Essays In Critical Discourse Analysis

This framework allows for the discussion and analysis of ideologies involved in a set of discourses.The macro level of analysis is helpful in understanding how macro-structures of inequality persist through discursive processes across multiple sites and texts.

The meso-level or "level of discursive practice" involves studying issues of production and consumption, for instance, which institution produced a text, who is the target audience, etc.

At the macro-level, the analyst is concerned with intertextual and interdiscursive elements and tries to take into account the broad, societal currents that are affecting the text being studied. van Dijk's approach to Critical Discourse Analysis combines cognitive theories with linguistic and social theories.

Particularly, he combines micro, meso and macro-level interpretation.

At the micro-level, the analyst considers various aspects of textual/linguistic analysis, for example syntactic analysis, use of metaphor and rhetorical devices.

CDA has been used to examine political speech acts, to highlight the rhetoric behind these, and any forms of speech that may be used to manipulate the impression given to the audience. For example, it has been said that it is simultaneously too broad to distinctly identify manipulations within the rhetoric, yet is also not powerful enough to appropriately find all that researchers set out to establish.

Norman Fairclough discussed the term CDA in his book Language and Power.Through the analysis of grammar, it aims to uncover the 'hidden ideologies' that can influence a reader or hearer's view of the world.Analysts have looked at a wide variety of spoken and written texts — political manifestos, advertising, rules and regulations — in an attempt to demonstrate how text producers use language (wittingly or not) in a way that could be ideologically significant.By looking at the coverage of a recent news event in two British newspapers, it demonstrates how a number of the linguistic ideas discussed in the How people present the world through language section of the Linguistic Toolbox can be used to produce an in-depth analysis of meaning in texts.Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a branch of linguistics that seeks to understand how and why certain texts affect readers and hearers.Van Dijk uses cognition as the middle layer of a three-layer approach consisting of discourse, cognitive and society.By integrating a cognitive approach, researchers are better able to understand how larger social phenomenon are reinforced through popular, everyday discourse.Notable writers include Norman Fairclough, Michał Krzyżanowski, Paul Chilton, Teun A. Richardson, Phil Graham, Theo Van Leeuwen, Siegfried Jäger, Christina Schäffner, James Paul Gee, Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress, Mary Talbot, Lilie Chouliaraki, Thomas Huckin, Hilary Janks, Veronika Koller, Christopher Hart, and Bob Hodge.This article provides an example of how Critical Discourse Analysis can be used to analyse texts.In addition to linguistic theory, the approach draws from social theory—and contributions from Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu—in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in discourse.Language connects with the social through being the primary domain of ideology, and through being both a site of, and a stake in, struggles for power.