critical discourse analysis

critical discourse analysis

Introduction

 

The research is set to conduct a critical discourse analysis of the short news article in the Urdu language (National language in Pakistan). Since the publication of Norman Fairclough’s Language and Power and Ruth Wodak’s Language, Power and Ideology Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has not only grown into a significant field of research in its own but also has been widely adopted by researchers in a range of disciplines from Biblical studies (Van Noppen 1996) to urban planning (Hastings 1999).In the overall introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis (1995), a collection of his papers written during the 1980s,  Fairclough described CDA as having “passed through the first flush of youth” and “embarked upon the maturation process”. CDA has indeed sought a reputation, although it has built up formidable weaponry, and demonstrated considerable skill in using its manoeuvres. In my opinion, it has hardly if ever, advanced beyond a guerilla sniping from the margins to a successful assault on the cannon’s mouth. The main innovation incorporated by Critical Discourse Analysis is the integration of the role of audiences in the interpretation of discourse and the extension of the scope of analysis beyond the textual, extending it to intertextual report.

Critical Discourse Analysis does not have a unitary theoretical framework or methodology. It is best viewed as a shared perspective comprising a variety of approaches instead of a school. Historically, Critical Discourse Analysis is an evolution from the Critical Linguistics developed in late 1979 by several theorists at the University of East Anglia. In this discussion am going to focus on the Critical Discourse Analysis as a tool to analyze the short new article to understand how discourse is implicated in relations of power. By employing Fairclough’s model for CDA, which has three inter-related dimensions of discourse; the object analysis; the process analysis; and the socio-historical conditions governing these processes. I will analyze the article into description, interpretation, and explanation parts to be able to focus on the signifiers that make up the text.

 

 

Literature Review

Linguistic philosophy

Linguistic philosophy can also be termed as language ideology which refers to shared body of common beliefs, views and perceptions about language including culture (Sikandar 2017). Assumptions about language, nature and purpose of communication and pattern of communicative character as an enactment of a collective order (Woorlard 1992). It is through linguistic philosophy that one can discern implicit and latent assumptions about reality as it informs us how people analyze situations and events. Among other aspects a field of linguistic philosophy focuses on socio-political and historical processes of standardization of languages. A language is purposefully chosen by those in power and made the standard language which (Rahman 1999) defines as standardization of a language. By creating inequality and devaluation of other languages this process becomes political. At the academic point and social point, use of one language in power domains makes it the language of the elites, a mark of superiority and privilege (Kroch 1978). This process results to status of standard language and national language. It creates a sense of authority emanating from a center, marking particular forms of speech as emblematic of group identity and bringing in a socio-political evaluative stratification in language usage with better and worse forms of usage (Blommaert 2004, Gal & Woorlard 2001, Kroskirty 2000). The people in authority justify the use of the variety of a language in their interest to promote it as the single model of correctness (Cooper 1989, Rahman 1999). Through stratification, power uses language by ascribing big and small varieties of language to attain the desired social order, which is the order of indexicality or the social meaning of language (Blommaert 2005). Blommaert (2006) talks of Critical Discourse Analysis as “Power… producing people as subjects acting on a topic in a specific regimented mode and so becoming somebody.” Presently, power is related to instrumental value of language such as what it can buy in the market. Entirely the machineries of the state serve the purpose of creating inequality in the masses be denial of access to an elite language and education. Language ideologies are generated through combination of specific discourses and registers, institutional structures and professional practices. Linguistic forms are indexical, indexing context through ideological inferences (Silverstein 1979). A specific form stands for specific social and cultural meaning (Silverstein 2006). Consistently we portray social meanings through grammatical forms, lexical items, phrases and sentence structures to attain a specific social purpose. The meanings are as well suggested through textualization as discourse is picked up out of its interactional environment and transmitted together with new suggestion of context (Bauman & Briggs 1990). This means that the original pieces of discourses encompassing initial texts from social, cultural or historical unique events are picked out of their original context and transmitted into a different context or discourse (Blommaert 2006). Inter-textuality is the other strategy used by the participants to transmit language ideologies from one discourse to another. It is the use of numerous references suggestive of other texts present in the discourse of an individual as people pick references and ideas from different experts and disciplines like politics, history, and others to increase value to their discourses. Linguistic philosophies are as well concerned with studying the patterns of discourse, referring to the way people speak write in a certain organization. Furthermore, it is this same discourse that proposes their identity as a director or clerk. However, in linguistic philosophies ideologies explore the issue of identity whish is two dimensional (Blommaert 2006); inhabited identities (the identities that ourselves construct and articulate) and ascribed identities (the identities that are attributed to us by other people). The politics of identity is always between both of these dimensions: the identity we claim for ourselves clash with the identities that we are attributed to by others.

Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is placed within the critical theories paradigm and mainly focuses on analyzing linguistic artifacts (Fairclough 2001, Gee 2005, van Dijk 1993) this is with the objective of investigating the relationship of power, language, and society (Gee 2005, Rogers 2004). Conferring to Fairclough and Wodak (1997) the elementary tenets of Critical Discourse Analysis are the views of discourse as a means of addressing social problems, acknowledging power relations as discursive, involving society as well as culture and furthering ideological work. Critical Discourse Analysis focuses on the crucial knowledge that enables human beings to free themselves up from structures of domination and power conferring to Bourdieu’s concept of violence symbolique. Critical Discourse Analysis tries to create awareness among the partners about their own needs and interests. It is concerned in more hidden and latent everyday beliefs that always seem disguised as conceptual metaphors and analogies; in addition, it tries to seek out the veiled meaning or rea between the lines as participants in a discourse create meanings, which Fairclough (1995) infers to as inter textuality of discourses. The chief concern of Critical Discourse Analysis is to look at he institutional practices in the sense of power and control. It looks at how the choices ae made about what to present, what to emphasize as well as equally what to exclude. Through this method the institutions via their chief actors seize unlimited control in deciding norms, standard practices or ideologies of an institution