The Dialectical-Relational Approach to CDA

The Dialectical-Relational Approach
to Critical Discourse Analysis
Prepared By:
BEKHAL ABUBAKIR HUSSEIN
MAY 6TH, 2017
UNIVERSITY OF SULAIMANI

Introduction
• Norman Fairclough is considered as the most
impressive and influential practitioner in CDA as he
has contributed to the field most significantly.
• In his earlier work (1989) he called his approach to
language and discourse as Critical Language Study.
• His main objective is "to help increase
consciousness of how language contributes to the
domination of some people by others, because
consciousness is the first step for emancipation"
(Fairclough,1989:1).

• His recent works examine:
• Neoliberalism
• The notion of ‘community’ in international
security
• The politically powerful concepts of
‘Globalization’
• Knowledge based economy

• The work of Norman Fairclough presents a
comprehensive and programmatic attempt to
develop a theory of CDA which links discourse,
power, and social structure.
• Fairclough examines the role of social
institutions in shaping discourse practices, and
argues that language is always shaped by the
material and social conditions in which it is
produced.

• According to Fairclough (2013), Discourse is
used in various senses:
A. meaning-making as an element of the social
process.
B. The language associated with a particular
social field or practice.
C. A way of construing aspects of the world
associated with a particular social perspective.

• To reduce confusion, Fairclough prefers to use
semiosis for (A), most abstract & general sense,
which has the further advantage of suggesting
that discourse analysis is concerned with various
‘semiotic modalities’ of language is only one
(others are visual images & body language).

• Semiosis is viewed here as an element of the
social process which is dialectically related to
others – hence a ‘dialectical-relational’
approach.
• Relations between elements are dialectical in the
sense of being different but not ‘discrete’, i.e.,
not fully separate.
• We might say that each ‘internalizes’ the others
without being reducible to them.

• CDA is brought into a dialogue with sociological
& social scientific research in order to:
• investigate to what extent & in what ways these
changes are changes in discourse.
• to explore the socially transformative effects of
discursive change.

• Fairclough's work has developed a dialectical
theory of discourse & a transdisciplinary
approach to social change.
• Fairclough's approach has explored the
discursive aspect of contemporary processes of
social transformation.

Fairclough’s Model
• From Fairclough’s perspective, discourse is a
three-dimensional concept which involves:
1) Texts (the objects of linguistic analysis)
2)Discursive practices (the production,
distribution and consumption of texts)
3) Social practices (the power relations, ideologies
and hegemonic struggles that discourses
reproduce, challenge or restructure).

• This approach of CDA analysis focuses on two
dialectical relations: between structure
(especially social practices as an intermediate
level of structuring) & events (or between
structure & action, structure & strategy) &
within each, between semiotic & other elements.

• There are three major ways in which semiosis
relates to other elements of social practices & of
social events:
• As a facet of action
• In the construal (representation) of aspects of
the world
• In the constitution of identities.

• Discourse is itself ‘constitutive’ or ‘constructive’
of social structure ,and contributes to the
construction of three main effects:
1. Concerns the construction of social self or
identity.
2. The construction of social relationships
between people.
3. The construction of systems of knowledge and
belief.

• Thus discourse has three main functions:
an identity function, a lexical function & an ideational
function.
• Here Fairclough draws on Halliday's approach to
language. Put differently, every instance of language use
is a communicative event consisting of three dimensions:
• it is a spoken or written language text;
• it is an interaction between people involving processes
of producing and interpreting the text; and
• it is a piece of social practice
(Jorgenson & Phillips,2002:66).

• These elements are
the main
dimensions with
which Fairclough
works (and
investigates) as
exemplified in his
diagram:

• The three types of analyses carried out in
Fairclough's model are:
1. The textual analysis
2. The discursive analysis
3. The social analysis.

Textual Analysis
• Textual analysis is the first step in the three-way
method. Fairclough proposes that “textual
analysis involves the analysis of the way
propositions are structured and the way
propositions are combined and sequenced”.
• Fairclough organized text analysis under four
main headings, forming a kind of ascending
scale (small units to bigger ones):vocabulary,
grammar, cohesion and text structures.

Text Analysis
Vocabulary Grammar Cohesion Text Structure
Deals mainly
with individual
words:
•word choice
• word meaning
• wording
• metaphor
Deals with
words
combined into
clauses and
sentences:
• transitivity
• modality
Deals with how
clauses and
sentences are
linked together:
• connectives
. argumentation
Deals with large
scale
organizational
properties:
•interactional
control
•sentence length
and complexity

Discursive Analysis
• This is the second type of analysis within
Fairclough's three-dimensional analysis. Like
'interaction' in the 'text-and-interaction' view of
discourse, discursive practice dimension
specifies the nature of the processes of text
production and interpretation.

• Discourse, according to this type of analysis, is
to be looked at as discursive-practice and
according to the analytical framework the stage
is called the interpretation stage.
• Texts are produced in specific ways in specific
social contexts and they are also consumed
differently in different social contexts.
Consumption and production can be individual
or collective.

• Within this type of analysis Fairclough uses
three main aspects that link a text to its wider
social context, which are:
• The force of utterances
• The coherence of texts
• The intertextuality of texts.

The Force of Utterances
• After text analysis, attention should be given to
speech acts in order to analyze the functions of
the utterances (Blommaert , 2005).

The Coherence of the Text
• The coherence is sometimes driven by explicit
features of the text, such as anaphoric
references, connectives, transitional phrases,
rhetorical predicates, and signaling devices.
• Sometimes the coherence relations are
constructed inferentially.

Intertextuality
• It is "the property that texts have of being full of
snatches of other texts“.
• It sheds light on the three processes (production,
distribution and consumption).

Production
• In terms of production, an intertextual
perspective stresses the historicity of texts: how
they always constitute additions to existing
'chains of speech communication' consisting of
prior texts to which they respond.

Distribution
• In terms of distribution, an intertextual
perspective is helpful in exploring relatively
stable networks which texts move along,
undergoing predictable transformations as they
shift from one text type to another (for instance,
political speeches are often transformed to news
report).

Consumption
• In terms of consumption, an intertextual
perspective is helpful in stressing that it is not
just the text that shapes interpretation but also
those other texts which interpreters variably
bring to the interpretation process.

Two types of intertextuality
• Fairclough (1992:85) differentiated two types of
intertextuality:
• Manifest Intertextuality
• Constitutive Intertextuality

Manifest Intertextuality
• “In manifest intertextuality, other texts are explicitly
presented in the text under analysis; they are
‘manifestly’ marked or cued by features on the
surface of the text, such as quotation marks”
through which the original text is reformed and
changed.
• This reformation and manipulation of original texts
is referred to by Fairclough as 'direct discourse
representation' in which parts of other texts are
incorporated into a text and usually explicitly
marked off with devices such as quotation marks
and reporting clauses.

• This kind of intertextuality is never innocent but
rather hides implicit ideological meanings.
• It is a strategy of saving the text producer's face
through alienating him/herself from the
proposition made by the original speaker.

Constitutive Intertextuality
• The constitutive intertextuality refers to the
complex relation of genres or discourse types’
convention.
• It is the configuration of discourse conventions
when the text is produced.
• Fairclough argues that “a text may incorporate
another text without the latter being explicitly
cued: one can respond to another text in the way
one words one's own text”.

Interdiscursivity
• This type of intertextuality, which Fairclough
labeled as 'interdiscursitivity', refers to 'the
configuration of discourse conventions that go
into production of the text'.
• An example of this would be mixed genres. It is
closely related to orders of discourse and social
change where many values are integrated to
exceed the textual level and get the receiver to
seek hidden discourses.

• The term Interdiscursivity in Dialectical-relational
approach is a normal feature of texts.
• The Interdiscursivity of a text is an aspect of its
intertextuality, a question of which genres,
discourses & styles it draws upon, & how it works
them into particular articulations.
• Textual analysis also includes linguistic analysis, &
analysis where appropriate of visual images & ‘body
language’, & these features of texts can be seen as
realizing its interdiscursive features.

• Fairclough’s main interest is in analysing
intertextual relations as power relations,
suggesting that intertextuality can become a
locus of contestation and struggle.
• It is this level of analysis that differentiates
Fairclough's model from other models.

Social Analysis
• The third dimension in Fairclough's three-
dimensional framework is looking at discourse
as social practice. That is, discourse in relation
to ideology and power placing it within a view of
power as hegemony, and a view of the evolution
of power relations as hegemonic struggle
(Fairclough,1992:86).

• According to Fairclough social practices are the
things people have accepted and learned from
the environment, culture and society they live in.
• Discourse is therefore not only what is said, but
also how something is said within a certain
structure.

• Fairclough defines social practice as
“articulations of different types of social element
which are associated with particular areas of
social life,” and the function of social practice is
to articulate discourse (hence language) together
with other non-discoursal social elements.

• Social practices ‘mediate’ the relationship
between social structures at the most general &
abstract level & particular, concrete social
events; social fields, institutions & organizations
are constituted as networks of social practices.

References
1. Fairclough, N. (2013) Critical Discourse
Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. TJ
International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
2. Fairclough et al. (2010), Online Article.
3. Fairclough, N. (1989) Language & Power.
Longman Group UK Limited.
4. Blommaert, J. (2005) Discourse: A Critical
Introduction. Cambridge University Press
5. Jorgenson, M & Phillips, L. (2002) DA as
theory & Method. London: Sage.

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