A Glossary Of Critical Discourse Analysis

A Glossary of Critical Discourse
Analysis
Compiled by Asst. Prof. Mohammed Nasser
Wasit University, Iraq, mohmednasser@rocketmail.com
February, 2020

A Glossary of Critical Discourse Analysis
Approach
A theoretical technique used in CDA analysis.
Behavioural process. See also Transitivity
Behavioural process is the physiological or psychological behaviours and acts,
such as watching, listening, etc. Here, the participant is the behaver who is
responsible for the behaviour, and the object of this behaviour is the range.
Bias
A subtheme in CDA that is concerned with opinion prejudice or simply taking a
position in favour of or towards a certain cause, attitude, or situation. To be biased
entails the use of certain language, utterances, words, or phrases in order to justify
it.
Control
A subtheme in CDA analysis that is concerned with how participants seek to
impose power and how this process is reflected in language. Control manifests how
enquality is legitimized in language use.
Critical
A term used in CDA or any CDA-related approach to imply interdisciplinarity in
analysis where a single linguistic approach can account for various or multiple
areas, professions, or backgrounds, such as education, law, politics, social events,
..etc. Technically, the term was inspired by early linguistic works that have
adopted criticism.
1

Critical applied linguistics
Is an interdisciplinary critical approach to English applied linguistics. One of the
central concerns in this approach is exposing the political dimensions and power
relations involved in mainstream applied linguistics, in areas like language
teaching, language policy and planning, language testing, language rights, and so
on.
Critical discourse analysis, or CDA
A perspective which studies the relationship between discourse events and
sociopolitical and cultural factors, especially the way discourse is ideologically
influenced by and can itself influence power relations in society. The analysis of
texts in relation to social and political structures and power,
especially in the light of Marxist theory. It is an interdisciplinary approach to the
study of discourse, or put simply talk and text, that views language as a form
of social practice.
Critical linguistics
The term critical linguistics was first used by a group, mainly of linguists (Fowler
et al.,1979), at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s. Later on, the term
“critical” was adopted by a few linguists working on sociolinguistics, pragmatics,
discourse analysis whose critical concern was to establish a relationship between
power, language, and society.
Deontic modality. See also Modality
Modality that is is concerned with obligation and permission, namely the
grammatical construction of relevant forms.
Discourse
A connected series of utterances by one or more speakers, where certain types of
grammatical, lexical and phonological elements are identifiable and they typically
serve to relate one utterance to another in some fashion.
2

Discourse-Historical approach. See also Wodak’s model
A CDA approach developed by R. Wodak in which discourse is perceived
as a form of social practice. It focuses on the interdisciplinary and
eclectic nature of CDA, since problems in our society are too complex to be
studied from a single point of view. Thus, to understand and explain the object
under investigation, one needs to integrate diverse theories and methods.
For Wodak, studying CDA is multifarious, as it is derived from quite different
theoretical backgrounds, oriented towards different data and
methodologies.
Discourse practices. See also Discursive ways
Use of practices, strategies, and techniques, regardless of mediation, in order to
communicate, influence, support, suppress, or degrade a certain person, group, or
cause. These include legitimation (issuing laws or legal ways to support other
people or causes), marginalization (neutralizing other people or causes),
dominance (dominating or controlling other people or causes), solidarity
(supporting other people or causes), consent (approving with other people or
causes), and manipulation (using texts, discourse, or practices to embed certain
actions).
Discrimination. See also Racism
A problem of social inequality in which consequent actions or practices are
achieved in favour of marginalization or discrimination. Racism is produced by
certain parties, individuals, or groups within a state or society level against other
individuals, groups, or social entities due to social, political, personal, ethnic,
religious, nationalist backgrounds. The party practicing racism tends to
discriminate the affected party.
3

Discursive ways. See also Discourse practices
Use of practices, strategies, and techniques, regardless of mediation, in order to
communicate, influence, support, suppress, or degrade a certain person, group, or
cause. These include legitimation (issuing laws or legal ways to support other
people or causes), marginalization (neutralizing other people or causes),
dominance (dominating or controlling other people or causes), solidarity
(supporting other people or causes), consent (approving with other people or
causes), and manipulation (using texts, discourse, or practices to embed certain
actions).
Epistemic modality. See also Modality
Modality that is is related to believing, supposing, thinking, etc.
Existential process. See also Transitivity
Existential process refers to the existence or occurrence of something.
Fairclough’s model. See also Socio-cultural approach
A CDA approach developed by N. Fairclough and it is based on three dimensions;
a text (spoken or written including visual images), a discourse practice production,
consumption and distribution of the text, and a socio cultural practice.
Subsequently, this model provides a three-dimensional framework for
the analysis of text and discourse: (a) the linguistic description of the formal
properties of the text; (b) the interpretation of the relationship between the
discursive processes/interaction and the text, and finally, (c) the
explanation of the relationship between discourse and social and cultural reality.
4

Framework
A methodology by which CDA is put to practice for the investigation or analysis of
any discourse or text.
Hegemony
A CDA concept in personal and social relations in which certain people, party,
authority, or group exercises full control on the others, their verbal, mental, and
practical actions. Such hegemony is often inspired by political office, social or
religious group, or legal entity or authority.
Ideology
A CDA concept or tenet that emphasizes ideas, thoutghs, and ideology at the
expense of other dominant powers when practicing… Ideology is defined as the
system of one's beliefs or the manner of thinking. Ideologies are systems that are at
the basis of the socio-political cognitions of groups
Interdisciplinary
A key principle in the framework analysis conditions of discourse analysis
approaches. Researchers seize interdisciplinary opportunities to produce new
knowledge; practitioners grab these opportunities as well and provide the
necessary resources. From this perspective, specialization and interdisciplinarity
complement each other; they are not opposites or new dichotomies, but
rather they coexist.
Lexical choice
An aspect in text analysis meaning the use of certain words, phrases, clauses, and
sentences that boost the intended meaning or purpose in a text or discourse.
5

Manipulation
A discourse strategies that depends on using text and talk to influence, support,
suppress, degrade, or resist certain people, group, or cause.
Marginalization
A discourse strategy or practice that emphasizes the neutralization of other people,
groups, or causes for certain reasons, justifications, or backgrounds. The
marginalizing often uses all the possible strategies and ways in order to neutralize
the marginalized.
Material process. See also Transitivity
Material process is concerned with doing or acting, and it involves actor, material
(process) and goal. Actor is the agent of doing; material is the process of doing,
and goal is the recipient of the process done.
Media discourse
A subtheme in CDA that focuses on media as the key element of analysis. In CDA
studies, the term media has two senses; the first one is how media or mass media is
used or manipulated in communication, and the second one is how discourse is
mediated, .i.e., used to communicate or convey text and talk.
Mental process. See also Transitivity
Mental process is the process of thinking, feeling, sensing, etc. It has two parts; the
sensor which is the human participant that has the mental process or activity, and
the phenomenon which is the part that is felt, sensed, thought of, seen, liked, or
perceived.
6

Method
A theoretical framework used in CDA to analyze a discourse or text.
Modality. See also Deontic modality
An aspect in text analysis that is concerned with sentence mood.,.i.e., whether the
sentence is declarative, interrogative, ..etc. Modality is a broad expression of a
speaker’s attitude toward the situation or event described by a sentence or in regard
to the proposition expressed by the sentence. It is an important linguistic tool for
realizing the interpersonal function and expressing social roles between the
speaker/writer and the hearer/reader. Modality can be classified into two main
types; deontic, which is concerned obligation and permission, and epistemic, which
is related to believing, supposing, thinking, etc.
Other-negative presentation. See also Them
A tenet in van Dijk’s model that holds actions are perceived in terms of how we
(self) interpret, deal with, and act with the other people (other). We attribute all the
negative and bad qualities to the others. This is best reflected in personal, social,
economic, media, and political situations and encounters.
Polarization
A subtheme in CDA analysis holding that participants engaged in a given
discourse construct certain biased conceptualizations for the sake of control,
hegemony, or power. Polarization may be represented in our-their attitude and the
relevant parties are designated particular characteristics, utterances, attitudes,..etc,
Political discourse
A subtheme of CDA which is concerned with the ideologies, processes, orders,
thoughts, approaches, strategies, of politics and political system along with the
language used as represented in speeches, utterances, and statements, uttered by
politicians. Political discourse has been one of the most prominent areas of
research and investigation in CDA studie. Recently, a few investigations have
focused on political discourse analysis as an independent area of research.
7

Power
A CDA concept that holds people act following power, stance, force, or authority
(social, religious, ideological, political, tribal), and hence there are the powerful or
elite ones (who practice power or authority) over the others. The others, in turn,
often develop ways, strategies, and practices in order to react to the acts of the
powerful.
Presupposition
An aspect in text analysis meaning that the text or discourse expresses or
neutralizes certain assumptions, ideas, or facts.
Pronominal choice
An aspect in text analysis meaning the use of speficic grammatical elements, such
as we, I , our, they, their, us, you, ..etc. in a text or discourse for emphatic reasons.
Racism. See also Discrimination
A problem of social inequality in which consequent actions or practices are
achieved in favour of marginalization or discrimination. Racism is produced by
certain parties, individuals, or groups within a state or society level against other
individuals, groups, or social entities due to social, political, personal, ethnic,
religious, nationalist backgrounds. The party practicing racism tends to
discriminate the affected party.
Relational process. See also Transitivity
Relational process denotes processes of being. That is when a participant is
becoming or is turning into a certain quality or attribute, or when a certain
participant has a specific attribute. The participant is known as the carrier, while
the description of that participant is known as the attribute.
8

Self-positive presentation. See also Us
A tenet in van Dijk’s model that holds actions are interpreted in terms of how we
(self) we introduce ourselves to the others or the external world or surroundings.
We often attribute all the good qualities to whatever we say, do, or act.
Social change
A CDA concept that emphasizes differences in any practice or action within a text
or discourse. It holds acts are derived from power relations where the powerful, as
well as the resisting, ones theorize, develop, and create social strategies in order to
produce changes in power balance.
Social practices
A set of socially coordinated ways for achieving things such as playing a role or
performing action, and often involve key elements including participants (those
who do things), actions (the actions done or performed), modes (way things are
done), eligibility conditions (qualifications a certain person must have), styles
(techniques of doing things), time (time set for doing things), and location (the
place where something is done).
Socio-cognitive approach. See also van Dijk’s approach
A CDA approach developed by T. van Dijk in which discourse is seen as a form of
social practice and the focus here is on social cognition as the mediating part
between text and society. It also there is much emphasis on analysis. The ttwo
levels of (discourse) analysis: macro vs. micro. Language use, discourse,
verbal interaction and communication determine the micro level of social
order, while the macro level refers to power, dominance and inequality between
social groups. Under this approach are further sub-themes that are considered when
analyzing any text or phenomenon such as power, ideology, and social structure.
The socio-cognitive level shows the different perspectives from which things can
be seen or judged. It involves linguistic or lexical aspects according to which
viewpoints are realized. Further, it signals the positive as well as the negative
aspects, whereby the viewpoints of the participants in a discourse are
communicated.
9

Socio-cultural approach. See also Fairclough’s model
A CDA approach developed by N. Fairclough and it is based on three dimensions;
a text (spoken or written including visual images), a discourse practice production,
consumption and distribution of the text, and a socio cultural
practice.Subsequently, this model provides a three-dimensional framework for the
analysis of text and discourse: (a) the linguistic description of the formal properties
of the text; (b) the interpretation of the relationship between the discursive
processes/interaction and the text, and finally, (c) the explanation of the
relationship between discourse and social and cultural reality.
Text
In CDA, text is any verbal, written, mediated, or (in)visible material that involves
social, personal, political, or media discourse or practice, and not only a written
script.
Text and Talk
A practice or action taken by individuals, social groups, or political entities in
order to suppress, resist, or support inequality as represented by hegemony, power,
and racism.
Them. See also Other-negative presentation
A tenet in van Dijk’s model that holds actions are perceived in terms of how we
(self) interpret, deal with, and act with the other people (other). We attribute all the
negative and bad qualities to the others. This is best reflected in personal, social,
economic, media, and political situations and encounters.
Transitivity
An aspect in text analysis meaning that the agent or cause in a text is marginalized
or neutralized for certain effects, which is achieved by using passive form.
10

For example, in news discourse, the recepient, rather than the agent, is emphasized,
and the passive, not the active, is used, as in Three people shot dead in nation-
wide protests rather than The government forces shot dead three people in nation-
wide protests. Transitivity includes material processes, mental processes, relational
processes, verbal processes, relational processes, and existential process. Material
processes are concerned with doing or acting, and they involve actor, material
(process) and goal. Actor is the agent of doing; material is the process of doing,
and goal is the recipient of the process done. Mental processes are processes of
thinking, feeling, sensing, etc. These processes have two parts; the sensor which is
the human participant that has the mental process or activity, and the phenomenon
which is the part that is felt, sensed, thought of, seen, liked, or perceived.
Relational processes denote processes of being. That is when a participant is
becoming or is turning into a certain quality or attribute, or when a certain
participant has a specific attribute. The participant is known as the carrier, while
the description of that participant is known as the attribute. Behavioural processes
are the physiological or psychological behaviours and acts, such as watching,
listening, etc. Here, the participant is the behaver who is responsible for the
behaviour, and the object of this behaviour is the range. Verbal processes are
processes of saying. They include the sayer, who is the speaker, the receiver, the
recipient who receives the message of the sayer, the verbiage, that which is said by
the sayer, and the target which is the goal of the sayer. Existential processes refer
to the existence or occurrence of something.
Us. See also Self-positive presentation
A tenet in van Dijk’s model that holds actions are interpreted in terms of how we
(self) we introduce ourselves to the others or the external world or surroundings.
We often attribute all the good qualities to whatever we say, do, or act.
van Dijk’s approach. See also Socio-cognitive approach
A CDA approach developed by T. van Dijk in which discourse is seen as a form of
social practice and the focus here is on social cognition as the mediating part
between text and society. It also there is much emphasis on analysis.
11

The two levels of (discourse) analysis: macro vs. micro. Language use, discourse,
verbal interaction and communication determine the micro level of social
order, while the macro level refers to power, dominance and inequality between
social groups. Under this approach are further sub-themes that are considered when
analyzing any text or phenomenon such as power, ideology, and social structure.
The socio-cognitive level shows the different perspectives from which things can
be seen or judged. It involves linguistic or lexical aspects according to which
viewpoints are realized. Further, it signals the positive as well as the negative
aspects, whereby the viewpoints of the participants in a discourse are
communicated
Verbal process. See also Transitivity
Verbal process is the process of saying. It includes the sayer, who is the speaker,
the receiver, the recipient who receives the message of the sayer, the verbiage, that
which is said by the sayer, and the target which is the goal of the sayer.
Wodak’s model. See also Discourse-Historical approach
A CDA approach developed by R. Wodak in which discourse is perceived
as a form of social practice. It focuses on the interdisciplinary and
eclectic nature of CDA, since problems in our society are too complex to be
studied from a single point of view. Thus, to understand and explain the object
under investigation, one needs to integrate diverse theories and methods. For
Wodak, studying CDA is multifarious, as it is derived from quite different
theoretical backgrounds, oriented towards different data and
methodologies.
12

References, and further reading:
Bloor, M. & Bloor, T. (2007). The practice of CDA: An introduction. Oxford:
Hodder Education.
Brown, K. & Miller, J. (2013). The Cambridge dictionary of linguistics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. & Coulthard, M. (eds.). (1996). Texts & practices:
Readings in critical discourse analysis. London: Routledge.
Crystal, D. (2008). A dictionary of linguistics & phonetics. 6th
edition. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language.
London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (2001). Critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific
research. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer. (eds.). Methods of critical
discourse analysis. (pp. 121-138), London: Sage.
Fairclough, N. (2001). Language & power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research.
New York: Routledge.
Fowler, R., Hodge, B., Kress, G., & Trew, T. (1979). Language & control.
London: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to functional grammar. 2nd
edition.
London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan. (1989). Language, context, and text: Aspects of
language in a social-semiotic perspective. 2nd
edition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Locke, T. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. London & New York: Continuum.
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Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., & Hamilton, H.E. (eds.). (2001). The handbook of
discourse analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Simpson, P. (1993). Language, ideology & point of view. London & New York:
Routledge.
Trask, R.L. (1993). A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics. New York:
Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. (1996). Discourse, power and access. In C. Caldas-Coulthard & M.
Coulthard. (eds.). Texts & practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis. (pp.
84-104), London: Routledge
van Dijk, T. A.(2001). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, &
H.E. Hamilton. (eds.). The handbook of discourse analysis. (pp. 251-371),
Maiden, MA: Blackwell.
van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse & practice: New tools for critical discourse
analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiss, G. & Wodak, R. (eds.). (2003). Critical discourse analysis:
Theory & interdisciplinarity. London & New York: Palgrave, Macmillan.
Widdowson, H. G. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. In H. G. Widdowson. (ed).
Text, context, pretext: Critical issues in discourse analysis.(pp. 89-111), Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. London:
Sage.
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds.). (2009). Methods of critical discourse analysis.
London: Sage.
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