BASIC DISCOURSE

ANALYSIS/STUDIES
General Overview of
Discourse
 What is discourse?

Language Use in General

Refer to a specific set of meanings expressed through particular forms and

uses which give expression to particular institutions or social groups (Kress,
1989)
 What is discourse? (1)

• “Discourse is a particular view of language in

use” (Fairclough, 2003, p. 4);

• “Discourse is any kind of written, spoken, and any

other symbolic forms that are used in people
communication” (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p. 7).
 What is Discourse? (2)

• “Discourse is the actual instance of communicative action

in the medium of language” (Johnstone, 2008, p. 2).
• “Discourse is language in action” (Blommaert, 2005, p. 2).
• “Discourse is a discipline devoted to investigation of the
relationship between form and function in verbal
communication”(Renkema, 2004, p. 1)
 Important words around ‘discourse’
• language
• language use
• Text
• action
• communication
• View
• Symbolic forms
• Form and Function
 What is Discourse Analysis?
• DA Tradition: Linguistics [much more attention to the linguistic features of text]
and non-linguistics [little close attention to the linguistic features of text]
• Why can language be used to analyse social issues?
“Language is an irreducible [integral] part of social life and it is interconnected with
other elements of Social Life”(Fairclough, 2003, p.2)
• Social life: position, age, occupation, social affiliation, social status, gender,
wealth, knowledge
• Social analysis and research have to take account of language
• A multidisciplinary analyses or approaches deliberately used and
developed to investigate the use of language in particular social contexts
to find out (1) meaning/message, (2) function, (3) particular purposes,
• Language is seen as a form of social practice
• It seeks to relate language theories and social theories
• C/DA study society through discourse and understand discourse through
an analysis of its textual, historical, socio-political and cultural
foundations (Flowerdew & Richardson, 2018)
• Texts, discursive practice, society; discursive practice links texts and
society
• Discursive practice is how text is produced, disseminated and understood
 Multi-disciplinary and multi-approach
• C/DA is multidisciplinary and it is a group of varying and distinctive
approaches, not a single method (Flowerdew & Richardson, 2018)
• For example:
• A statement: ISLAM RADIKAL
this can be investigated using discourse-historical approach, socio-
cognitive approach, socio-cognitive approach and social practice
approach
• Doing critical/discourse analysis should pay close attention to textual,
ideological, pragmatic, social and cognitive analyses as all of these
elements are involved in the production of discourse
 Text
• any meaningful action either in forms of written, spoken or audio-visual
(concept of multimodality)
• anything that conveys meaning
• any actual instance of language in use (Fairclough, 2003, p. 4)
 Social effects of text
• It brings about change in knowledge, ideas, belief, attitude, social relation
• It shapes identities
• It provides and offers understanding about particular issue
 Ideology (1)
• A set of Ideas, views or beliefs
• Representation of social world
• Matters of evaluation and judgment
• Set of beliefs and values belonging to particular social groups; it is not only
individual ideas formed through personal experience but through the process of
social interaction
• It is a matter of view of ‘bad or good’, ‘like or dislike’, ‘agree or disagree’ to
particular thing
 Ideology (2)
Ideological square can technically be translated into the following
characteristics (Van Dijk, 1998 as cited in Flowerdew & Richardson, 2018):
1. Emphasizing positive things about US
2. Emphasizing negative things about THEM
3. De-emphasizing negative things about US
4. De-emphasizing positive things about THEM
 Ideology (3)
• It is a version of reality that is commonly represented as something natural,
neutral and accepted as a common sense
• Elite people produce ideologized-texts to represent their political interest as
something natural and neutral to gain and maintain power:

kemiskinan terjadi disebabkan oleh masyarakat miskin itu malas dan tidak
mau bekerja keras
perempuan cantik harus memiliki kulit putih
 Other key concepts
• Beside ideology, some important words or concepts in CDS are hegemony, identity and critique
• Hegemony is domination or control over others. This may be established not only from the process
of physical coercion, but now, it is established through discourse. It is disseminated through a
number of statements to represent the values and beliefs through various text genres that are in
benefit of particular groups (mostly ruler, majority, powerful ones) and put other groups in inferior
position.
• Identity is the way to refer to the way individuals or groups see themselves in relation to others.
• Critique is the challenge against unequal positions through the analysis of texts (e.g. discriminatory
or hegemonic texts)