CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Some important concepts and considerations

RUTH WODAK

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF DISCOURSE STUDIES LANCASTER UNIVERSITY http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/profiles/Ruth-Wodak/

WHY DISCOURSE ANALYSIS? Qualitative Methods and/or Discourse Analysis y in the Social Sciences

Developments l and d synergies i „ ‘An interest in the properties of ‘naturally occurring’ language g g use by y real language g g users (instead ( of a study y of abstract language systems and invented examples)’ „ ‘A focus on larger units than isolated words and sentences, and hence, new basic units of analysis: texts, discourses, conversations, speech acts, or communicative events’. t ’ „ The extension of linguistics beyond sentence grammar towards a study of action and interaction. interaction (Wodak 2008, van Dijk 2007) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Developments and synergies „ ‘The extension to non-verbal (semiotic, multimodal, visual) aspects of interaction and communication: gestures, images, film, the internet, and multimedia’ „ ‘A A focus on dynamic (socio) (socio)-cognitive cognitive or interactional moves and strategies’ „ ‘The study of the functions of (social, cultural, glocal, and d cognitive) i i ) contexts off language l use’’ „ ‘Analysis manifold phenomena of text grammar and language g g use: coherence,, cohesion,, macrostructures,, speech acts, turn-taking, signs, politeness, argumentation, rhetoric, and so forth’. Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

CHALLENGES: QUALITATIVE METHODS AND CHALLENGES DISCOURSE ANALYSIS I

Dealing with interviews of all kinds Dealing with focus group discussions Dealing with policy papers Dealing with media (visual, broadcasts,, press, p , Internet,, blogs, g , youtube…) † Dealing with records, records minutes, minutes etc. etc when doing ethnography † † † †

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

CHALLENGES II

† ‘DISCOURSE’ – ‘EMPTY SIGNIFIER’ † INTEGRATION OF CONTRADICTORY EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACHES † NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE SALIENCE OF ‘GENRE’ GENRE AND RELATED INHERENT CHARACTERISTICS † DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN ‘DISCOURSE’ AND ‘TEXT’ † ANALYSING ‘DISCOURSE’ – ‘ANALYSING ANALYSING TEXT TEXT’ † ‘CHERRY – PICKING Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Functions of text material (Titscher et al. 2000, 32) as Text (1.) of Features of the Groups Investigated (2.1.)

The Text

as Representation R t ti off F Features t off th the Situations Investigated ((2.2.)) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

DEFINING ‘DISCOURSE’? Discourse, Genre, Text, Context

FOR EXAMPLE…. † A SPECIFIC ‘DISCOURSE’ (Racist, Sexist, national, liberal, conservative, historical,…) (Discourse of the EU,, Discourse of † ‘DISCOURSE OF’ ( an organisation, of men or women, of Hillary Clinton, ….) † ‘ X + DISCOURSE’ (security discourse, globalisation l b li ti discourse…) di ) † ‘DISCOURSE ABOUT’ (unemployment, racism, enlargement…) † ‘MODE + DISCOURSE’ (visual ( is al discourse, disco se written itten discourse, spoken discourse…) † DISCOURSE as lieu de mémoire, as building, as language as image…. language, image † Different language-specific meanings (‘spoken language’, ‘structures of knowledge’…) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Pragmatism Pragmatismus (Dewey) (Dewey)

Georg GeorgSimmel Simmel

SSymbolischer Symbolic b li Interactionism Interaktionismus (Mead, (Mead,Blumer) Blumer)

Social SocialAnthropology Anthropology (Radcliffe-Brown, (Radcliffe-Brown,EvansEvansPritchard, Pritchard,Malinowski) Malinowski) Cultural CulturalAnthropology Anthropology (Boas, (Boas,Benedict) Benedict)

Grounded GroundedTheory Theory (Glaser (Glaser//Strauss) Strauss)

Russian Russischer Formalism Formalismus (Todorov, (Todorov,Propp) Propp) Prague Prager School Schule of der Structural Linguistics strukturalen Linguistik (Jakobson) (Jakobson)

Phenomenology Phänomenologie (Husserl) (Husserl)

Conversation analysis Konversationsanalyse (Sacks, Schegloff, (Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson) Jefferson)

Technological Technologisches Communication KommunikationsModel modell (Shannon/Weaver) (Shannon/Weaver)

Theory Theorieofd. Mass MassenCommunication kommunikation (Lasswell) (Lasswell)

Content analysis Inhaltsanalyse

Ethnomethodology Ethnomethodologie (Garfinkel, (Garfinkel,Cicourel) Cicourel)

Functional FunktionalePragmatics Pragmatik (Ehlich (Ehlich//Rehbein) Rehbein)

Objective Objektive Hermeneutics Hermeneutik (Oevermann) (Oevermann)

Ludwig Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein

Speech Act Theory Sprechakttheorie (Austin, (A Searle, ti Wunderlich) Searle, Wunderlich) Semiotics Semiotik (Morris) (Morris)

Membership Membership Categorization Categorization Device Device(Sacks) (Sacks)

Ethnography Ethnographyofof Communication Communication (Hymes) (Hymes)

Cultural-Structuralism Kultur-Strukturalismus (Levi-Strauss, (Levi-Strauss,Mauss) Mauss) Structural Strukturale Linguistics Linguistik (Saussure) (Saussure)

Phenomenological Phänomenologische Sociology Soziologie(Schütz, (Schütz, Thomas) Thomas)

Distinction Diff Differenztheoretische thTheory ti h Text Analysis Textanalyse(Titscher (Titscher/ / Meyer) Meyer)

Organon model Organonmodell ofderLanguage Sprache (Bühler) (Bühler) Systemic Systemische Communication Theory Kommunikationstheorie (Luhmann) (Luhmann) Distinction theoryy Differenztheorie (Spencer Brown) (Spencer Brown)

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Narrative Narrative Semiotics Semiotik (Greimas) (Greimas)

SYMLOG SYMLOG(Bales (Bales/ / Cohen) Cohen) Field theory (Lewin) Feldtheorie (Lewin)

CDA F i Fairclough Fairclough l h) CDA(nach Critical Theory Kritische Theorie (Adorno, (Adorno,Habermas, Habermas, Horkheimer) Horkheimer) Hermeneutics Hermeneutik Psychoanalysis Psychoanalyse (Dilthey, Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA (Dilthey, (Freud) (Freud) Gadamer) Gadamer) Course 2010

Discourse historical Diskurshistorische Method (Wodak) Methode (Wodak)

Michel MichelFoucault Foucault

Functional y FunctionalSystemic Systemic Linguistics Linguistics(Halliday) (Halliday) Cognitive CognitiveLinguistics Linguistics (Shank, (Shank,Abelson) Abelson)

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ‘CDA highlights the substantively linguistic and discursive nature of social relations of power in contemporary societies. This is partly the matter of how power relations are exercised and negotiated in discourse. It is fruitful to look at both ‘power in discourse’ and ‘power over discourse’ in these dynamic terms’ (Wodak 1996) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT CDA Course 2010

CDA’S DISCOURSE-HISTORICAL APPROACH 1.‘‘The approach is problem-oriented, not focused on specific linguistic items’ 2. The approach is interdisciplinary 3. ‘The approach is abductive: a constant movement back and forth between theory and empirical data is necessary’.

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT CDA Course 2010

CDA’S DISCOURSE-HISTORICAL APPROACH

4. ‘The categories and tools for the analysis are defined according to all these steps and procedures as well as to the specific problem under investigation’ 5. Application li i i aimed is i d at.

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT CDA Course 2010

DHA: Beginning, g g Domains of Research † Studying the ‘Waldheim Affair’ in Austria – Detecting nationalist/chauvinistic and / rhetoric in various racist/anti-Semitic public domains † Identity Politics † Organisations: Insiders/Outsiders † Text-Production Text Production and Comprehension (Wodak 1986, 1996, Wodak et al. 1990) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT CDA Course 2010

KEY CONCEPTS OF DHA

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT CDA Course 2010

DISCOURSE, GENRE & TEXT † Discourse implies patterns and commonalities of knowledge and structures; † Text is a specific and unique realization of a discourse. Texts belong to “genres”. † ‘Genre’ characterised as ‘a socially ratified way of using g language g g in connection with a p particular type yp of social activity’ (Fairclough 1995: 14), used by ‘communities of practice’ with specific ‘functions’ (Swales 1992). † Text creates sense when its manifest and latent meanings are read in connection with knowledge of the world (‘context models’, ‘shared knowledge’, ‘collective collective memories memories’ ‘Resonance’) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Interdiscursive and intertextual relationships between discourses, discourses discourse topics, genres, and texts Discourse A genre x

time axis

text x

Discourse B

genre y

genre z

text yz

genre u text u

topic x1

topic yz1

topic u1

topic x2

topic yz2

topic u2

topic x3

topic yz3

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

22

US and THEM The discursive construction of “US” and “THEM” is the foundation of prejudiced and racist p perceptions p and discourses. This discursive construction starts with the labelling of the social actors, proceeds to the generalization of negative g g attributions and then elaborates arguments to justify the exclusion of many and inclusion of some. The discursive realizations can be more or less intensified or mitigated, more or less implicit or explicit, due to historical conventions, public levels of tolerance,, p p political correctness, context and public sphere. (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Analyzing y gp positive self- and negative other presentation † How are persons named and referred to linguistically? † What traits, traits characteristics, characteristics qualities and features are attributed to them? † By means of what arguments and argumentation schemes do specific persons or social groups try to justify and legitimize the exclusion of others or inclusion of some? † From what perspective or point of view are these labels, attributions and arguments expressed? d? † Are the respective utterances articulated overtly, y are they y even intensified or are they y mitigated? Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Strategy

Objectives

Devices

referential / nomination

Construction of in-groups and out-groups

Membership categorization metaphors and metonymies Synecdoches (pars pro toto, totum pro pars)

Predication

g social Labelling actors positively or negatively

Stereotypical, yp , evaluative attributions of negative or positive traits implicit and explicit predicates

argumentation

Justification of positive or negative attributions

topoi; fallacies

Perspectivation, Perspectivation framing or discourse representation

Expressing involvement Positioning speaker's point of view

reporting, description reporting description, narration or quotation of events and utterances

intensification, mitigation

Modifying the epistemic status of a proposition

intensifying or mitigating the illocutionary force or (discriminatory) utterances

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

Four-Level Model of ‘Context’ † the immediate, language or text internal cotext; † the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between utterances, texts, genres and discourses; di † the extralinguistic social/sociological variables and institutional frames of a specific “context of situation”; † the broader socio-political and historical contexts, to which the discursive practices are embedded in and related.((Wodak 2001,, 2004,, 2008)) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

RECONTEXTUALISATION

Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

CDA - Procedures Balancing between linguistic expertise and the needs of q qualitative research

SUGGESTIONS † DEFINE PROBLEM/OBJECT UNDER INVESTIGATION † EXPLORE THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY † DEFINE DISCOURSE RELATED TO MACRO-TOPIC & CONTEXT † CHARACTERISE RELEVANT GENRES † CHOSE TYPICAL TEXTS † CHOSE ADQUATE ‘TOOLS’ FOR ANALYSIS Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010

RECURSIVE STEPS † †

† † † † † †

1. Activation and consultation of preceding theoretical knowledge 2. Systematic collection of data and context information (depending on the research question, various discourses and discursive events, social fields as well as actors, semiotic media, genres and texts are focused on). 3. Selection and preparation of data for specific analyses ((selection and downsizing g of data according g to relevant criteria,, transcription of tape recordings, etc.). 4. Specification of the research question and formulation of assumptions. 5. Qualitative pilot analysis ( allows testing categories and first assumptions as well as the further specification of assumptions). 6. Detailed case studies (of a whole range of data, primarily qualitatively, but in part also quantitatively). 7. Formulation of critique (interpretation of results, taking into account the relevant context knowledge and referring to the three dimensions of critique). 8. Application of the detailed analytical results (if possible, the results esu ts might g t be app applied ed or o proposed p oposed for o application). app cat o ) Ruth Wodak, ACCEPT - CDA Course 2010