Aspects of Critical Discourse Analysis

In this paper, I will attempt to provide an overview of some important approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. Firstly, I will focus on central and relevant concepts and terms; then I will present the historical development of Critical Discourse Analysis and I give some example of CDA in society and media discourse. In conclusion, I would like to summarize some of the most important theoretical and methodological theories within this research paradigm. The terms Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are often used interchangeably. In fact, recently the term CDA seems to have been preferred and is being used to denote the theory formerly identified as CL. Thus, I will continue to use CDA exclusively in this paper. The roots of CDA lie in classical Rhetoric, Text linguistics and Sociolinguistics, as well as in Applied Linguistics and Pragmatics. The notions of ideology, power, hierarchy and gender together with sociological variables were all seen as relevant for an interpretation or explanation of text. The subjects under investigation differ for the various departments and scholars who apply CDA. Gender issues, issues of racism, media discourses, political discourses, organizational discourses or dimensions of identity research have become very prominent. The methodologies differ greatly in all these studies, on account of the aims of the research and also with regard to the particular methodologies applied: small qualitative case studies can be found as well as large data corpora, drawn from fieldwork and ethnographic research. CDA takes a particular interest in the relationship between language and power. The term CDA is used nowadays to refer more specifically to the critical linguistic approach of scholars who find the larger discursive unit of text to be the basic unit of communication.