Critical Discourse Analysis: Exploring its Philosophical Underpinnings

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) stresses that language use, discourse, and communication should be studied in their social, cultural and political contexts. A considerable amount of literature has been produced and the use of CDA as a research methodology has been so wide across various disciplines of social sciences. The current body of literature in the field reflects two major aspects of CDA: Linguistic aspect and critical aspect. However, the philosophical aspect of CDA, especially its ontological and epistemological underpinnings, which in a sense guides other two aspects, is not fully elaborated. This paper summarizes linguistic and critical aspects of CDA and explores major philosophical underpinnings of CDA with the help of four aporias of research methodology introduced by Patti Lather.