5. Beyond Science and Ideology Critique: Developments in Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an explicitly normative analysis of how texts and discourses work in ideological interests with powerful political consequences. This chapter provides an historical overview of CDA, placing it in the long lineage of attempts to develop a normative political linguistics beginning with Voloshinov. Recent approaches and procedures are discussed. These attempt to bring together text analysis with contemporary social, political, and cultural theory. The case is made that new conditions of economic and cultural globalization have created theoretical and empirical challenges for CDA and, more generally, for a critical applied linguistics. It is argued that these will require that CDA augment its strong focus on ideology critique with the study of texts that model the productive uses of power and discourse in new conditions.

Highlighting hybridity: A critical discourse analysis of teacher talk in science classrooms

“…Moreover, because it has roots in social theory as well (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999;Fairclough, 1989Fairclough, , 2003Luke, 2002), CDA can also be used to critique texts in terms of the ideologies they promote. Consequently, CDA has often been used to critique policy documents and other public texts.…”

“…AAAS, 2001;Fensham, 2002;Goodrum, Hackling, & Rennie, 2001), which could only be achieved by enacting a science curriculum that is accessible to all students. To do this, I employ the epistemological perspective and tools of critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1989(Fairclough, , 1992(Fairclough, , 2003Luke, 2002). Arguing that the nature of the typical discourse of the secondary science classroom may be a significant factor in failure to engage students, I compare two instances.…”

A faircloughian approach to cda: Principled eclecticism or a method searching for a theory?

“…Although some criticism of CDA has focused on its attention to linguistic analysis and a perceived over-emphasis on the 'micro', the test of CDA's effectiveness has to be in its ability to analyse 'the social' in conjunction with linguistic microanalysis (Luke, 2002, Pennycook, 2000. As Luke (2002, pp.102, 100) argued, CDA requires the overlay of 'social theoretic discourses for explaining and explicating the social contexts, concomitants, contingencies and consequences of any given text or discourse', accompanied by 'a principled and transparent shunting back and forth' between the micro and macro.…”

“…Without an explicit, developed social theory, the analytical techniques have limited purpose and cannot achieve the social justice purposes that define CDA (Luke, 2002, Fairclough, 1989, Widdowson, 1998 Fairclough (1989Fairclough ( , 1992aFairclough ( , 2001b) conceptualised discourse as a threedimensional concept. In using the term 'discourse' to refer to the whole process of social interaction, he identified a discursive event as simultaneously a piece of text, an instance of discursive practice and an instance of social practice.…”

“…As Luke (2002, p.99) pointed out, publishers now offer many 'how to' textbooks on CDA and 'graduate student theses openly declare CDA as a method and supervisors needn't look far for paradigmatically sympathetic examiners.' A significant reason for this is that CDA is being seen as a useful tool to examine educational questions about normative understandings of curriculum, pedagogy and schooling and to examine how deficit and disadvantage play out in school settings (Luke, 1997(Luke, , 2002.…”