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CDA therefore, draws on poststructuralist discourse theory and critical linguistics. It focuses on how social relations,
identity, knowledge and power are constructed through written and spoken texts. The techniques of CDA are derived from various disciplinary fields, such as Pragmatics and Speech Acts theory, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Linguistics. Pragmatics and Speech Acts theory see texts as forms of social action that occur in complex social contexts. Systemic Linguistics shows how linguistic forms can be systematically related to social functions. CDA uses analytical tools from these disciplines
to address issues on class, power, gender, race and culture.
3.4 Language and Ideology Scholars working within the field of CDA see a very strong relationship between language and ideology. The word Ideology is used in many disciplines with different, but overlapping shades of meaning. Ideology
simply refers to attitudes, set of beliefs, values and doctrines with reference to religious,
political, social and economic life which shape the individual's and group's perception and through which reality is constructed and interpreted. It is the belief of scholars in CDA that every instance of language use is produced from an ideological perspective. According to Taiwo (2007), inmost interactions, users bring with them different dispositions towards language, which are closely related to their social positioning. Kress (1990) also stresses that the defined and delimited set of statements that constitute a discourse are themselves expressive of and organized by a specific ideology.
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