National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences

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Unit 2: Discourse in Use
Contents
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Unit Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 CDA and Written Discourse
3.2 Newspaper Discourse
3.3 Ideology in Newspaper Discourse
3.4 Discourse and Power in newspaper
Self-assessed Exercises
3.5 Applications of CDA to Newspaper Reports
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Reading

1.0 Introduction

The last unit was a kind of introductory one on Critical Discourse Analysis. This unit builds on the last one by examining in details an aspect of CDA, which focuses on written discourse, specifically newspaper discourse. A newspaper is a product of the social system in which it is published. It is therefore expected to mirror the societal values. Despite the claims of objectivity by journalist, news items are known to be written from the writer’s angle of judgement. In this unit, we shall see how news also reflect the enactment and reproduction of social power.
2.0 Unit Objectives
At the end of this unit, you should be able to do the following
• explain the whole idea of newspaper discourse
• show how ideology is reflected in newspaper discourse
• discuss how women are represented in the Media
• identify how power is enacted in newspaper discourse
3.0 Main Content

3.1 CDA and Written Discourse

Discourse Analysis generally is sometimes associated with speech. But this should not be so, since language is not just speech. It is also writing as well as nonverbal. Discourse analysis takes care of everything significant both linguistically and extralinguistically. Written discourse as we earlier observed is more carefully constructed. Critical Discourse analysts are interested in written discourse such as newspapers, other literature and electronic discourse, such as email, chats, text messages, and so forth. Power is not only enacted in spoken discourse. Written discourse also reflects the societal power structure. Since writing is meant for others to

112 read, and inmost cases, the writer may not be with the reader, writers try to be explicit. Writing reflects the mind of the writer and this is not always neutral, because every writer writes from a point of view, which may not be obvious unless a critical analysis is done. In this unit, we are concentrating on newspaper discourse, which critical discourse analysts have found to be a genre rich in what they look for in texts.

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