Critdiscanalysis.Doc

Critical discourse analysis Norman Fairclough

‘Critical discourse analysis’ (henceforth CDA) subsumes a variety of approaches towards the social analysis of discourse (Fairclough & Wodak 1997, Pêcheux M 1982, Wodak & Meyer 2001) which differ in theory, methodology, and the type of research issues to which they tend to give prominence. My own work in this area has also changed to some extent in these respects between the publication of Language and Power (Longman 1989) and the publication of Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (2003). My current research is on processes of social change in their discourse aspect (Fairclough 1992 is an early formulation of a version of CDA specialized for this theme). More specifically, I am concerned with recent and contemporary processes of social transformation which are variously identified by such terms as ‘neo-liberalism’, ‘globalisation’, ‘transition’, ‘information society’, ‘knowledge-based economy’ and ‘learning society’. I shall focus here on the version of CDA I have been using in more recent (partly collaborative) work (Chiapello & Fairclough 2002, Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2000a, 2000b, 2003, 2004, Fairclough, Jessop & Sayer 2004).

Methodologically, this approach entails working in a ‘transdisciplinary’ way through dialogue with other disciplines and theories which are addressing contemporary processes of social change. ‘Transdisciplinary’ (as opposed to merely ‘interdisciplinary’, or indeed ‘postdisciplinary’, Sum & Jessop 2001) implies that the theoretical and methodological development (the latter including development of methods of analysis) of CDA and the disciplines/theories it is in dialogue with is informed through that dialogue, a matter of working with (though not at all simply appropriating) the ‘logic’ and categories of the other in developing one’s own theory and methodology (Fairclough forthcoming a). The overriding objective is to give accounts

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