Critical Discourse Analysis Essay

822 Words2 Pages

2. Review of the Literature
2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) Since the 1970s, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has evolved as a sub-area of Discourse Analysis (DA). It suggests that language represents the world from different perceptions and ideologies, involving power, and social relations. It is a multidisciplinary and multimethodical approach that has roots in text linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Socio-Psychology, Cognitive Science, philosophy, and anthropology. While DA focuses on the relationship between language and a limited sense of context, with less understanding of the larger social and cultural dimensions, and ideologies which affects people's communication, CDA focuses on the ideological
He stresses on "intertextuality" which considers a text as influenced by and dependent on a series of texts. Also every text is influenced by various genres which can be mixed creatively. The main goal of CDA is to unveil the manipulation of language, expose racism, inequality, and socio-political inequalities, non-democratic practices, and other inequalities, and render the readers/ audience aware of the subtle meanings in the discourse and the hidden agendas and ideologies behind the
Fowler, Hodge, Kress, and Trew (1979) suggest that there are strong connections between linguistic structure and social structure, and that any text reflects the interpretations of its subject as well as the relationship between the source and addressee. According to them, since linguistic meaning reflects ideology, where lexical items, and linguistic forms and processes carry specific meanings, then linguistic analysis is a powerful tool to infer the ideological processes and power relations. While sociolinguists are mainly concerned with the influence of social structure on language, arguing that special linguistic forms occur in particular environments, Fowler et al. (1979) argue that it works in the other direction as well, where language plays a role in consolidating the institutions and is used to manipulate people and maintain power. Thus, language is a part and the same time a result of social

Open Document