Nama : Fortuna Laura Maria Sipayung (121060034)

Kelas 3B

Wodak's CDA Model

CDA sees discourse – language use in speech and writing – as a form of “social practice”.
Describing discourse as social practice implies a dialectical relationship between a particular
discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s), and social structure(s) which frame it: the
discursive event is shaped by them, but it also shapes them. That is, discourse is socially
constitutive as well as socially conditioned; it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and
the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It is constitutive
both in the sense that it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo and in the sense
that it contributes to transforming it.

CDA encompasses varied understandings of the terms “critical”, “criticism”, and “critique”.
First, critical analysis of discourse can attempt to “make the implicit explicit”. More specifically,
it means making explicit the implicit relationship between discourse, power, and ideology,
challenging surface meanings, and not taking anything for granted. Moreover, critical discourse
analysts do not stop after having deconstructed textual meanings: the practical application of
research results is also aimed at.

Although the field comprises a vast amount of research and also many methodological and
theoretical challenges, I have decided to restrict myself to six major areas (and related
challenges) (for an extensive discussion, see Wodak and Meyer 2009a: 11–14):
1 Analysing, understanding, and explaining the impact of the knowledge-based economy (KBE)
on various domains of our societies; and, related to this, the recontextualization of KBE into
other parts of the world and other societies (“transition”).
2 Integrating approaches from cognitive sciences into CDA; this requires complex,
epistemological considerations and the development of new tools. Moreover, we question in
which ways such approaches could be dependent on western cultural contexts.
3 Analysing, understanding, and explaining new phenomena in our political systems which are a
result of the impact of (new) media and of new transnational, global, and local developments
and related institutions.

4 Analysing, understanding, and explaining the impact of new media and new genres, which
entails developing new multimodal theoretical and methodological approaches.
5 Analysing, understanding, and explaining the relationship between complex historical
processes, hegemonic narratives, and CDA approaches. Identity politics on all levels always
entails the integration of past experiences, present events, and future visions in many domains
of our lives. The concepts of intertextuality and recontextualization are inherently tied to
interdisciplinary discourse historical approaches.
6 Avoiding “cherry picking” (choosing the examples which best fit the assumptions) by
integrating quantitative and qualitative methods and by providing retroductable, self-reflective
presentations of past or current research processes.