Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are reproduced in text and talk.
Since Norman Fairclough's Language and Power in 1989, CDA has been deployed as a method of multidisciplinary analysis throughout the humanities and social sciences. It does not confine itself only to method, though the overriding assumption shared by CDA practitioners is that language and power are linked.
Read more about Critical Discourse Analysis: Background, Methodology, Notable Academics
Famous quotes containing the words critical, discourse and/or analysis:
“Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)