readers.
The words like Russia Wala and Italy Wala are used to show that how
ignorant Indians were not aware of world they were mostly illiterate and that
was because of British and their imperialism. The names like lait sahib
Bahadur are used ironically that how the Indians use to hate them and
having no respect for them in their hearts. “Look at them come to the door
to borrow a light and the next thing you knew they owned the whole house. I
am sick and tired of these offshoots of monkeys. The way they ordered us
around. You would think we were their fathers’ servants!” through this
paragraph we can say writer has conveyed the overran condition of the
British Indian that how the British implement their British Raj and establish
their imperialism and start treating Indians like servants.
“And there’s bound to be reduction in the number of those unemployment
graduates who have now where to go”. through this it conveyed that in
British India there was no opportunity for Indians, there was only “British
Raj”. They are having no opportunity of jobs instead the fact that they were
graduated but still they were unemployed. “Ustad Mango had borne to
insults hurried at him in salience. He could have smashed the man into little
bits, but he had remained passive because knew that in such quarrels it was
tongawalla mostly who suffered the wrath of law”
This covey that the British Raj the law, rules and punishment were only for
Indians specially for lower class. “The fare would be five rupees! Five rupees!
Are you….? The gore screamed in disbelief. Yes, yes! Five rupees: Ustad
Mango reflects the confidence of Indians they get after lessoning about new
constitution which light up candle of hope for freedom among them. And as
we observed in the story that they were not able to ask for their rights even
now they are so confident that can look into eyes of their rights that’s what
the hope of freedom give them.

Macro – semantics:
The topic or tittle of the story is “The New Constitution” wisely used by
Saadat Hasan Manto. He prodigiously chooses the tittle and endeavors to
describe the situation reveals Manto as a political and social commentator
who through the tittle has convey that despite all promises, nothing really
changes for the common man. He has also made fun of the naivety of people
the Mango. He has discussed the British imperialism and Indiana hope for
freedom in the tittle the “The New Constitution”.

Analysis of the themes of the short story

The main themes we found after doing analysis of the short story are
imperialism, freedom. Unawareness, arrogance, change and hope.

a. Imperialism:
According to Lenin, imperialism is another portion of capitalist approach of
history that the world must endure on the road of communism. Imperialism
refers to the extension of the dominion of one nation over others by military
cones, political compulsion, or some combination of the three motives of
imperialism include economic, cultural political, moral and exploratory
arguments.

Statements;
“They use to treat him like some lower gods.”
Look at the, Came to…. fathers, servants!”
“As God is my witness, I am sick of suffering and humoring this Lat sahibs.
The New constitution has raised my hopes. If so and so becomes a member
of the assembly I will certainly be able to get a job in a government office”. it
was Tonga Walas mostly who suffered the warmth of the law.

Analysis: Through the above statements Manto has conveyed the theme
of imperialism that how this people were suppressed by the British Raj they
were deprived from their basic social and political rights. They were
compelling to money them. They were having no opportunities for job, rules,
laws and punishments were only for them. They use to treat them lower
creation of God

b. Freedom
Freedom means the ability to make decisions for ourselves free to think,
speak or to choose path.

Statements
He was very happy. A delightful cool settled over his heart when he thought
of how the new constitution would send these white mikes scurrying back
into their holes for all it come. ‘Give me your hand, I have great news for you
that would not only bring immense joy but might even make hair grow on
your bald you just wait see. Things are going to happen. You have my world.
The Russian king is bound to do something big.’ And as he talked, he
continued to slap Ganj’s bald head. And with some force as well.
The New constitution has raised my hopes. If so and so becomes a member
of the assembly I will certainly be able to get a job in a government office”
‘Oh! There are going many openings and, in the confusion, we will be able to
lay our hands on something.’
“And there’s bound to be reduction in the number of those unemployment
graduates who have now where to go”.
The fare would be five rupees! Five rupees! Are you….? The gore screamed
in disbelief. Yes, yes! Five rupees: Ustad Mango said, clenching his big right
first tightly.; Are you interested or will you keep making idle talks?
Analysis: The statement shows the theme of freedom that how much
these Indians were thirsty for freedom. And after hearing about the new
constitution how much they become hopeful and confident. That they
become able to look into their eyes and ask for their rights.

c. Hope
Hope is the desire for something to happen, a wish for things to change for
the better or a particular dream or aspiration.

Statement
‘It is said that from 1 April, there is going to be a new constitution will
change everything? “Not everything, but they say a lot will change. the
Indian would be free”
He was very happy. A delightful cool settled over his heart when he thought
of how the new constitution would send these white mikes scurrying back
into their holes for all it come. ‘Give me your hand, I have great news for you
that would not only bring immense joy but might even make hair grow on
your bald you just wait see. Things are going to happen. You have my world.
The Russian king is bound to do something big.’ And as he talked, he
continued to slap Ganj’s bald head. And with some force as well.
The New constitution has raised my hopes. If so and so becomes a member
of the assembly I will certainly be able to get a job in a government office”
‘Oh! There are going many openings and, in the confusion, we will be able to
lay our hands on something.’
“And there’s bound to be reduction in the number of those unemployment
graduates who have now where to go”.

Analysis: These statements show that how much Indians hopeful for the
new constitution because in their view the new constitution was going to
give them freedom.
 Chapter-5

CONCLUSION AND RESULT:

The short story deals with the various themes of colonization but the main
focus of the research is to do critical discourse analysis in the frame work of
Van Dijk socio cognitive model. The research took the help of textual analysis
in order to draw evidence and conclusion of the textual evidences after
analyzing the short story The New Constitution by Saadat Hassan Manto
we found that the lexicons and intensifiers used by Manto have remarkably
given afro found impact on readers mind and is troughing light on the major
themes of the short story like imperialism, ignorance, hope, unawareness
etc. The intensifiers and lexicons used by the author, giving the story themes
a sublime view, the author is master enough to explain the title through the
story The New Constitution, which is actually an irony means that the title
does not means the new constitution means freedom. Actually, it makes fun
of the naivety people in the political climate of the time which is felt with
hated against British imperialism and the desires of Indians for freedom.
Hence the result of the study is that the lexicons and intensifiers like several
adjectives and pronouns “lexicons etc.” used by Saadat Hassan Manto in his
short story The New Constitution had a profound impact on the readers
perceptions which control their minds.

The purpose of writing a story in a specific diction is make readers aware of

social, political, economic, ethical and all aspects of society because this is
what called literature, the reflection of society, of life. It is the foremost duty
of a writer to rise a particular issue by throwing light on it. Saadat Hasan
Manto has portrayed the British imperialism and the Indians' desire for
freedom. It is described that how the British have suppressed Indians and
they were given no rights even they were compelling to obey British. Manto
has also make fun of Indians that how innocent and unaware of world they
were. The Indians were thirsty for freedom, and the new constitution was like
a candle of hope for them. To conclude, the researchers has done critical
analysis of the story and find that how beautifully the writer has use various
discourse markers and modifiers to convey the themes like; imperialism,
freedom, optimism, hope, unawareness and arrogance. Which analysis the
situation of British India and British Raj.
 References

1. History of English Literature (October 11, 2021). alienates

https://elifnotes.com/literature.
2. “Literature”. (Accessed12 May 2022) Merriam-Webster.Merriam-
Webster.com
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature.
3. The New Constitution (July 2016) 2022) 32:89
https://www.englishnotes4all.com
4. The-new-constitution-short-story-literary-analysis. (11-2020)
educationallodge.educationallodge.com
5. Saadat Hasan Manto (Accessed May 2022) Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki
6. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oct 2008) Oxford
University Pre
7. Saadat Hasan Manto (Accessed May 2022) Pakpedia.
https://www.pakpedia.pk/saadat-hasan-manto .
8. The New Constitution (July 25 2010) eoenglish.
eoenglish.wordpress.com
9. Tahir Jokinen and Sher shah Assadullah. ((20December2019)”
Saadat Hasan Manto, Partition, and Mental Illness through the lens
of Toba Tek Singh. “Journal of Medical Humanities (2022) 32:89-93.
10. Sheikh, S., & Saleem, S. (2021) Pragmatic Analysis of Short story
“The New Constitution): Finding the Implicaltures. Global Language
Review VI (II), 295-303.
11. Van Dijk, T.A (1983) Discourse Analysis: Its Development and
Application to the Structure of News, Journal of
Communication. Vol. 33(2) pp. 20-43
12. Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge:
Polity Press
13. Hatch, E. (1992) Discourse and Language Education, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
14. 7. Van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Ideology and discourse analysis. Journal
of political ideologies, 11(2), 115-140.
15. Moore-Gilbert, B. (2009). Postcolonial life-writing: culture,
politics, and self-representation. Routledge.