Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) sees language as one element of social events and social practices that is dialectically related to other elements (including social institutions and aspects of the material world). Its objective is to show relationships between language and other elements of social events and practices. It is an approach to language analysis that originates within linguistics but is more socially oriented and interdisciplinary than most linguistics.

Discourse here means language (as well as “body language,” visual images, etc.) seen as a moment of the social. The approach is “critical” in the sense that (a) it seeks to illuminate nonobvious connections between language and other elements of social life; (b) it focuses on how language figures in the constitution and reproduction of social relations of power, domination, and exploitation; and (c) it takes a specifically language focus on social emancipation and the enhancement of social justice. In these respects, it can be seen as a branch of critical social science.

CDA is based on the assumption that the language elements of social events (talk, texts) can contribute to change in other social elements—that discourse is socially constructive. A focus of analysis has been on the effects of discourse in constituting, reproducing, and changing ideologies. Both are consistent with a dialectical view of discourse as an element of the social that is different from others while not being discrete—different elements “internalize” each other. One aspect of recent changes in social life is arguably that discourse has become more salient in certain respects in relation to other elements; for instance, the concept of a “knowledge” or “information” society seems to imply that social (e.g., organizational) change is “led” by discourses that may be enacted in new ways of acting, inculcated in new identities, materialized in new plants, and so forth. However, in contrast with a certain discourse idealism, we should take a moderate view of social CONSTRUCTIVISM, recognizing that [Page 215]social constructs acquire intransitive properties that may make them resistant to the internalization of new discourses.