Principles of critical discourse analysis

Principles of critical discourse analysis

Teun A. van Dijk

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

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ABSTRACT. This paper discusses some principles of critical discourse analysis,

such as the explicit sociopolitical stance of discourse analysts, and a

focus on dominance relations by elite groups and institutions as they are

being enacted, legitimated or otherwise reproduced by text and talk. One

of the crucial elements of this analysis of the relations between power and

discourse is the patterns of access to (public) discourse for different social

groups. Theoretically it is shown that in order to be able to relate power

and discourse in an explicit way, we need the cognitive interface

of

models. knowledge, attitudes and ideologies and other social representations

of the social mind, which also relate the individual and the social,

and the micro- and the macro-levels of social structure. Finally, the argument

is illustrated with an analysis of parliamentary debates about ethnic

affairs.

KEY WORDS: access, critical discourse analysis, discourse, dominance,

Great Britain, parliamentary debates. power, racism, social cognition,

text

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1. INTRODUCTION

This paper discusses some principles, aims and criteria of a critical discourse

analysis (CDA). It tries to answer (critical) questions such as What

is critical discourse analysis (anyway) ? , How is it different from other

types of discourse analysis? , What are its aims, special methods, and

especially what is its theoretical foundation? Also, it acknowledges the

need to examine, in rather practical terms. how one goes about doing a

critical analysis of text and talk.

In general, the answers to such questions presuppose a study of the

relations between discourse, power, dominance, social inequality and the

position of the discourse analyst in such social relationships. Since this is

a complex, multidisciplinary and as vet underdeveloped domain of

study, which one may call sociopolitical discourse analysis , only the most

relevant dimensions of this domain can be addressed here.

Although there are many directions in the study and critique of social

inequality, the way we approach these questions and dimensions is by

focusing on the role of discourse in the (re)production and challenge of

dominance. Dominance is defined here as the exercise of social power by

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DISCOURSE & SOCIETY © 1993 SAGE (London. Newbury Park and New Delhi), vol. 4(2): 249-

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elites, institutions or groups, that results in social inequality, including

political, cultural, class, ethnic, racial and gender inequality. This reproduction

process may involve such different modes of discourse power

relations as the more or less direct or overt support. enactment, representation,

legitimation, denial, mitigation or concealment of dominance,

among others. More specifically, critical discourse analysts want to know

what structures, strategies or other properties of text, talk, verbal interaction

or communicative events play a role in these modes of reproduction.

This paper is biased in another way: we pay more attention to top

down relations of dominance than to bottom-up relations of resistance,

...