Critical Discourse Analysis

Author(s):  
Martin Reisigl

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has entered the mainstream of linguistic and social science research with a strong transdisciplinary orientation and social engagement. This chapter introduces six variants of CDA: (1) Fairclough’s approach, which is strongly social theoretically embedded and informed by systemic functional linguistics; (2) van Leeuwen’s and Kress’s social semiotic and systemic functional approach; (3) van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach; (4) the form of CDA promoted by the Duisburg Group around S. and M. Jäger, who keenly draw on Foucault’s approach to discourse analysis and Link’s discourse theory; (5) the Oldenburg approach, which is upheld by Gloy, Januschek, and others; and (6) the “Viennese” and “Lancaster” traditions of CDA, often termed the “discourse historical approach” and sometimes “discourse sociolinguistics.”

Cultura ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Saman REZAEI ◽  
Kamyar KOBARI ◽  
Ali SALAMI

With the realization of the promised global village, media, particularly online newspapers, play a significant role in delivering news to the world. However, such means of news circulation can propagate different ideologies in line with the dominant power. This, coupled with the emergence of so-called Islamic terrorist groups, has turned the focus largely on Islam and Muslims. This study attempts to shed light on the image of Islam being portrayed in Western societies through a Critical Discourse Analysis approach. To this end, a number of headlines about Islam or Muslims have been randomly culled from three leading newspapers in Western print media namely The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Times (2015). This study utilizes “ideological square” notion of Van Dijk characterized by “positive presentation” of selves and “negative presentation” of others alongside his socio-cognitive approach. Moreover, this study will take the linguistic discourses introduced by Van Leeuwen regarding “representing social actors and social practices” into consideration. The findings can be employed to unravel the mystery behind the concept of “Islamophobia” in Western societies. Besides, it can reveal how specific lexical items, as well as grammatical structures are being employed by Western media to distort the notion of impartiality.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Saadia Fatima ◽  
Muhammad Uzair

The research in hand has the objectives to analyse how ideologies are expressed through discourse practices in Western media; how a discourse practice and a linguistic strategy in terms of lexical choices are employed in portraying ideologies in media about Pakistan. Grounded on the theoretical framework of Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach of critical discourse analysis and model of Ideology which is the most appropriate to study media discourse, the data will be analysed qualitatively. The method of the current research is critical discourse analysis. The research revolves around the Pakistani socio-political events in Western media from the perspective of a global issue that is a war on terrorism. The research has objectives to investigate what and how Western media has used lexical choices to depict a certain ideology about Pakistan to the world. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiannis Mylonas

Abstract This study presents a scrutiny of ‘liberal’ discursive constructions of the ‘Enlightenment’ in the Greek public sphere. The study is based on the analysis of articles published in two news/lifestyle websites, ‘AthensVoice’ and ‘Protagon’, during the (ongoing), so-called, ‘Greek crisis’. Discourse theory, informed by critical discourse analysis, is deployed to analyze these discursive constructions. The analysis shows that Greece’s economic/social/political problems are constructed as symptoms that underline Greece’s fundamental deficit, which is the country’s alleged ‘lack of ‘Enlightenment’, as perceived by ‘liberal’ voices in Greece and elsewhere. The article concludes that such discourses are part of a biopolitical, disciplinary framework producing the object to be reformed by austerity: an ‘un-Enlightened’ ‘Greek character’, ‘guilty’ for ‘self-inflicting’ Greece’s crisis. This ‘reform of character’ envisioned by liberals in Greece and elsewhere, is supposed to emerge through the institutional advance of neoliberal restructuring processes that include austerity reforms, privatizations, and loss of labor and civic rights, conditions to foster the neoliberal, entrepreneurial, mobile and austere subject, to potentially meet the socio-political requirements of late capitalist growth.


2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Ruiseco ◽  
Thomas Slunecko

Following the discourse-historical approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak, de Cilia, Reisigl and Liebhart 1999; Wodak 2001), we analyze the inaugural speech of the actual president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, which he delivered on August 7th, 2002 in Bogotá. We take this speech as an illustration for the construction of national identity by the Colombian elites. In our analysis, we are particularly interested in Uribe’s strategy of referring to the European heritage and in his ways of appeasing the cultural and ethnic differences of the population.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Sami K. Khawaldeh ◽  
Wafa abu Hatab

The present paper investigates Anti-terrorism Ideology (ATI) in King Abdullah II of Jordan political discourse following a critical discourse methodology and focusing on three speeches delivered in 2015. The socio-cognitive approach is adopted as an analytical framework to decipher the underlying ideological attitudes and meanings that are encoded in these speeches. The study revealed that semantic aspects including lexical choices, repetition, and presupposition have been employed to construct (ATI) that aimed at creating a negative mental image of terrorists and a positive image of Islam.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nartey

Abstract This paper presents a discourse-mythological analysis of the rhetoric of a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, drawing on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis. The thesis of the paper is that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the emancipation and unification of Africa, can be characterized as mythic, a discursive exhortation of Africa to demonstrate to the world that it can better govern itself than the colonizers. In this vein, the paper analyzes four discursive strategies employed by Nkrumah in the creation and projection of his mythology: the introduction or creation of new discourse events, presupposition and implication, involvement (the use of indexicals) and lexical structuring and reiteration. This study is, therefore, presented as a case study of mythic discourse within the domain of politics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-413
Author(s):  
Damian J. Rivers ◽  
Andrew S. Ross

Abstract During the National Policy Institute’s national conference in Washington D.C. on Saturday November 19th, 2016, Richard Spencer delivered a speech in praise of the election victory of President Donald Trump. Shortly after the conference, Spencer was an invited guest on the News One Now programme in which he participated in a 32-minute interview with black journalist, host and managing editor Roland Martin. Drawing attention to the ideological aspects of the Martin/Spencer interview performance, we adopt the analytical lens of the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Musolff 2014; Reisigl and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2001, 2009) to explore argumentation as a discursive strategy through topoi or argumentative warrants (Reisigl and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2009, 2011, 2015; Wodak and Boukala 2015).


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-118
Author(s):  
Katie Baker Jones

Discursive practices employed by American Vogue to recontextualize sustainable fashion between 1990 and 2015 were explored through the lens of a discourse-historical approach and multimodal critical discourse analysis. References to sustainably minded values and actions were found throughout the 26 years studied with notable peaks and valleys in coverage that, at times, contradicted changing social interest in the subject. Over time, Vogue recontextualized sustainable fashion discourses and encouraged a passive revolution by moving from a contentious positioning of either/or sustainable fashion to one that embraced a both/and positionality by narrowing focus to lifestyle and product features. Additionally, Vogue celebrated social actors engaged in sustainable behaviors though these were increasingly positioned as lifestyle choices rather than revolutionary collective action. Vogue continuously recontextualized the sustainable fashion discourse as “new” and desirable while neutralizing most negative considerations of fashion consumption through a variety of articulations and by drawing on well-established semiotic resources.


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