Exploring the Parameters and Applicability of Critical Discourse Analysis
David P. Nsungo
Published in AKSUJEL - December, 2022
Abstract
The multidisciplinary and multitasking nature of the critical discourse practices bear compelling attributes that have endeared the analytical model to modern-day linguists, analysts of social conflicts, as well as critics of power and gender, and institutional/media discourses. CDA, unlike other linguistic theories, does not pin the analysts to a single method of analysis. The individual analyst, depending on the nature of text and context, can develop new methods and statistical tools suitable for the analysis of CDAdata. Based on the foregoing, the study placed a special interest in x-raying the historical antecedents of CDA, its relationship with other critical linguistic theories in the analysis of power-related discourse texts, some strands of CDA, as well as its methods and applicability. Our theoretical review revealed, among other things that, despite the many criticisms made on the model – which criticisms have been reasonably defaced with superior arguments by foremost linguists such as Norman Fairclough – CDA remains a very formidable and useful/attractive analytical model for the study of the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and discourse in social and political context.
Author
- Nsungo, David Peter
Department of English, University of Uyo, Nigeria
Email: peterdavidnsungo@gmail.com
Tel: 080-6886-5891