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Critical Discourse Analysis Definition

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Critical Discourse Analysis The term Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used interchangeably with Critical Linguistics (CL). Nonetheless, since not long ago it seems that CDA is preferred to speak of the theory formerly known as CL. CDA considers language a social practice (cf. Fairclough: 1989). This theory regards the social context in which the language is used as crucial. Critical Discourse Analysis directs much of its attention and dedicates a substantial amount of research to the relation between language and power. Presently the term CDA is used to denote the scholars’ critical linguistic approach, in line with which larger discursive units of text are perceived as basic units of communication. CDA examines institutional, political, …show more content…

Critical linguists perceive some of the research done within more orthodox framework of sociolinguistics and pragmatics as trying to correlate context modalities with an autonomous linguistic system. Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis have in turn a strikingly divergent outlook on the matter. Their advocates adhere to the view that every discourse is structured by dominance, historically produced and interpreted, and thus situated in time and space. They also note that dominance structures are legitimated by ideologies of powerful groups. As Ruth Wodak suggests “[…] the complex approach advocated by proponents of CL and CDA makes it possible to analyse pressures from above and possibilities of resistance to unequal power relationships that appear as societal conventions (Wodak and Meyer, eds. 2001: …show more content…

Research on gender and sex in the field of discourse analysis had its beginnings in the 1970s (Wodak 1997). Its initial focus was to identify the instances of sexism present in the language use, based on the assumption that the linguistic system reflects the discrimination of women in the “patriarchal structure of […] societies” (Wodak 1997). At present a more comprehensive perspective is adopted: while analysts still seek to identify the power relations expressed through linguistic occurrences, the underlying assumption that women are always incapacitated in discourses, is not considered legitimate anymore (Sunderland 2006). In the following theoretical section of this paper, a detailed account of gender-related questions concerning language use and discourse, as well as a brief characterization of the feminist movement, whose contributions to the ongoing changes in the social landscape are particularly prominent, are

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