Critical Discourse Analysis

The label Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used by a significant number of scholars with a diverse set of concerns in a number of disciplines. It is well-exemplified by the editorial statement of the journal Discourse and Society , which defines its envisaged domain of enquiry as follows: “the reproduction of sexism and racism through discourse; the legitimation of power; the manufacture of consent; the role of politics, education and the media; the discursive reproduction of dominance relation between groups; the imbalances in international communication and information.” While some practitioners of Critical Discourse Analysis might want to amend this list here or there, the set of concerns sketched here well describes the field of CDA. The only comment I would make, a comment crucial for many practitioners of CDA, is to insist that these phenomena are to be found in the most unremarkable and everyday of texts—and not only in texts which declare their special status in some way. This scope, and the overtly political agenda, serves to set CDA off on the one hand from other kinds of discourse analysis, and from textlinguistics (as well as from pragmatics and sociolinguistics) on the other.