Critical Discourse Analysis as a Research Tool

Abstract

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) stems from a critical theory of language which sees the use of language as a form of social practice. All social practice are tied to specific historical contexts and are the means by which existing social relations are reproduced or contested and different interests are served. It is the questions pertaining to interests- How is the text positioned or positioning? Whose interests are served by this positioning? Whose interests are negated? What are the consequences of this positioning?- that relate discourse to relations of power. Where analysis seeks to understand how discourse is implicated in relations of power, it is called critical discourse analysis. Fairclough's (1989, 1995) model for CDA consists three inter-related processes of analysis tied to three inter-related dimensions of discourse. These three dimensions are 1 The object of analysis (including verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts). 2 The processes by means of which the object is produced and received (writing/ speaking/designing and reading/listening/viewing) by human subjects. 3 The socio-historical conditions which govern these processes. According to Fairclough each of these dimensions requires a different kind of analysis

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