What is critical discourse analysis.

In CDA, the notion of

‘critical’ is primarily

applied to the engagement

with power relations

associated with the

Frankfurt School of critical

theory.

In this, it argues against a

realist, neutral and

rationalist view of the

world. Instead the role is to

uncloak the hidden

power relations, largely

constructed through

language, and to

demonstrate and challenge

social inequities reinforced

and reproduced.

Discourse is a

contested and

contestable term.

James Gee (1990)

uses the term

discourse (with a

small ‘d’ to talk about

language in use, or

the way language is

used in a social

context to ‘enact’

activities and

identities. His work is

influenced by Michel

Foucault.

In terms of analysis, CDA

takes the view that texts need to

be consider in terms of what

they include but also what they

omit – alternative ways of

constructing and defining the

world. The critical discourse

analyst’s job is not to simply

read political and social

ideologies onto a text but to

consider the myriad ways in

which a text could have been

written and what these

alternatives imply for ways of

representing the world,

understanding the world and

the social actions that are

determined by these ways of

thinking and being.

Is based on the theories of Michel Foucault.

Is a form of discourse analysis, focusing on power relationships in society as expressed

through language and practices.

Besides focusing on the meaning of a given discourse, the

distinguishing characteristic of this approach is its stress on power

relationships.

These are expressed through language and behavior, and the

relationship between language and power.

The method analyzes how the social world, expressed through

language, is affected by various sources of power.

This approach is close to social constructivism, as the researcher

tries to understand how our society is being shaped (or constructed)

by language, which in turn reflects existing power relationships.

The analysis attempts to understand how individuals view the world,

and studies categorizations, personal and institutional relationships,

ideology, and politics

The first step is a simple recognition that discourse is a body of statements that are organized in a regular and

systematic way.

The subsequent four steps are based on the identification of rules on:

How those statements are created.

What can be said (written) and what

cannot.

How spaces in which new statements can be

made are created.

Making practices material and discursive

at the same time.

Kendall and

Wickham

outline five

steps in

using "Foucauldian

discourse

analysis".

A Foucauldian notion of discourse holds that:

•discourse is a culturally constructed representation of reality, not an

exact copy

•discourse constructs knowledge and thus governs, through the

production of categories of knowledge and assemblages of texts, what it

is possible to talk about and what is not (the taken for granted rules of

inclusion/exclusion). As such, it re/produces both power and knowledge

simultaneously

•discourse defines subjects framing and positioning who it is possible to

be and what it is possible to do

•power circulates throughout society and, while hierarchised, is not

simply a top-down phenomenon

•it is possible to examine regimes of power through the historicised

deconstruction of systems or regimes of meaning-making constructed in

and as discourse, that is to see how and why some categories of thinking

and lines of argument have come to be generally taken as truths while

other ways of thinking/being/doing are marginalised.

There are of course a range of

critiques of this social theory –

how much it denies material

reality, whether it disallows

agency, whether anything

precedes discourse and so on…

Turning this way of

understanding discourse into

method to apply to textual

analysis means asking of the text

or texts questions such as:

•What is being represented here as a truth or as a norm?

•How is this constructed? What ‘evidence’ is used? What is left out?

•What is fore grounded and back grounded? What is made problematic

and what is not? What alternative meanings/explanations are ignored?

• What is kept apart and what is joined together?

•What interests are being mobilized and served by this and what are

not?

•How has this come to be?

•What identities, actions, practices are made possible and /or desirable

and/or required by this way of thinking/talking/understanding? What

are disallowed? What is normalized and what is pathologised?

A DIVE INTO

FOUCAULT’S

DISCOURSE.

Ways of constituting

knowledge, together

with the social

practices, forms of

subjectivity and power

relations.

Discourses are

more than ways of

thinking and

producing

meaning.

They constitute the

'nature' of the body,

unconscious and

conscious mind and

emotional life of the

subjects they seek to

govern (Weedon, 1987, p.

108).

... a form of power that

circulates in the social field

and can attach to strategies

of domination as well as

those of resistance (

Diamond and Quinby,

1988, p. 185).

Foucault's work is imbued with an attention to history.

Not in the traditional sense of the word but in attending to what he

has variously termed the 'archaeology'( studying human history) or

'genealogy' (studying family history) of knowledge production.

That is, he looks at the continuities and discontinuities between

“epistemes” (taken by Foucault to mean the knowledge systems

which primarily informed the thinking during certain periods of

history: a different one being said to dominate each epistemological

age), and the social context in which certain knowledges and

practices emerged as permissible and desirable or changed.

In his view knowledge is inextricably( can’t untie or separate)

connected to power, such that they are often written as

power/knowledge.

Lots of

attention

given to

History of

knowledge.

Not in

traditio

nal

sense.

Termed it as

Archaeology

n Genealogy

Looks at the

continuities and

discontinuities

between

“epistemes”.

N

Social context,

which makes

certain knowledges

n practices

Permissible,

desirable n

changed.

KNOWLEDGE

POWER

Foucault's conceptual analysis of a major shift in (western) cultural practices, from

'sovereign power' to 'disciplinary power', is a good example of his method of

genealogy.

sovereign power:

Sovereign power involves obedience to the law of the king or central authority

figure. Foucault argues that 'disciplinary power' gradually took over from

'sovereign power' in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even now, however,

remnants of sovereign power still remain in tension with disciplinary power.

Disciplinary power:

Discipline is a mechanism of power which regulates the behavior of individuals in

the social body. This is done by regulating the organization of space (architecture

etc.), of time (timetables) and people's activity and behavior (drills, posture,

movement). It is enforced with the aid of complex systems of surveillance.

Foucault emphasizes that power is not discipline, rather discipline is simply one

way in which power can be exercised. He also uses the term 'disciplinary society',

discussing its history and the origins and disciplinary institutions such as prisons,

hospitals, asylums, schools and army barracks. Foucault also specifies that when he

speaks of a 'disciplinary society' he does not mean a 'disciplined society'.

Panopticon, panopticism and surveillance:

The Panopticon, was a design for a prison produced by

Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century which

grouped cells around a central viewing tower.

Although the prison was never actually built the idea

was used as a model for numerous institutions

including some prisons. Foucault uses this as a

metaphor for the operation of power and surveillance

in contemporary society.

Power .Foucault argues a number of points in relation to

power and offers definitions that are directly opposed

to more traditional liberal and Marxist theories of

power.

definitions

power is not a thing but a relation

power is not simply repressive but it is productive

power is not simply a property of the State. Power is

not something that is exclusively localized in

government and the State (which is not a universal

essence). Rather, power is exercised throughout the

social body.

power operates at the most micro levels of social

relations. Power is omnipresent at every level of the

social body.

the exercise of power is strategic and war-like.

…as part of his attempt to understand the relationship

between language, social institutions, subjectivity and

power. Discursive fields, such as the law or the family,

contain a number of competing and contradictory

discourses with varying degrees of power to give meaning

to and organize social institutions and processes. They also

'offer' a range of modes of subjectivity (Weedon, 1987, p.

35). It follows then that,

if relations of power are dispersed and fragmented throughout

the social field, so must resistance to power be (Diamond

& Quinby, 1988, p. 185).

Foucault argues though, in The Order of Discourse, that the 'will to

truth' is the major system of exclusion that forges discourse and

which 'tends to exert a sort of pressure and something like a power of

constraint on other discourses', and goes on further to ask the

question 'what is at stake in the will to truth, in the will to utter this

'true' discourse, if not desire and power?' (1970, cited in Shapiro

1984, p. 113-4).

Thus, there are both discourses that constrain the production of

knowledge, dissent and difference and some that enable 'new'

knowledges and difference(s). The questions that arise, are to do

with how some discourses maintain their authority, how some

'voices' get heard whilst others are silenced, who benefits and how -

that is, questions addressing issues of power/ empowerment/

disempowerment.

THANKS.