National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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- 2.0 Unit Objectives
- 3.0 Main Content 3.1 What is Critical Discourse Analysis
| 1.0 Introduction Our speeches and writings are not always neutral. They are products of our social identities, relationships and ideologies leanings. Language is not an abstract entity. It is related to the world in which it is produced in the sense that meaning is derived from the historical, social and political contexts in which a text is produced. The discipline we shall be looking at in this unit, looks at language beyond the surface text. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as it is referred to draws attention to power imbalances, social inequities and the manipulative tendency people have in discursive practice. In this unit, we shall examine what CDA is, how language is related to ideology and how we can conduct research in CDA. 107 2.0 Unit Objectives At the end of this unit, you should be able to do the following • discuss explicitly what we mean by Critical Discourse Analysis • identify the link between language and ideology • describe how we can conduct research using Critical Discourse Analysis 3.0 Main Content 3.1 What is Critical Discourse Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis is an approach to doing Discourse Analysis that emphasizes the study of language and discourses in social institutions. It draws on poststructuralist discourse theory and critical linguistics to focus on how social relations, identity, knowledge and power are constructed through written and spoken texts indifferent linguistic contexts. CDA is founded on the idea that there is unequal access to linguistic and social resources. The discipline developed within several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, such as Pragmatics, Linguistics Sociolinguistics, Sociology, Psychology, Stylistics, Anthropology and Ethnography. CDA produces insights into the way discourse reproduces (or resists) social and political inequality, power abuse or domination. CDA focuses on the ways discourse structures enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce or challenge relations of power and dominance in society. Several scholars have worked within the CDA framework on areas such as media discourse, political discourse, gender discourse, and various institutional discourse, such as hospital discourse, office discourse and so forth. Later in the course of this module, we shall look at how to conduct a research using the CDA theory. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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