CDA Chapter Joye and Maeseele - revised (aanpassingen en extra informatie) PDF

Preview

Summary

Hierin staan er vertalingen van Engelse onderdelen en extra informatie die vanuit de PowerPoint bereikt kan worden. Niet alles staat aangeduid, aangezien sommige zaken (wat ook vermeld wordt in het document) beter zijn om via de Powerpoints te studeren....

Description

Critical Discourse Analysis: the articulation of power and ideology in texts Joye, Stijn and Maeseele, Pieter

In memory of Jan Blommaert, who introduced us to CDA and taught us the power of language.

Introduction

is a systematic, linguistic analysis of discourse in its social context.

hen applying CDA, you start from the idea that language is not neutral in the sense that by representing the world through the use of language, you will always actively construct a specific reality with a specific meaning given to it. CDA clearly manifested itself within the field of social sciences from the mid-2000s onwards and has become a popular methodological option to consider when a study is set up around social issues or questions of power/exclusion and ideology, driven by a critical stance on behalf of the researcher.

Despite its increasing popularity as a qualitative method to examine semiotic content and texts within their broader context, undertaking a research project with discourse analysis often proves to be quite challenging to many students and scholars alike.

. Additionally and contrary to for example surveys or experiments, there is no straightforward or clear hands-on methodological toolbox. Approaching discourse analysis for the first time can feel confusing and complex. There are a wide range of options and

1

approaches and a lot of seemingly abstract and conceptual ideas. But it is also a flexible and powerful approach. It allows you to select, combine and use the methodology’s inherent flexibility to create an approach that is perfectly suited for one’s own research plans.

Opening objectives

In what follows, we will explore one of the most accessible and thus popular approaches to analyzing discourse, that is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This brief and hands-on introduction aims to give you a better insight into what can feel like as a heterogeneous and abstract framework to study texts and language: ▪

We will start with a contextualization of CDA by addressing its broader philosophical and theoretical framework, shared by social constructionist approaches to discourse analysis and their basic principles.

▪

In a second part, we explore CDA’s key concepts of power, ideology and articulation, followed by some points of criticism.

▪

Thirdly, we will present a hands-on discussion of the methodology itself and an exercise to get you acquainted with the specific logic and dos and don’ts of a research project applying CDA.

Key features, debates and historical development

Let us start off with a basic definition of the central notion of discourse. Textbook definitions generally characterize the heterogeneous field as constituted of a wide range of assumptions,

2

approaches and methodologies. Reflecting the rising popularity of discourse analysis, definitions of discourse itself are abundant but according to Schiffrin et al. (2001: 1) three main categories can be distinguished: discourse as ‘(1) anything beyond the sentence, (2) language

instances of language.’ Combining the three categories is Jørgensen and Phillips’ (2002: 1) definition of discourse as ‘a particular way of talking world.’ In other words, discourse in the sense of language use as discours: het gebruik van taal als een sociale praktijk

Throughout this chapter, we will mainly refer to language in terms of words, but we should point out that language is to be understood in the widest possible sense of everything that carries meaning, ranging from visuals to objects. Indeed, even the way you are dressed today might be interpreted as a discursive act in a sense that you may have made explicit and motivated choices regarding the combination of pieces of clothing you are wearing, thus expressing or articulating parts of your identity, current mood, values, belonging to a social group, musical taste, etc., as for example hipsters or goths do in their typical manner. In other words, they convey meaning to others by the specific discursive choices they have made in terms of clothing, hair style, make-up, music, etc., or language in general. Through language, t . On the one hand, discourse as a act. It ‘actively

by giving

meaning to reality, identities, social relations, …’ (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002: 1, italics added). The latter implies that we use language with a reason, an intention or an objective. This can be done or expressed in an explicit way but generally people will prefer to conceal their true intentions or act in implicit and subtle manners.

belangrijke vraag: in wiens voordeel spreekt de betekenis van de tekst zich uit? antwoord: realiteit reflecteren of realiteit construeren

3

To that end, a central principle of discourse analysis is the tenet that language is therefore not neutral. Every single minute of the day, we make a considered, thought-out decision to select particular words out of the enormously rich vocabulary that for instance the English language offers to its users. Those words and that specific selection (i.e. discourse) are meant to create meaning and to intentionally construct a specific reality. The classic example here is that of ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’. Two totally different labels to identify or represent the same individual, but the different words construct two very different realities with different outcomes, perceptions and evaluations. The majority of people will feel more positive and empathic towards the ideas, values, etc., associated with or created by the use of ‘freedom fighter’. Consequently, the language users opting to use ‘terrorist’ over ‘freedom fighter’ do that for a specific reason and with a certain interest. To sum up, language is not just an instrument to transfer meaning from person A to person B, but language is also symbolic and constitutive.

A broader context and brief history

So this chapter refers to social constructionist approaches to discourse, such as Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory (1985), discursive psychology (e.g. Potter and Wetherell, 1987) and CDA (e.g. Fairclough, 1992; 1995). Due to the scope of this chapter, our attention will be focused on CDA, but before doing so, it is important to sketch out the broader philosophical framework that informs CDA as a particular type of discourse analysis. wat hebben sociaal constructivisten met elkaar gemeen?

What social constructionist approaches have in common is first of all their critical stance, most commonly illustrated by the already mentioned premise tha . Discourse theorists within this school consider language to be both constitutive of the social world as well as

4

constituted by other social practices (Phillips, 2006). Language can be considered as an element or instrument of power, used by actors with particular intentions in particular social interactions. This implies that discourse should not be reduced to language alone and that discourse should be empirically analyzed within its social context, thus linked to institutions, power dynamics, ideologies that circulate within a society, socio-cultural hierarchies, specific social actors and their objectives, etc. (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002). Likewise, the analysis of discourse is to be defined as an ‘[a]nalysis of relationships between concrete language use and the wider social and cultural structures ’ (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak and Vetter, 2000). When a presidential candidate delivers a speech on public television to announce his or her support for lowering taxes that would only benefit a happy few of multinationals, this particular speech cannot be fully understood if you do not take into account the broader network of interests, political and economic actors, ideologies, etc., that are tied to this particular person and his/her speech. These relationships of social, political, economic, cultural, etc., nature that are all part of the context of a text help us to reconstruct the (underlying) meaning and intention of the speech. A critical social constructionist approach therefore is about unravelling the structures of power that are embedded in texts. Equally following from the above is the advice or disclaimer to students and scholars alike that an analysis of the content or text alone is not sufficient to earn the label of discourse analysis.

A second common trait of social constructionist approaches to discourse analysis is . Put simply, the way someone talks about climate change and global warming for instance will entail, produce and reproduce certain knowledge on that matter. In a way, the discourse created here will allow specific forms of actions and at the same time will exclude other forms of actions. If you use words and statements like ‘conspiracy theory’, ‘no scientific evidence’, ‘economic progress’,

5

etc., and thus thrive on the ‘knowledge’ that climate change is a hoax and not really an urgent concern to address, the reality constructed by said discourse will please movements, organizations and governments that are in denial of climate change and thus support them in for instance allowing industries to continue burning fossil fuels and not in signing international agreements on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This example nicely ties into the third shared principle of the social constructionist school, that is an understanding of discourse as being historical and culturally specific. The discourse surrounding climate change is different today than it was 50 years ago. The main discourse is probably different in China than it would be in Belgium. In other words, the way of interpreting and representing something - such as climate change - is contingent, i.e. dependent on or variable in a specific context in terms of space and time. Discourses on a certain topic can change over time and place, once again stressing the importance of taking into account the context when studying a text and conducting discourse analysis.

The different social constructionist strands tend to differ in terms of their analytical focus (see Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002 for an in-depth discussion). As this falls beyond the scope of this chapter, we will restrict ourselves here to

and a broader description of its history and

position in the academic field. Characteristic for CDA is its

s a methodology, CDA emerged in the late 1980s as an interdisciplinary European school of discourse studies and ‘[s]ince then, it has become one of the most influential and visible branches of discourse analysis’ (Blommaert and Bulcaen, 2000: 447). Illustrated by Graph 1, CDA clearly manifested itself within the social sciences from the mid-2000s onwards, steadily growing in popularity ever since. The approach is particularly found in scholarly areas of communication, linguistics and educational research.

6

Graph 1: Inclusion of term ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’ in ‘topic’ in WoS publications over time (snapshot taken in August 2020) → to be updated when final proofs are requested

Recently, a number of eminent scholars have uttered their doubts about the appropriateness of using the label of Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodology or indication of the field, instead proposing to speak of Critical Discourse Studies and even updating the titles of their seminal works (Wodak and Meyer, 2016; Flowerdew and Richardson, 2019). According to van Dijk (quoted in Flowerdew and Richardson, 2019: 2) ‘the rationale for this change of designation resides in the fact that CDA was increasingly not restricted to applied analysis, but also included philosophical, theoretical, methodological and practical developments.’ Elsewhere, van Dijk also referred to CDA as not being an explicit method and methodologically as diverse as discourse analysis in general (Wodak and Meyer, 2016: 3). Indeed, residing under the new label of Critical Discourse Studies we find a broad group of ‘varying approaches each with distinctive, but also overlapping methods’ (Flowerdew and Richardson, 2019: 2), including but not limited to socio-cognitive approach, discourse historical approach, (Multi-modal) Critical Discourse Analysis, Cognitive Linguistic Critical Discourse Studies, cultural Critical Discourse Analysis, Discourse-theoretical analysis, … All share a central interest in a systematic 7

investigation of semiotic data such as newspaper articles, conversations on the playground, public speeches, films, interviews, etc., in order to unravel how people use language to create meaning, to persuade others to think about events in a particular way, and to manipulate those people while at the same time concealing their own intentions (Hansen and Machin, 2013: 115). In other words, echoing one of the main characteristics of social constructionist approaches to discourse analysis, the plethora of approaches linked to Critical Discourse Studies are all inherently defined by a critical stance. Therefore,

(cf. infra). As CDA is one of the most-solicited students of this school, it will be our focal point for the remainder of this chapter.

CDA: what’s in a name? Some key concepts and principles

So CDA is a systematic, linguistic analysis of discourse - existing of written and spoken language, non-verbal communication and images - in social interactions and within its broader context. Given the critical stance, CDA aims to deconstruct ideology and power relations that are articulated by means of a (socially shared) group of statements, ideas, images, etc., regarding a specific topic. To achieve this goal, analysts working from a CDA framework will relate their discursive analysis to broader social, economic and political processes. In the above brief description of the method we have highlighted in italic the three building blocks that form the basis for a research project inspired by CDA: power, ideology and articulation. Let us take a closer look at these three key concepts. de drie kernconcepten : 1: Power:

8

As with all approaches covering social constructionist discourse analysis, Foucault’s (1972) interpretation of power as productive rather than oppressive and bound up with knowledge is central to CDA. Foucault argues that ‘power operates through discourse by creating our social world and identities in particular ways’ (Foucault cited in Schrøder and Phillips, 2007: 894).

. Research questions set out by critical discourse analysts typically stress ‘patterns of domination whereby one social group is dominated by another’ (Phillips, 2006: 288). Underlying this process is the unequal distribution of power and resources within society as power is derived from the privileged access to social resources such as education, wealth, knowledge, etc. According to Machin and Mayr (2012), this privileged access and thus power provides authority, status and influence to those with access whilst enabling them to dominate, coerce and control subordinate groups who do not have such access or who only have limited resources to their disposal.

? To give an example, numerous studies have examined how the UK press has covered the EU Referendum leading up to the Brexit and have disclosed how national newspapers basically created two alternate realities tied to the Leave camp or Remain camp by their choice of front-page stories, titles, tone, actors cited and issues addressed or neglected (see e.g. Levy, Aslan, and Bironzo, 2016). This observed bias in the news coverage is of course tied to the differences in viewpoints and opinions of political parties, economic actors and other social organizations in the UK with

9

regard to the decision to be taken at that time. Media outlets such as Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and The Sun were found to be biased in their reports in favor of stepping out of the European Union, hence generating and legitimating the power position of the Leave camp in their texts while simultaneously challenging or resisting the reality constructed by media outlets affiliated with the Remain camp.

2:

Ideology: The case of the EU Referendum in the UK is, furthermore, a good illustration of the notion of ideology and its ties to discourse and CDA.

can be defined as ‘ ’ (McQuail, 2000,

497) and is the basis of a discourse as language is the way how ideologies materialize and manifest themselves according to van Dijk (1988). In the example of the referendum, UK news media have operated on an ideological level by distributing and supporting the values, norms and ideas (thus ideology) of specific social groups (i.e. the Remain camp and the Leave camp) with particular interests (i.e., to put it bluntly, to remain in or leave the EU respectively).

,

. Additionally, on the level of texts we need to point towards the idea of intertextuality, defined as a blended environment in which different kinds of texts condition each other in order to legitimate certain worldviews (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999). One single opinion piece on the European Union should thus be interpreted as one particular element in a rich intertextual network of other opinion pieces, news reports, interviews by key actors, policy documents, etc., and so on, all generating

10

meaning and conditioning each other’s meanings. Or, as the attentive reader will have remarked by now, text and context.

3: Articulation:

The answer to this question is the concept of articulation. In short, . It is your empirical entry point into conducting a discourse analysis. As mentioned earlier, CDA-researchers are interested in addressing questions of power. On a societal level, we can identify a wide range of actors who all have particular or different ideas, values, norms, etc., and access to resources (cf. the definition of power). These actors are caught in networks and relations of power that are per definition unequal. People with similar ideologies or interests might find each other and form a group. For instance, a political party named ‘Education First’ that has a clear and shared vision on how the educational system should be organized. They use language to express their thoughts, make statements about the central role of teachers, construct an ideal model of how a school should look like, and so on. In other words, they produce a discourse on education. Of course, other people may have a different take on this and might also form a political party, ‘Make Children Great Again’, that holds opposing ideas regarding educational matters. ‘Make Children Great Again’ could for instance degrade the role of teachers and instead discursively construct an educational system that centers on the individual child. The latter group’s discourse clearly conflicts with the former one and only one of them can be the (temporarily) dominant one and form the basis for a reform of the educational system. This struggle between conflicting views on education is also found in the texts that these parties produce or that are being produced over them.

11

According to Kress (1985), ‘[e]very text arises out of a conflict between discourses and the struggle over which discourse is to impose its own meaning as the ‘natural’ meaning of a text’. In other words, the discourses of our both fictitious political parties are articulated through texts such as a campaign leaflet of the party (i.e. a manifest articulation of the discourse as the party will probably be very explicit on their position and ideas about education) or newspaper reports (i.e. a more latent or concealed articulation as journalists will report on the issue in detached and factual ways).

. For instance, Figure 1 portrays a situation in which five statements or elements of a discourse are picked up by journalists or whoever authors a text, and accordingly articulated in a text. The way we - ...