STUDENT: Adli Jacobs

NUMBER: 608j3468
YEAR OF STUDY: 2008

COURSE: MA in Journalism and Media Studies

FACILITATOR: Prof. Jeanne Prinsloo

ASSIGNMENT 2: Critical discourse analysis has been described as both an approach

and a method. Present an overview and critique of CDA.

DUE DATE: 23 April 2008

DECLARATION:
I hereby declare that this essay is my own work. I have acknowledged all other
authors’ ideas and referenced direct quotations from their work. I have not allowed
anyone else to borrow or copy my work.

_________________________
Adli Jacobs

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Critical discourse analysis or CDA is part of the cultural studies approach to media
studies. Together with other empirical research methods in cultural studies such as
audience research and ethnographic studies, CDA (broadly speaking) is interested in
observing how cultural symbols (that gives meaning to social existence) are created,
the impact that it has on audiences and how cultural subjects respond to them. CDA
focuses on those cultural manifestations that take the public form, specifically texts.
From its cultural study roots, CDA is also fairly heterogeneous in both its theory and
its methodology. From that broad but short sweep of the landscape the question really
then becomes what is CDA actually? Under that headline we must also ask what the
different influences are and what the common ground is that holds CDA together.
Then going closer we must scrutinise CDA methodology and lastly how useful is it as
a means of better understanding cultural forms. These are the questions that we will
focus on in this paper.

What is CDA?
‘Critical discourse analysis’ as a term is fairly descriptive of the theory and the
empirical research methods that it holds in its ambit. It is by no means a homogenous
approach and its methodology is not uniform either. But let us first focus on its
approach and leave the analysis for the second section.
The ‘critical’ part points to the fact that CDA is not neutral in its approach to
the study of texts. It wants to unmask the power relations that are embedded (often
concealed) in the text of all communicative events, to expose the workings of how
language in use positions those it addresses by either subordinating, excluding or even
colluding with the assumed readers of such texts. CDA’s thrust is to ‘explain the
relationship between language, ideology and power by analysing discourse in its
material form’ (Janks 1998, 195) It is an approach that sides with the subordinated
and excluded and presents possibilities (often by merely exposing them) of how these
power relations could be more equitable (Jorgensen and Philips 2002, 64). CDA sees
language then as socially produced (or constituted) and at the same it also shapes the
society (constitutive) (Fairclough 1995, 55).
To underline the critical side further, some theorists also insist that CDA looks
at the ideological effects of discourse. In this instance ideology is viewed in its
negative connotation referring essentially to asymmetrical power relations in that it ‘is
always linked to domination – the negative use of power’ (Janks 1998, 198). This is

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of course in reference to Thompson’s (1990) ‘critical conception of ideology’. This
Thompson derived from his reading of Marx’s latent (or implied) notion of ideology
but unlike Marx he also includes relations of domination as pertains to gender,
ethnicity and nations together with class (Janks 1998, 198). Those who argue from a
Foucauldian perspective, however, see power as productive; a site of struggle over
meaning between the powerful and the subordinated. They argue that it is dangerous
to see power as essentially uni-directional because as analysts we will not be open to
the possibility of contestation of power and of the fact that there is never a moment
where only a single discourse is at play (Prinsloo 2007, 81). From this perspective
discourse does not merely display domination ‘but the thing for which and by which
there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized’ (Foucault 1981, 53).
This then moves the discussion to the ‘discourse’ part of critical discourse analysis.
At a simplistic level ‘discourse’ in CDA refers to the emphasis on textual
analysis which includes the visual (Jorgensen and Phillips 2002, 61). But instead of a
structuralist or formalist approach to language and to the text, CDA theorists are
poststructural. This means that CDA goes beyond the structures in language looking
for ‘meaning’ and ‘doing’ and then linking that to how it is used in context
(Richardson 2002, 22). In other words we are back to the idea that discourse is
socially constitutive and constituted. I prefer to look at discourse from the
Foucauldian view where it is seen as that which is ‘at once controlled, selected,
organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures’ which acts to cloak
‘its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its
ponderous, formidable materiality’ (Foucault 1981, 52). From this perspective a
typical discourse is made of four essential elements:
1. Its objects (or realm of knowledge such as say the family);
2. Its subjects (those constituted by the discourse such as the parents and children);
3. Its concepts (accepted notions that constitutes the subjects such as parents know
best); and
4. Its strategies (methods employed to ensure compliance with concepts such as
punishment or reward) (Prinsloo 2007, 80).
Discourse then sets boundaries in terms of who is inside and who is outside its
realm; who gets to speak and who does not; what is to be said and what is not; and
who has power and authority and who is not worth listening to. To explain these
complex power relations some CDA theorists turn to Gramsci’s notion of hegemony.

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Gramsci talks about the powerful only really being able to rule by securing or rather
‘winning the active consent’ of subordinate classes (Hall 1982, 85). This highlights
the idea of contested power and opens the door in cultural studies to look at audiences
having oppositional readings to socially created forms of meaning or texts. What
hegemony does not explain, however, is fact that subjects operate in a variety of
different discourses at once. Therefore ‘a person does not encounter a single set of
discursive practices and thus s/he is inscribed variously and as a plural subject’
(Prinsloo 2007, 81). Discourses are also not as stable as the notions of ideology and
hegemony implies. Its socially constituted nature means that discourse can change,
change strategies, or even disappear over time. There are no two sets of people with
the exact combination of discourses that are at play in their lives (Prinsloo 2007, 81).
This certainly makes for a complex description of discourse. How does one begin to
uncover such discursive formations at work within texts?

CDA methodology
If CDA, as an approach, shows that the field constituted of different theorists with
different emphases then it follows that the methodology of actual analytical tools
should also be diverse. Here, however, the diversity is not so much one of social
theory but rather on analytical preference given the nature of the text or subject
matter. Most CDA theorists (from different theoretical backgrounds) find the
Fairclough three-tier framework useful and I find it valuable to explain how analysts
in this field approach textual analysis.

Figure 1: Faircloughs framework (1995, 59)

Faircloughs model brings together all the important elements that would
constitute a CDA analytic method. At the centre lies the core aspect of the analysis:

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the text or communicative event that could be a news article, a speech, a website that
could include ‘verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts’ (Janks 1998, 1). Here one
would apply linguistic analysis and semiotic analysis, where you could focus on
‘argumentation, narrative, modality, transitivity [or wording], nominalization, voice’
(Fairclough 2005, 81). The focus here is on describing the text, the story or argument
that is being made, who is speaking, to whom as the style that is being used. The
purpose is to try to see patterns at work in the text looking at sentence structures and
how verbs and nouns are used ‘to establish hypotheses about discourses at work in
society’ (Janks 2005, 331). Some of the patterns are apparent in Fairclough’s three
‘categories of function’ operating in texts: the ‘ideational, interpersonal and textual’
(1995, 58). By ideational he means the representations of society or ideology present
in the text. The interpersonal refers to how identity is shaped of both writer and
reader. The textual refers to the style(s) or genre(s) of the text. The analyst does not
only focus on what is present in the text but also what or who has been excluded or
omitted.
The second box marks the level of discursive analysis or interpretation of the
text. Here the analyst looks at all the possible discourses at play in the text both from
the perspective of the writer or producer or institution and the (preferred) reader or
audience. If it is, for example, a news article the analyst will look at professional
practices, the newspaper ownership or position, the impact of advertising and so on.
The analyst here is trying to make sense of the text by looking at the various
discursive regimes that are implicit in the text. One could, for example, depending on
the textual form and its content deploy other theoretical tools to help illuminate
particular regimes of power. Mamdani (1996) has been used to illustrate how
individuals could be positioned as both ‘subjects’ and ‘citizens’ in Africa as a result of
the dual systems of government under colonialism (Prinsloo 2007, 82). Thompson
(1990) has been mined for his five modes of operation of ideology (namely
legitimation, dissimulation, unification, fragmentation and reification) (Janks 1998,
199-200).
The third box of Fairclough’s framework looks at the larger social context of
the text in focus. What are the broader socio-political factors (or even historical
issues) contextualise this communicative event? What broader societal (or even
global) power regimes does it reinforce, normalise or undermine? The analysis has
now moved from textual analysis, to interpretation and finally to explanation which

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has been an attempt to ‘look for patterns across texts related so as to form an ‘order of
discourse’, or for discontinuities and hybridity which can signal disorder and social
change’ (Janks 1998, 197).
An important technique to bear in mind when applying the above framework
is the notion of engagement and estrangement. Estrangement is to be outside of the
discourse of the preferred reader of the text and facilitates a critical reading.
Engagement is to grasp and identify with the positioning of the subject as implied in
the text and this helps to understand the impact of the discourse. Both these positions
have their advantages and impediments. CDA requires a moving between these
positions to get a more rounded analysis ‘and argues the need for reading against the
text to counterbalance reading with the text’ (Janks 2005, 331).

Critique of CDA
CDA is not a uniform method nor a homogenous field. It is eclectic in the selection of
its tools and it has different nuanced views on the notion of discourse. This is to its
advantage because it leaves the door open for change, new ideas and new
methodologies to enrich its work. True to the Foucauldian (1981) notion of discourse
CDA is on a trajectory of the ‘will to know’ as opposed to the ‘will to truth’. Its
analytic results, though empirical, are tentative explanations pointing often to more
research than conclusive truth claims. This, the notion of hybrid identities and
productive notion of power places it very much in a postmodern frame. It is perhaps
for this reason (scepticism of postmodernism) that makes Marxist theorist call up
ideology and hegemony. This is an area that CDA will need to grapple with.
Many CDA theorists cited in this article insist that the critical side of the
analytic school also refers to its commitment to social change. The idea of CDA is to
unmask power, domination, truth claims and the workings of often subordinating
discourses. The reality is that CDA is itself caught in the discourse of academic
discipline that still has to begin with considering notions of accessibility of knowledge
to those for whom discourse is opaque.
Despite this, CDA still strengthens the hand of the cultural studies perspective
media with its empirical approach and, in fact, it is a method applicable to a variety of
texts or communicative events. For good measure it also considers issues of
production and the broader social structures that have largely been the domain of the
political economists.

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