1. What is critical thinking? Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally. It is a way of thinking to make reasoned judgements that are logical and where you don 't simply accept all arguments and conclusion you are exposed to but rather have an attitude involving questioning such arguments and conclusions. Critical thinking has been also described as an ability to acknowledge and test previously held assumptions.
Freire expressed that ‘Critical thinking contrasts with naive thinking’ when he refers to its role in dialogue, communication and true education. (2011, p. 92). The world young people live in today is abundant with information through an over-whelming amount of communication and media. How can teachers help them think critically about this information and in
Between the lines: A critical discourse analysis of language of power in Iranian educational system Critical Discourse Analysis is a branch of discourse analysis that investigates methods used by power groups of text and word in the political and social context, and thereby reveals the methods and origins abuse of power, domination and social inequality. Critical discourse analysts find the ideology hidden by normalizing and neutralizing of discourse in order to critically analyze the levels behind the texts and discourse by means of appropriate cognitive tools and with reference to their historical and social background. Accordingly, critical discourse analysis is a tool for social and political enlightenment, and it prevents social inequality through the perceptions and manifestations of ins and outs of the texts. To provide answers to such questions such as "What is critical discourse analysis?" And "who is critical discourse analysts?
Critical thinking brings important issues out and presents them clearly by gathering and considering important information. This type of thinking will lead to well thought out conclusions. It also requires an opened mind and effective conclusions. Critical thinkers take charge of their own mind and this allows taking charge of their lives. They also understand that humans are naturally flawed so they tend to be rational and reasonable while knowing they can fall prey to mistakes in many different ways, like prejudgment or self-interest.
CDA regards discourse as a ‘form of social practice’ (Baxter, 2010; Mullany, 2007; Mayr, 2008; 2000; Ciapriani, 2002). To put it another way, language highly constructs and performs meaning to provide our sense of social reality more than it contains or reflects meaning. Therefore, language serves individuals as a crucial device to present themselves in various ways and thereby to construct multiple identities for themselves as required by role, position, relationship and context (Baxter, 2010). Baxter further elaborates that this view of discourse regards language as constitutive of individual identities in two senses: one of which is to provide people a set of resources to have ‘agency’ or authority to perform leadership, and the second one is to play an important part within broader institutional practices or discourses. These discourses are ways of combining and integrating language, actions, interactions, ways of thinking, believing, valuing, speaking, talking and writing about others, and using various symbols, tools, and objects to enact a particular sort of socially recognizable identity (Baxter, 2010; Gee,
Richard Paul also stated that critical thinking is thinking about your thinking, while you’re thinking, in order to make your thinking better. For example, the rhetoric theory is important in communication in order to find "the available means of persuasion”. The means of persuasion is Logos (the nature of massage presented by the sources), Ethos (the nature of the source) and Pathos (the emotion of the audience) that makes a person can persuade the audience to accept their idea or do what they want. For example, based on research conducted by James C. Mccroskey and Virginia P. Richmond from West Virginia University about Human Communication Theory and Research: Traditions and Models. The study of human communication today is more diverse and rhetorical and relational traditions are alive and well.
One of concept people are usually concentrating in this time is “Critical thinking”. It is a fundamental idea of learning for any field of knowledge. It also changes the old path of learning completely. Even if this is the new way of learning, many schools and universities are highlighting with critical thinking for both in classes and outside. They also look the importance of critical thinking within student’s learning.
Introduction CDA Based on the systemic-functional perspective proposed by Halliday (1973; 1985), who claims that the functions of linguistic structures are based on social structures, from the end of the70s many discourse analysts started to investigate the links between language, power and ideology. This new trend in discourse analysis created the field of study of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Works in this new area of research include social meanings and their textual realisations in the scope of grammatical description (Fowler et al. 1979). Critical discourse analysts such as Norman Fairclough, Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress and Teun van Dijk, have been looking at a variety of modes of public discourse, such as the discourses of the
Critical thinking is one of the core life skills that every individual needs to use in professional or personal life. Rightfully there has been a widely shared enthusiasm about critical thinking in the educational circle. Many academics claim to teach critical thinking skills indirectly through teaching and learning process of the core academic disciplines while others prefer to rather address the issue explicitly. Critical thinking is not just an isolated goal of education; it is both an end in itself and a means for achieving proficiency in studies and beyond. It is a skill transferrable and applicable in myriad contexts both within and outside the realm of formal education.
According to Purwoko (2008), discourse is defined etymologically as the word comes from Latin “discurrere” which means “conversation”. While, according to (Edmoson in Djajasudarma,2006), ‘discourse” is a structured phenomenon which is represented in a linguistics behavior. Discourse consists of three elements such as discourse practices, text production and consumption (Fairclough, 1995). Therefore, to analyze discourse, it needs to investigate how discourse is produced and reconstructed in society. In this case, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an appropriate approach that focuses with analyzing written and spoken texts to uncover a hidden meaning of the text related to power, dominance, inequality and bias (Dijk,