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QUALITATIVE
DATA
ANALYSIS
KEY APPROACHES
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Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne
Q
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QUALITATIVE
DATA
ANALYSIS
KEY APPROACHES
EDITED BY
PETER A. J. STEVENS
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In loving memory of my father Daniël.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Authorsxi
1 Introduction: Walking On and Off the Beaten Track 1
Peter A. J. Stevens
Research questions: the foundations for choosing qualitative data analysis
approaches4
References15
2 Critical Discourse Analysis: The Articulation of Power and
Ideology in Texts 17
Stijn Joye and Pieter Maeseele
Chapter objectives 18
Key features, debates and historical development 18
Doing critical discourse analysis step by step 26
Conclusion and discussion 36
Summary checklist 37
Doing critical discourse analysis yourself 37
Recommended reading 40
References41
3 Grounded Theory: Key Principles and Two Different Approaches 43
Peter A. J. Stevens and Lore Van Praag
Key features, debates and historical developments 44
Doing grounded theory step by step 46
Doing grounded theory yourself 78
References80
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viii QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
4 Narrative Analysis: Analysing ‘Small Stories’ in Social Sciences 83
Peter A. J. Stevens
Doing narrative analysis step by step 89
Doing narrative analysis yourself 103
References106
5 NVivo: An Introduction to Textual Qualitative Data Analysis
with Software 109
Charlotte Maene
Introduction110
Organizing your NVivo project 115
Coding the data 135
Continued data analysis 157
Using NVivo yourself 176
6 Process Tracing: Making Single Case Studies Transparent and
Convincing179
Ferdi De Ville, Niels Gheyle, Yf Reykers and Thijs Van de Graaf
Doing process tracing step by step 183
Doing process tracing yourself 202
References205
7 Qualitative Comparative Analysis: A Qualitative Method for
Uncovering Complex Causal Relations 209
Tim Haesebrouck
Doing qualitative comparative analysis step by step 216
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ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Doing qualitative comparative analysis yourself 233
References236
8 Qualitative Content Analysis: A Practical Introduction 239
Charlotte Maene
Doing qualitative content analysis step by step 244
Doing qualitative content analysis yourself 266
References269
9 Textual Analysis: A Practical Introduction to Studying Texts in
Media and Cultural Studies 271
Frederik Dhaenens and Sofie Van Bauwel
Doing textual analysis step by step 277
Doing textual analysis yourself 287
References289
10 Thematic Analysis: An Analytical Method in its Own Right 293
Davide Dusi and Peter A. J. Stevens
Doing thematic analysis step by step 297
Doing thematic analysis yourself 310
References314
11 Conclusions: Comparing Destinations and Road Maps 317
Peter A. J. Stevens
References 323
Appendix325
Index379
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Charlotte Maene obtained her MA in sociology at Ghent University in 2016. She later
started as a teaching assistant at the Department of Sociology at Ghent University and
supported the courses Introduction to Qualitative Methods and Applied Qualitative
Methods, actively teaching bachelor students on qualitative content analysis and the use
of NVivo software. Charlotte obtained her PhD in 2022 at the research group Cultural
Diversity: Opportunities and Socialization with a special research interest in ethnic ine-
quality in secondary education, adolescence’s identity development and regionalism in
Belgium.
Davide Dusi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Higher Education Governance
Ghent. He received his PhD at the Department of Sociology of Ghent University, obtained
his BA in education sciences at University of Verona and his MA in sociology at University
of Trento. His research experience and interests encompass students’ roles and positions
within higher education systems, university community engagement, and more broadly
higher education policy. In recent years, Davide has been involved in diverse projects
on university community engagement supported by both national and international
funding bodies.
Ferdi De Ville is associate professor of European politics at Ghent University, where he
obtained his PhD in 2011. His main research interests include the political economy of
the European Union and international trade policy. Ferdi’s work has been published in
journals including the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of European Integration,
New Political Economy and the British Journal of Politics and International Relations. He is
the co-author of TTIP: The Truth about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(Polity, 2016) and Rising Powers and Economic Crisis in the Euro Area (Palgrave, 2016).
Frederik Dhaenens is an assistant professor at Ghent University, where he teaches
courses that deal with media, (popular) culture and diversity. His research is situated
within the field of critical media studies and cultural studies, while focusing on queer
theory, LGBTQ+ representation, sex and sexuality, and masculinities in relation to pop-
ular film, television and music. He acts as vice chair of the Popular Culture Working
Group at the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).
He also co-organizes the LGBTQ+ forum − a Flemish network of researchers, civil society
actors and policymakers working on sexual and gender diversity.
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QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
xii
Lore Van Praag (BA, MA, PhD Ghent University) is assistant professor at the Erasmus
University of Rotterdam. She has worked in the areas of sociology of education, race
and ethnic relations, multilingualism, environmental migration and migration studies,
using qualitative research methods and mixed methods. Her work has been published in
various journals in the field of education and migration studies, including the Journal of
Ethnic and Migration Studies, the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, the British
Educational Research Journal and Human Ecology.
Niels Gheyle is an FNRS postdoctoral researcher at UCLouvain (Louvain-la-Neuve) and
affiliated researcher at Ghent University. He obtained his PhD in 2019 with a dissertation
on the origins, dynamics and consequences of the politicization of EU trade policy. His
main research interests cover democracy and conflict in European and global govern-
ance, with an emphasis on EU trade policy and political strategy.
Peter A. J. Stevens (BA, MA Ghent University; MA, PhD Warwick University) is asso-
ciate professor in qualitative research methods at the Department of Sociology, Ghent
University. Peter’s research interests cover the areas of sociology of education and race
and ethnic relations. His work has been published in leading journals in the field of
education, race and ethnic relations and sociology, including the Review of Educational
Research, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Sociology of Education. Along with
Gary Dworkin, Peter is editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Race and Ethnic Inequalities in
Education (2nd edition) (Palgrave, 2019).
Pieter Maeseele (BA, MA, PhD Ghent University) is associate research professor at the
Department of Communication Sciences, University of Antwerp. His research and teach-
ing are situated at the nexus between media studies and political communication, with
a focus on the role and performance of different formats, genres and styles of journalism
and popular culture in terms of democratic debate, diversity and pluralism. Pieter is the
current vice chair of the Antwerp Media in Society Centre and of IAMCR’s Environment,
Science and Risk Communication group, and the former vice-chair of the European
Communication Research and Education Associations’ (ECREA) Science and Environment
Communication Section. He is a member of the editorial boards of Science Communication,
the Journal of Alternative and Community Media, Frontiers in Communication, the Journal of
Science Communication, Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication and
World Scientific Publishing.
Sofie Van Bauwel is an associate professor at the Department of Communication
Sciences at Ghent University, where she teaches cultural media studies, gender and media
and television studies. She is part of the CIMS and her main field of interest is gender,
sexuality, media and film and television. Sofie is involved in several projects with a focus
on the media as signifying articulations in visual popular culture. She was vice chair
of ECREA’s Gender and Communication Section (2006–12). She is also a member of
11/8/2022 3:41:06 PM

xiii
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
interdisciplinary research consortium Digital Innovation for Humans and Society. She
publishes internationally and nationally on popular media, gender and popular culture.
Stijn Joye (BA, MA, PhD Ghent University) is associate professor at the Department
of Communication Sciences, Ghent University. His research interests cover the areas of
international news studies with a focus on the representation of suffering and crises along-
side an interest in issues of domestication, colonial heritage and the practices of seriality
and artistic imitation in film. Stijn is associate editor of the International Communication
Gazette, book review editor of Communications, former chair of ECREA’s International
and Intercultural Communication Section, current vice chair of TWG Ethics of Mediated
Suffering, treasurer of the Netherland–Flanders Communication Association (NeFCA)
and vice chair of NeFCA’s Intercultural Communication and Diversity Section.
Thijs Van de Graaf is associate professor of international politics at Ghent University,
where he obtained his PhD in 2012. He is also a non-resident fellow with the Payne
Institute, Colorado School of Mines and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy at
Johns Hopkins University. Thijs teaches and conducts research in the areas of energy
politics, international relations and global governance. His most recent books include
Global Energy Politics (Polity, 2020) and The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political
Economy of Energy (Palgrave, 2016).
Tim Haesebrouck (MA, PhD Ghent University) is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent
University. His research interests include military intervention, defence burden sharing
and foreign policy analysis. In addition, he has a strong interest in the development of
configurational comparative methods, such as qualitative content analysis. His work has
been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, Foreign
Policy Analysis, the Journal of European Public Policy, the European Political Science Review
and Sociological Methods and Research. He is editor along with Jeroen Joly of Foreign Policy
Change in Europe Since 1991 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021).
Yf Reykers (BA, MA, PhD KU Leuven) is assistant professor (tenured) in international
relations at the Department of Political Science, Maastricht University. Yf’s research inter-
ests cover the areas of European security and defence policy. His work has been published
in journals in the field of international relations, political science and European politics,
including Contemporary Security Policy, the Journal of European Integration, Parliamentary
Affairs and Third World Quarterly. He is co-editor of Multinational Rapid Response
Mechanisms: From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation (Routledge Global
Institutions Series, 2019).
11/8/2022 3:41:06 PM

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1
Introduction:
Walking On and Off the
Beaten Track
Peter A. J. Stevens
How should I analyse my qualitative data (from interviews, observations, media mes-
sages)? This is a question that many students and researchers ask themselves when they
start thinking about the data that they have collected, or preferably even earlier, before
they start collecting data and begin thinking about what they would like to research
and how.
Qualitative data analysis (QDA) can be done in many ways, but you might not know
where to turn when exploring the vast landscape of literature on QDA. This handbook is
designed to help you find direction in your journey; to identify which approach to QDA
is most useful for what you want to do. In addition, it also shows you how you could apply
such an approach by describing the key steps that are involved in the different approaches
to QDA. Finally, by providing exercises and annotated bibliographies for each approach
discussed, this handbook offers tools to further deepen your knowledge of and skills in
conducting QDA.
At the same time, this handbook is not intended as a guided tour, in that you can
only see where the guide points you, remaining firmly on a pre-defined route. More gen-
erally, this handbook falls within a broader continuum of approaches to QDA. On one
extreme there is what I call a ‘whatever works’ approach to QDA, which assumes
that each individual researcher applies a unique approach to data analysis that can be
judged only in terms of the quality of the end product (Corbin, 2009). The notion of
‘quality’ is defined and assessed in different ways in social science research, but often
relates to the question of whether the end product of your analysis is both believable
and theoretically relevant (Hammersley, 1982; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Applying a
‘whatever works’ approach does not necessarily mean that researchers need no guid-
ance or inspiration in terms of how they analyse their data, but that they should ignore
whatever ‘does not work’ for them and value and apply what ‘works’ in developing
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2
quality output. Such an approach offers researchers maximum freedom in terms of how
they conduct data analysis and necessarily does not prescribe any specific steps that the
researcher must take in order to come up with a meaningful end product of QDA.
At the other extreme, we can find ‘orthodox approaches’, which expect the
researcher to follow a specific road map to produce relevant output. Here, the quality
of the data analysis is not only measured by the quality of the end product, but also by
if, when and how well the researcher has followed particular steps. In fact, both the end
product and the process are related: the more you deviate from the well-beaten track, the
more doubt is cast on the quality of the end product. As a result, this approach to QDA
offers the researcher the least amount of freedom, as it is essential to follow in the foot-
steps of others to conduct ‘good’ QDA.
In the middle we can find more ‘pragmatic approaches’. These start from a set of
general assumptions about what a typical process of conducting QDA looks like; often
highlighting steps and characteristics of QDA that are considered typical for almost
any QDA approach, including many orthodox approaches. Although each writer often
presents their unique approach (e.g., Bazeley, 2013; Maxwell, 2005; Miles, Huberman
Saldaña, 2020; Mortelmans, 2013), they often overlap significantly and usually refer to
the following principles that should be considered when conducting QDA:
1. Focus on research questions that: a) emphasize the development of a deeper
understanding or explanation; b) explore new hypotheses over testing existing
hypotheses; c) interpret meaning; d) provide a rich, contextual description; and/or
e) focus on process.
2. Collect and analyse data in a cyclical manner, so that short periods of data
collection are followed up by short periods of data analysis, which in turn informs
a new wave of data collection, and so on, until a theory has been developed.
3. Reflect constantly on how data collection and analysis can be improved.
4. Focus on interpretation of text rather than statistical analysis of quantitative data.
5. Apply a three-step coding process, in which raw text (e.g., an interview
transcript) is first reduced to a smaller set of meaningful codes or labels attached to
portions of text. Afterwards, the researcher tends to focus more on this particular
set of codes and explores relationships between them, often reducing the number
of codes and developing new, more abstract codes in the process. Synthesizing the
final network of codes and their connections in relation to the research questions
constitutes the last step in the coding process.
6. Use writing as a key tool in analysing (interpreting) data.
7. Sample text, cases or contexts based on their theoretical relevance (i.e.,
how well they will probably help you to gain valuable information in relation to
your research topic or questions) and not because they are representative of some
population.
8. Use (fairly) raw data, such as interview extracts or photographs and visual
representations (e.g., coding trees or thematic maps) in presenting the outcome of
data analysis.
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INTRODUCTION 3
9. Present your findings and their theoretical relevance together in an
integrated way, not separately, which is more common in quantitative research.
Pragmatic approaches are widely used, as they offer a useful balance between providing
direction but also allowing the researcher freedom in terms of deciding which steps to
take in producing quality output. This handbook positions itself between pragmatic and
more orthodox approaches to QDA. Or, put differently, while we think it is a good idea
to consider the detailed road map prescribed by orthodox approaches, at the same time
there might be good reasons to deviate from the prescribed path.
More specifically, this handbook presents and compares the following more ortho-
dox approaches to QDA: critical discourse analysis; grounded theory analysis; narrative
analysis; process tracing; qualitative comparative analysis; qualitative content analysis;
textual analysis and thematic analysis. Each of these approaches sets out particular steps
that researchers are encouraged to follow in order to develop a particular type of quality
output.
However, in describing these approaches, we do not encourage readers to follow reli-
giously the road map prescribed in each approach. First, we will show that within many
orthodox approaches, some variability exists in terms of how the approach should be
applied and for what purposes (often based on philosophical assumptions that research-
ers hold on to). Second, we will see that many authors in each orthodox approach
encourage researchers to adopt a more pragmatic mindset to QDA, meaning that it can
be perfectly motivated, including on pragmatic grounds, not to follow all the steps char-
acteristic of a particular approach. Third, it will become clear that researchers can switch
to different approaches during their research and that it often makes sense to do so. In so
doing, we also warn against adopting a form of ‘methodolatry’ (Janesick, 2000) by con-
sidering orthodox approaches as necessarily better or ideal, irrespective of what you aim
to develop in terms of knowledge and the quality of your end product. More generally,
researchers can produce equally high-quality output using a whatever-works approach or
pragmatic approach and might feel that such an approach fits better with how they can
and want to conduct research.
At the same time, there are different reasons why paying attention to more orthodox
QDA approaches is beneficial. First, for novice researchers, most students and even PhD
students, having a road map that tells them how to get to a ‘quality output’ is reassuring
and helpful. Not everybody likes to be thrown into a jungle and to find a way out by
themselves. While some are okay with basic survival gear and a compass (i.e., a pragmatic
approach), others prefer to have a clear path with road signs in front of them.
Second, orthodox approaches can effectively help you to develop quality output.
Although every orthodox approach is usually developed by particular key authors in the
field, they do not constitute individualistic approaches to QDA. Instead, they represent a
fairly shared but always developing view among a group of researchers that conducting
QDA in a particular way can result in a particular type of quality output. This means that
the strengths, limitations, challenges and motivations for applying a particular approach
11/8/2022 3:41:31 PM

4
are often well debated and evaluated in orthodox approaches. This allows the researcher
to make better informed and more specific decisions about which steps to take and why.
Third, in applying an orthodox, established road map, your notes can be added to
those that already exist and your journey to X can help further improve the road map,
effectively helping future travellers who also want to reach X. So, in applying a more
orthodox approach, you can build on a developing body of knowledge that critically
assesses the usefulness of the prescribed steps characteristic of this approach.
Fourth, although the quality of the end product is a key criterion by which to judge
the quality of research more generally, adding transparency of the process that resulted
in a particular outcome is also essential. Orthodox approaches often offer specific yard-
sticks or criteria to measure the quality of the process and in so doing help you to make
stronger claims about the quality of your work. This does not mean that you cannot and
should not be transparent in how you conduct your research when applying a pragmatic
or whatever-works approach, but simply that more orthodox approaches are more likely
to stimulate you to do so and in relation to specific milestones along your journey.
Finally, reflecting appropriately and openly on how your approach is different from
or similar to particular, orthodox approaches helps to maintain boundaries between
approaches in terms of the road that they describe in order to reach a particular des-
tination. Not doing this (appropriately), can blur boundaries to the extent that people
claim to use approaches in a way that poorly resembles the real thing. Hood (2007), for
instance, makes this claim specifically in relation to grounded theory (GT). She argues
that the label GT has been misused to such an extent that just applying some form of
coding constitutes GT for some researchers. This is problematic, as it replaces the what-
ever-works road map with the road maps of more orthodox approaches but removes the
benefits of adopting those orthodox approaches. This would be the equivalent of having
ten different road maps, all of them claiming to show you the road to X, but sometimes
confusing destination X with destination Y.
1.1 Research questions: the foundations for choosing
qualitative data analysis approaches
When you want to travel, you should always first identify your destination, then decide
how to get there. We rarely step onto a bus not knowing where it will drop us off (although
it might be exciting to do so!). The same logic applies to choosing a particular approach
to QDA. Your destination represents the kind of knowledge that you aim to produce or
the research questions that you want to answer. Your QDA approach represents your
means of transport, or how you aim to develop answers to these questions.
So, every approach to QDA is suited to finding answers to specific kinds of research
question. Conversely, one single QDA approach cannot answer all types of research ques-
tion. As a result, it is essential that you know which approaches can be used for what
type of research questions. The following sections will do this for the approaches to QDA
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INTRODUCTION 5
discussed in this handbook, so that you can easily identity a suitable form of QDA for
particular types of research questions. In so doing, we will also see that the various QDA
approaches also differ in terms of how much the research questions can change over the
course of the research project.
However, we will first describe how to develop good research questions in qualitative
research and the issues that inform this process. More specifically, we will look at the for-
mal requirements of research questions, the importance of personal interests, knowledge
and experiences, literature and the philosophical paradigms that underpin your research.
At the end of this chapter, you should feel comfortable with developing research ques-
tions that are appropriate for (qualitative) research, theoretically innovative, of interest
to the audience that you write for and, ideally, for yourself. In addition, you will be able
to distinguish different philosophical paradigms and know how they stimulate us to ask
specific kinds of research question, which in turn leads us to select particular approaches
to QDA.
1.1.1 Formal requirements: focus, scope, coherence
and feasibility
Good research questions are focused, limited and coherent. This means that each ques-
tion should focus separately on one specific issue (focused). In addition, together they
should be connected to each other and to an overarching theme in a logical way, without
overlapping too much (coherent). This also introduces an important difference between
a research question (RQ) and a research theme (RT). While an RT describes the general
topic of interest which you wish to research, an RQ describes a specific question that you
want to answer in relation to this theme. As a result, RTs do not usually have question
marks at the end, while RQs do. Finally, you should not have too many or too few RQs
(limited): too many might result in you not saying enough about each of them, while too
few might result in not being able to say much about something at all. Put differently, if
you plan to visit fifteen locations in a city in one day, you will probably see little of each,
but if you only plan to visit one location, you will not see much of the city altogether. As
a rule of thumb, you should aim for two to four RQs in a typical MA or PhD study. Note
that the focus and scope of your RQs also have implications for the feasibility of your
study (see below).
For instance, let us say that we would like to do research on communication between
patients and medical doctors (RT). We could develop the following two RQs, based on
this RT: 1) How do doctors and patients define ‘good communication’? 2) How can we
explain variability in such views? These two RQs are coherent, they do not overlap, but
relate to each other, as RQ2 builds on RQ1 by trying to explain an (expected) variability
in views; the latter we want to describe through RQ1. In addition, these questions are
focused, in that they each try to answer one particular question. Finally, there are only
two RQs, which makes the scope limited but not to the extent that we will not be able to
tell a substantial story.
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6
Table 1.1 Checklist: are my research questions focused, limited and coherent?
My RQs:
• Are not too broad and not too narrow (too vague or ambitious/too restrictive)?
• Do not overlap too much (repetition/not enough coherence)?
• Are logically related to each other and to an overarching theme?
• Are focused, in that there are no repeated research questions (confusing)?
• Are limited in that I do not have too many or too few RQs (too/not too ambitious)?
•
Use theoretical concepts consistently (e.g., if you want to focus on attitudes only, use the
concept of attitudes only, and do not use other, related concepts such as beliefs, values, etc.)?
A final, formal requirement for evaluating RQs is that they are feasible. This means
that we can only go for particular RQs if we are convinced that we can find answers to
these questions, based on the knowledge that we have at the time of developing these
research questions. This more practical criterion involves an assessment of what it would
reasonably take to carry out our research, the challenges involved in doing so and if and
how we can overcome these challenges. Based on the travelling analogy, this means that
we only decide to travel to a certain destination, if we can reasonably assume that we can
get there. I might, for instance, decide not to climb Mount Everest because I do not have
the training, skills or knowledge to undertake such a trip, or the financial resources and
support to do this successfully.
It is here, too, that starting from more orthodox approaches to QDA can help, as such
approaches often give very detailed road maps that show what is needed to reach the
destination, as well as all the milestones in between. For instance, the typical ‘road map’
offered by GT tells us that we should expect to change our sample and research questions
over the research process in order to develop a thorough explanation or understanding
of a phenomenon (RQs or our destination). If this creates too much uncertainty and/or
you fear that you might not have the time to do this, then you could decide not to use
GT as a means to answer these questions as it is simply not feasible to do so. This might
stimulate you to opt for other (orthodox) approaches and/or change your research ques-
tions altogether.
However, questions about the feasibility of researching your research questions not
only relate to the issue of having essential knowledge, skills and resources (time and
money), but also to any potential ethical issues involved in pursuing these particular
RQs. If you plan to travel to mountain X, but in so doing you must go through a nature
reserve that is closed to the public, you should probably not travel to that particular
mountain (or not use this particular road map). Questions about whether we can pursue
particular RQs based on our available resources also relate to the formal requirement of
RQs in terms of focus and scope: RQs must be focused and not too broad, as it could
prove unrealistic to study them.
Because we do not always have the information to make such assessments accurately
at the start of our research, and because the context in which we conduct research often
changes over time, questions about the feasibility of reaching your ‘destination’ often
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INTRODUCTION 7
remain throughout your entire project. What appears ‘feasible’ at the start, may no lon-
ger appear as such after time, which can stimulate you to change your destination (RQs)
or your road map (approach to QDA). Being a good researcher not only means that you
assess the feasibility early on, but that you are continually prepared to make changes if
necessary.
For instance, in conducting our research on communication between patients and
medical doctors (see RQ1 and RQ2), we might opt for doctors and their current patients,
as this would allow us to compare how doctors and patients evaluate each other in rela-
tion to a shared communicative experience. However, as it might be difficult for doctors
to discuss known patients, we could, as a plan B, decide to interview doctors about their
(anonymous) patients and a group of patients about their (anonymous) doctors and
simultaneously sample both groups in such a way that minimizes the chance of them
being connected (e.g., by sampling patients from hospital X and doctors from hospital
Y). The latter could be considered as (ethically) more feasible.
Table 1.2 Checklist: is it feasible to study/answer these research questions?
•
Is it likely that I (will) have the necessary knowledge and skills to answers these research
questions?
•
Is it likely that I will be able to follow all the steps typical of a particular orthodox approach (and
related to both data collection and analysis) within the time that is available to me?
• Can I deal appropriately with the ethical issues that arise from doing this research?
1.1.2 Literature
The literature is a very well established, if not an essential source of inspiration for any-
one who wants to develop RQs and do research more generally. However, reading the
literature and contemplating how doing so might help you to develop RQs involves four
main questions: 1) What do I read? 2) How much do I read? 3) When do I read? 4) What
do I consider in my research from what I have read?
In relation to the first question, researchers are encouraged to read at least the sci-
entific literature in their field of interest, or the literature that relates to the research
theme(s) in which they are interested. As we aim as researchers to build on existing sci-
entific knowledge, and the extent to which we can do so determines the impact of our
study, it is important to know what other researchers have studied before, so that you
can identify new RQs or destinations that have not yet been visited. At the same time, it
is equally recognized that reading more popular (i.e., less scientific) literature can be very
inspirational in developing research themes and questions. In relationship to the ‘how
much?’ questions, researchers are encouraged to be pragmatic and to prioritize reading
what looks more relevant first, as it is virtually impossible to read ‘everything’.
While qualitative researchers would generally agree on how to address the first two
questions, there is more disagreement over the last two. To understand why qualita-
tive researchers disagree over when we should read and how we use what we have read
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8
in our research, we must clarify the difference between more inductive and deductive
approaches to qualitative research. Deductive reasoning means that we use existing
concepts, theories or research findings to set out expectations about what to find in our
data and/or how to interpret our data in relation to specific phenomena and to rela-
tionships between the data. Inductive reasoning means that we develop conclusions
about what is in our data and/or how to interpret it in relation to specific phenomena
and the relationships between them by analysing our data. Although most approaches to
QDA use both forms of reasoning, they often use one more than the other.
Regarding ‘when’ you should read, most researchers argue that you should definitely
read before you start developing RQs. In fact, most researchers would argue that a solid
literature review will help you to identify RQs that are worth pursuing. More inductive
approaches to QDA – such as the original version of GT as developed by Glaser and
Strauss (1967) – argue that you should not read a lot at the beginning of your research
project, as this might lead you too much into a particular direction or stimulate you to
overlook alternative or new interpretations of your data. Instead, they recommend that
you read mainly at the later stages of your research, when you have decided on the spe-
cific nature of your RQs more inductively, based on the analysis of your data. Here, you
develop only initial RQs at the start of your research, based in part on a limited reading
of the literature, but then change the RQs (often meaning that they become more specific
and focused) over the course of your research and in line with the theory that gradually
emerges and develops over the data analysis process. Once you have decided on a specific
focus or particular RQs, and you have developed a basic theory to understand or explain
these RQs, you can consult specific literature sources that relate to your theory and that
help you to further develop that theory.
This also shows that the question ‘when do we read?’ relates to the final question ‘how
do we use the literature?’. More inductive approaches to QDA will advise you to keep an
open mind in considering the literature, meaning that you should put whatever has been
found or stated in brackets and show a willingness to question its validity and consider
completely different views. Here, existing concepts, theories and findings derived from
the literature are used as ‘sensitizing concepts’, which make us aware of or sensitive to
their potential relevance for the development of our theories; but these concepts, the-
ories and findings should never determine your focus or interpretation of the data. In
contrast, more deductive approaches to QDA, such as qualitative comparative analysis,
process tracing, but also more deductive approaches to qualitative content analysis and
thematic analysis allow you to use the literature in a more deductive way, in which
your RQs and interpretation of your data is strongly informed by concepts, theories and
findings derived from the literature. Typically, RQs tend to change more over the course
of the research (and data analysis) process when you adopt a more inductive approach,
while they tend to be more fixed or stable from the beginning when you employ more
deductive QDA approach.
More inductive and deductive approaches to QDA not only tell us when we should
read and how we should use existing knowledge in developing RQs and interpreting our
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INTRODUCTION 9
data, they also stimulate us to investigate particular kinds of RQ. Using the travelling
metaphor, reading literature tells us which destinations (RQs) have been well travelled,
which parts of these popular places are less well known and which locations are pristine
or uncharted. This means that we can use the literature in different ways when devel-
oping RQs: a) we can confirm the existence of particular destinations (i.e., concepts,
theories or findings derived from the literature); b) we can look into lesser-known parts
of well-travelled destinations; and c) we can decide to explore uncharted territory. While
the first destination corresponds to RQs that aim to validate or test particular existing
hypotheses, the second and third destinations involve RQs that emphasize exploration
and the development of new hypotheses. In selecting your destination (RQs) you can
choose to see what has been seen already (deduction) or explore what is out there (induc-
tion). As a result, QDA approaches that emphasize deduction will be particularly suited
to RQs that aim to validate or test particular hypotheses or theories (often in new or
different contexts), while QDA approaches that emphasize induction will be more appro-
priate for RQs that aim to explore. Both approaches require a somewhat different way
of presenting your RQs: while the former will follow logically from a critical and com-
prehensive literature review, the latter will be presented not only in terms of how they
were formulated initially following a literature review, but also how and why they have
changed over the course of your research.
1.1.3 Personal interests, knowledge and experiences
There are good reasons to study research questions that interest you personally and/or
that focus on themes about which you have knowledge or experience. As research can
be demanding and take you to inhospitable lands, over broken bridges and damaged
roads, it is important to remain intrinsically motivated in reaching your destination. The
more motivated you are, the more likely you will persevere in reaching your destination.
Knowing something about your destination or having experienced it in a particular way
can also help, in that it might make it easier for you to navigate your way. This relates to
the entire research process and not just data analysis and involves issues such as selecting
sources of data and negotiating access to them, knowing about particular ethical issues,
knowing how much time it might take to get from A to B and what might be innovative
RQs (or new destinations) and how to interpret what you see.
1.1.4 Philosophical paradigms
Every researcher makes certain philosophical assumptions in their research, implicitly or
explicitly. They usually refer to three broad questions:
Ontological questions: Is there ‘a’ reality and what is the nature of reality?
Epistemological questions: What is the relationship between the researcher
and the reality and what, as researchers, can we know about this reality?
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10
Methodological questions: What kind of procedures does the researcher need
to follow to know something about this reality?
There are many different ways in which we can answer these fundamental questions and
the social science literature boasts a considerable number of classifications of what we
call philosophical paradigms, or ways in which particular views on these three questions
relate to each other and form a coherent approach in terms of what we study (i.e., what
kind of reality?) and how we study our social world (i.e., are we connected or separated
from the reality that we study? And what kinds of procedures do we use to know more
about reality?).
In this handbook, I start from the much-cited classification developed by Guba and
Lincoln (1994), which makes a distinction between four philosophical paradigms: a pos-
itivist perspective; a post-positivist perspective; a constructivist perspective; and a critical
perspective.
A positivistic approach assumes that we can see reality as it is and, as a result,
develop theories that accurately predict what happens around us. We do this by adopting
scientific methods, usually based on systematic observation and experimental designs. It
assumes that as researchers we are separated from this reality and that we can therefore
study it in an unbiased way (dualistic view). However, given that qualitative research
usually does not follow the assumptions of a positivistic paradigm, we will focus only on
the following three.
A post-positivist approach assumes that we can develop knowledge about and
observe reality as it is, albeit in an imperfect way. A mixed-methods research design is
often considered, in which we use qualitative and quantitative data to develop theories
that approximate reality as much as possible, knowing that we will never develop a ‘per-
fect theory’ that predicts (parts of) reality fully. This approach starts from the assumption
that there is an objective reality that is separate from the researcher but that we lack the
capacity to see it in its full complexity. People adopting such an approach usually pur-
sue RQs that aim to develop explanatory models for certain phenomena, test particular
hypotheses or try to describe phenomena in an accurate way.
Case study 1.1
Post-positivist research: racism in education
For instance, Stevens and Görgöz (2010) employ an ecological approach in studying
teacher prejudice and observe that teachers in a British secondary school are less prej-
udiced towards Turkish minority students compared to their Belgian colleagues. In their
qualitative case study they try to explain this observed variability in teacher prejudice.
They point to differences in school ethnic composition of the student and staff population
and differences in school and education-wide policies between England and Belgium to
account for these differences. Stevens and Görgöz assume that they can observe levels of
prejudice between teachers and at the same time identify known factors and processes
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INTRODUCTION 11
A constructivist approach assumes that we (researchers and research participants)
cannot know or observe reality as it is, but that researchers can build an understanding
of how others see and present their subjective reality (Lincoln, Lynham Guba, 2017).
Qualitative research methods are employed as they are better equipped to describe and
understand people’s subjective perceptions of reality and how such perceptions develop
through interactions between actors in particular contexts. The researcher is part of real-
ity and co-constructs an interpretation of reality, which means that you must be critical
of your role in the production of knowledge about reality. Researchers working from this
perspective focus on RQs that explore the shared meanings that actors give to particu-
lar phenomena (including themselves), and how such meanings are developed through
socialization and learning processes. In addition, constructivist researchers explore how
such meanings inform our behaviour and how we change the way we look at things
according to the context in which we find ourselves, and the kinds of strategies that we
use to change (other people’s) views.
(i.e., test hypotheses) and new ones (i.e., develop new hypotheses) about influences on
teachers’ levels of prejudice. However, given the small, non-random nature of their sam-
ple, they are unable to make claims about the population of teachers more generally
(so their findings are not generalizable). In addition, as they are not relying on statistical
analysis, they cannot make inferences about the strength of relationships between char-
acteristics or variables. The key value of this study is that it identifies additional hypotheses
related to school features and national education policy that seem to inform teachers’
levels of ethnic prejudice. These findings can be taken up by other researchers and, if
confirmed, help to develop a more accurate (but never complete) picture of what causes
teachers to think in a more prejudiced way of their ethnic minority students.
Case study 1.2
Constructivist research: racism in education
For instance, Stevens (2008) employs a symbolic interactionist approach to describe
when and how Turkish minority Belgian-secondary-school students define their teachers
as ‘a racist teacher’ and explores how these students, in interaction with each other and
their teachers, adapt their view of teachers as ‘racist’. Teachers are considered racist
when they express a variety of different attitudes that show that they have a less favour-
able opinion of students from an ethnic/racial minority background, and when teachers
express different forms of behaviour that have less favourable outcomes for pupils from
a minority ethnic/racial group (refers to shared views). However, teachers try to ‘manip-
ulate’ students’ views of them as racist (refers to strategies) and students consider the
intentionality and universal application of racist behaviour of teachers, teachers’ overall
role performance and particular cultural scripts (refers to context) in judging whether
teachers are either ‘racist’ or ‘not racist’.
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12
Finally, a critical approach is similar to a constructivist approach in that it assumes
that people develop a subjective understanding of reality (like constructivist researchers
claim) but that such an understanding is informed by the real, objective structures in
which people are situated. In particular, critical researchers look at how structures of
inequality in society (e.g., social class, race, sexuality and gender) structure people’s
experiences and interests so that people occupying the same position see and present
reality in a somewhat similar way (Lincoln et al., 2017). A key implication is that the
presentation of reality is not without purpose or consequence, as it often serves par-
ticular interests and a division of scarce resources. Here, too, the researcher is seen as an
important actor in the production of knowledge and as a result you should explore how
your own positions of relative power inform the process of producing knowledge about
reality. For instance, how does your position in terms of colour, education, sexuality and
gender inform the process of developing knowledge on a particular topic? In addition,
critical researchers often have a social policy agenda, in that they hope that their find-
ings lead to a more fair and just society. The RQs that are studied by critical researchers
often focus on how social groups (e.g., men and women) present reality, the particular
ways in which reality is presented (i.e., the rhetorical tools that are used to do so), how
these are tied to particular group interests and how such presentations reproduce or
challenge social inequalities.
Case study 1.3
Critical research: racism in education
For instance, Gillborn (2008) employs a critical race theory approach to explore how
white people in positions of power in the British educational system (e.g., the Ministry
of Education) use various strategies to hide and/or reject the importance of racism in
explaining persistent achievement gaps between ethnic minority and majority students in
the United Kingdom. A first strategy involves emphasizing the narrowing of the achieve-
ment gap between whites and non-whites over time instead of focusing on the persis-
tence of the gap over time. A second strategy involves highlighting how the current
government introduced particular policy initiatives but is being silent over how effective
these are. A third strategy involves emphasizing the importance of other inequalities such
as social class or gender over racial inequalities. A final strategy involves highlighting
‘successful’ (model) minority groups, such as British Chinese students, as proof that racism
cannot explain educational inequality. The author focuses mainly on how people in power
present a version of reality (i.e., racial inequalities in the British educational system), the
way they do this and how this serves their (white people’s) interests and reinforces existing
(racial) inequalities.
Most of the time, we are unaware of our assumptions and how they guide us in pur-
suing particular RQs. However, it can be very stimulating to think carefully about how
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INTRODUCTION 13
we and other researchers in our areas of interest approach these fundamental questions.
For instance, if you realize that most of the research carried out in your field employs a
post-positivist approach, then developing RQs from a constructivist or critical perspec-
tive can often yield new insights as they pursue very different RQs. As philosophical par-
adigms also make assumptions about the procedures or steps that you must follow to
develop knowledge about our world, it should not surprise us that different, orthodox
approaches to QDA are rooted in particular philosophical approaches. In other words,
while some QDA approaches start from a post-positivist philosophical approach, others
follow the principles of constructivism or critical research. The implication is that when
you pick a particular orthodox approach to QDA, you select not only a specific road map,
but also particular types of destination or RQ.
Table 1.3 gives an overview of how these three philosophical traditions relate to
particular RQs and more orthodox QDA approaches. A distinction is made between
the following approaches to QDA, each of which is also described in detail in this
handbook:
CGT: constructivist grounded theory
CTA: constructivist thematic analysis (also called ‘reflexive TA’)
CDA: critical discourse analysis
NASS: narrative analysis of small stories
PPGT: post-positivistic grounded theory
PPTA: post-positivistic thematic analysis
PT: process tracing
QComA: qualitative comparative analysis
QContA: qualitative content analysis
TexA: textual analysis
Please note the some of these approaches are discussed together in a particular
chapter, such as CGT and PPGT (Chapter 3), CTA and PPTA (Chapter 10). In addition,
the classification presented below does not include all existing orthodox approaches
to QDA, only a number of key approaches are discussed in this handbook. Classifying
these approaches necessarily involves a process of interpretation and abstraction. As
a result, not all the variation and nuance within each approach can be presented by
such a table. For instance, some approaches (e.g., CTA and PPTA) argue that they can
be employed by researchers using very different philosophical assumptions. However,
at the same time, we are confident that the classification below offers an accurate and
useful overview of key approaches, their key assumptions and the RQs for which they
can be used.
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14
Table 1.3 Philosophical traditions, research questions and approaches to QDA
RQs for different philosophical paradigms
Orthodox approach suitable
for RQs
Post-positivist RQs
How can we explain that something happened? QComA, PT, PPGT
How do particular social phenomena cause something to
happen?
QComA, PT, PPGT
How can we describe a phenomenon in terms of its key
constitutive features?
QContA
How do key constitutive features of a social phenomenon
relate to more abstract concepts?
PPTA
Constructivist RQs
How can we develop a deeper understanding of a social
phenomenon?
CGT
How do people experience and define a phenomenon? QContA, TA and CGT
How do people’s experiences and definitions of a
phenomenon relate to their social context?
CTA and CGT
Critical RQs
What kind of image of social reality is presented through
more overt/direct messages?
NASS, CDA
What kind of image of social reality is presented through
more hidden/subtle messages?
TexA, NASS, CDA
Why is social reality presented in a particular way? TexA, NASS, CDA
How do these two questions relate to the macro, meso and
micro context in which such presentations take place?
TexA, NASS, CDA
The handbook contains a chapter on NVivo software. As NVivo can be used to
assist with very different approaches to QDA, it falls somewhat out of the discussion
in this Introduction. However, given the popularity of NVivo in qualitative research,
we decided to include a chapter on NVivo; one that allows a thorough introduction
for those of you who have never used NVivo but would like to consider using it in
analysing data, either alone or as part of a group of researchers or students working on
the same project.
While at this stage, you can only take note of how different approaches to QDA are
suitable for investigating particular RQs, and how this in turn relates to the philosophical
roots of these approaches, it is not yet clear why that is the case and what characterizes
these approaches specifically. The chapters in the handbook will take you to this next
step. Each chapter is structured in the same way, so that comparing approaches becomes
easier for you. More specifically, for each approach each chapter subsequently describes:
1) the key aims; 2) the chapter objectives; 3) the key features, debates and historical
developments; 4) a step-by-step description of how you could apply this approach; 5) a
concluding section; 6) a summary checklist; 7) a worked out example or exercise of how
to apply this approach; and 8) an annotated bibliography.
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INTRODUCTION 15
The concluding chapter applies all these approaches to a particular research theme:
higher education students’ involvement with sex work, based on a published master’s
thesis in sociology conducted at Ghent University (Van Schuylenbergh, 2017). More spe-
cifically, we will illustrate what it would mean, in general terms, if we applied these
different approaches to QDA to the RQs in Table 1.3, but then applied to a specific RT.
Those of you who are interested in a particular approach to QDA can go immediately to
the chapter on this approach and afterwards read the conclusions, so that you can com-
pare your approach of interest with the others discussed in this handbook as applied on
a particular example. However, if you want to get a more concrete idea of what it means
in general terms to apply these different approaches to a particular RT, reading the con-
clusions now will be helpful.
1.2 References
Bazeley, P. (2013). Qualitative data-analysis: practical strategies. Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE.
Corbin, J. (2009). Taking an analytic journey. In J. M. Morse (ed.), Developing grounded
theory (pp. 35–53). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.
Gillborn, D. (2008). Racism and education: coincidence or conspiracy? London: Routledge.
Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for
qualitative research. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.
Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In
N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105–17).
London: SAGE.
Hammersley, M. (1982). What’s wrong with ethnography? New York: Harper Row.
Hood, J. (2007). Orthodoxy vs. Power: the defining traits of grounded theory. In A.
Bryant and K. Charmaz (eds), The SAGE handbook of grounded theory (pp. 151–64).
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Janesick, V. J. (2000). The choreography of qualitative research design: minuets,
improvisations and crystallization. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook
of qualitative research (2 ed.) (pp. 379–99). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Lincoln, Y. S. and Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park: SAGE.
Lincoln, Y. S., Lynham, S. A. and Guba, E. G. (2017). Paradigmatic controversies,
contradictions, and emerging confluences, revisited. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S.
Lincoln (eds), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 108–50). London: SAGE.
Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: an interactive approach. Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE.
Miles, M. B., Huberman, M. A. and Saldaña, J. (2020). Qualitative data analysis: a methods
sourcebook. London: SAGE.
Mortelmans, D. (2013). Handboek Kwalitatieve Onderzoeksmethoden. Leuven: Acco.
Stevens, P. A. J. (2008). Exploring pupils’ perceptions of teacher racism in their context:
a case study of Turkish and Belgian Vocational education pupils in a Belgian school.
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(2), 175–87.
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Stevens, P. A. J. and Görgöz, R. (2010). Exploring the importance of institutional
contexts for the development of ethnic stereotypes: a comparison of schools in
Belgium and England. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(8), 1350–71.
Van Schuylenbergh, J. (2017). Identiteit en image management bij studenten werkzaam
in de seksindustrie. Ethiek Maatschappij, 19(1–2), 1–31.
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2
Critical Discourse Analysis:
The Articulation of Power and
Ideology in Texts
Stijn Joye and Pieter Maeseele
In memory of Jan Blommaert, who introduced us to CDA and taught us the
power of language.
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a systematic, linguistic analysis of discourse in its
social context. As a qualitative method, CDA regards a text as the empirical manifes-
tation of an underlying discourse and hence relates the analysis of the text to broader
discursive practices as well as to social, economic and political processes. When applying
CDA, you start from the idea that language is not neutral in the sense that by represent-
ing the world through the use of language, you will always actively construct a specific
reality with a specific meaning given to it. CDA clearly manifested itself within the field
of social sciences from the mid-2000s onwards and has become a popular methodologi-
cal option to consider when a study is set up around social issues or questions of power/
exclusion and ideology, driven by a critical stance on behalf of the researcher.
Despite its increasing popularity as a qualitative method to examine semiotic content
and texts within their broader context, undertaking a research project with discourse
analysis often proves to be quite challenging to many students and scholars alike. While
there is no single or simple definition of discourse, as such, the same goes for the number
and nature of approaches to discourse analysis. In addition, and contrary to, for example,
surveys or experiments, there is no straightforward or clear hands-on methodological
toolbox. Approaching discourse analysis for the first time can feel confusing and com-
plex. There are a wide range of options and approaches and a lot of seemingly abstract
and conceptual ideas. But it is also a flexible and powerful approach. It allows you to
select, combine and use the methodology’s inherent flexibility to create an approach that
is perfectly suited for one’s own research plans.
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18
2.1 Chapter objectives
In what follows, we will explore one of the most accessible and thus popular approaches
to analysing discourse: CDA. This brief and hands-on introduction aims to give you a
better insight into what can feel like a heterogeneous and abstract framework to study
texts and language:
• First, we will start with a contextualization of CDA by addressing its broader
philosophical and theoretical framework, shared by social constructionist
approaches to discourse analysis and their basic principles.
• Second, we explore CDA’s key concepts of power, ideology and articulation,
followed by some points of criticism.
• Third, we will present a hands-on discussion of the methodology itself and an
exercise to get you acquainted with the specific logic and dos and don’ts of a
research project applying CDA.
2.2 Key features, debates and historical development
Let us begin with a basic definition of the central notion of discourse. Textbook defi-
nitions generally characterize the heterogeneous field as constituted of a wide range of
assumptions, approaches and methodologies. Reflecting the rising popularity of dis-
course analysis, definitions of discourse itself are abundant but, according to Schiffrin,
Tannen and Hamilton (2001, p. 1), three main categories can be distinguished: discourse
as 1) anything beyond the sentence; 2) language use; and (3) a broader range of social
practice that includes non-linguistic and non-specific instances of language. Combining
the three categories is Jørgensen and Phillips’ (2002, p. 1) general definition of discourse
as ‘a particular way of talking about and understanding the world’. In other words, dis-
course in the sense of language use as a social practice.
Throughout this chapter, we will refer mainly to language in terms of words, but we
should point out that language is to be understood in the widest possible sense of every-
thing that carries meaning, ranging from visuals to objects. Indeed, even the way you
are dressed today might be interpreted as a discursive act in a sense that you may have
made explicit and motivated choices regarding the combination of pieces of clothing you
are wearing, thus expressing or articulating parts of your identity, current mood, values,
belonging to a social group, musical taste, etc. – for example, as hipsters or goths do in
their typical dress and manner. In other words, they convey meaning to others by the
specific discursive choices they have made regarding clothing, hair style, make-up, music
or language in general. Through language, they disclose or represent something that is
underlying. Here, we see the dual nature of discourse popping up. On the one hand, dis-
course as a representation of the world that reflects a specific reality. On the other hand,
discourse is also a constitutive act. It ‘actively constructs a specific reality by giving mean-
ing to reality, identities, social relations’ (Jørgensen Phillips, 2002, p. 1, italics added).
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CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 19
The latter implies that we use language with a reason, intention or objective. This can be
done or expressed in an explicit way but generally people will prefer to conceal their true
intentions or act in implicit and subtle manners.
To that end, a central principle of discourse analysis is the tenet that language is
therefore not neutral. Every single minute of the day, we make a considered, thought-
out decision to select particular words out of the enormously rich vocabulary that, for
instance, the English language offers to its users. Those words and that specific selection
(i.e., discourse) are meant to create meaning and to intentionally construct a specific
reality. The classic example here is that of ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’. Two entirely
different labels to identify or represent the same individual, but the different words con-
struct two very different realities with different outcomes, perceptions and evaluations.
Most people will feel more positive and empathic towards the ideas and values associated
with or created by the use of ‘freedom fighter’. Consequently, the language users opting
to use ‘terrorist’ over ‘freedom fighter’ do so for a specific reason and with a certain inter-
est. Language is not just an instrument to transfer meaning from person A to person B, it
is also symbolic and constitutive.
2.2.1 A broader context and brief history
This chapter refers to social constructionist approaches to discourse, such as Laclau and
Mouffe’s discourse theory (1985), discursive psychology (e.g., Potter Wetherell, 1987)
and CDA (e.g., Fairclough, 1992; 1995). Due to the scope of this chapter, our attention
will be focused on CDA, but before doing so, it is important to sketch out the broader
philosophical framework that informs CDA as a particular type of discourse analysis.
What social constructionist approaches have in common is first of all their critical
stance, most commonly illustrated by the already mentioned premise that language
is not neutral: it should not be taken for granted but challenged or contested from a
critical mindset. Discourse theorists within this school consider language to be both
constitutive of the social world as well as constituted by other social practices (Phillips,
2006). Language can be considered as an element or instrument of power, used by actors
with particular intentions in particular social interactions. This implies that discourse
should not be reduced to language alone and that discourse should be empirically ana-
lysed within its social context, thus linked to institutions, power dynamics, ideologies
that circulate within a society, socio-cultural hierarchies, specific social actors and their
objectives, etc. (Jørgensen Phillips, 2002). Likewise, the analysis of discourse is to
be defined as an ‘[a]nalysis of relationships between concrete language use and the
wider social and cultural structures’ (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak Vetter, 2000). When a
presidential candidate delivers a speech on public television to announce their support
for lowering taxes that would benefit only a happy few multinationals, this particular
speech cannot be fully understood if you do not take into account the broader network
of interests, political and economic actors, ideologies, etc., that are tied to this particu-
lar person and their speech. These relationships of social, political, economic, cultural
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20
nature, among others, that are all part of the context of text, help us reconstruct the
(underlying) meaning and intention of the speech. A critical social constructionist
approach therefore is about unravelling the structures of power that are embedded in
texts. Equally, following from the above is the advice or disclaimer to students and
scholars alike that an analysis of the content or text alone is not sufficient to earn the
label of discourse analysis.
A second common trait of social constructionist approaches to discourse analysis
is that they see an important relationship between knowledge and social action. Put
simply, the way that someone talks about climate change and global warming for
instance will entail, produce and reproduce certain knowledge on that matter. In a
way, the discourse created here will allow specific forms of action and at the same time
will exclude other forms of action. If you use words and statements such as ‘conspiracy
theory’, ‘no scientific evidence’ or ‘economic progress’, among others, and thus thrive
on the ‘knowledge’ that climate change is a hoax and not really an urgent concern, the
reality constructed by said discourse will please movements, organizations and gov-
ernments that are in denial of climate change and thus support them in, for instance,
allowing industries to continue burning fossil fuels and not in signing international
agreements on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This example ties nicely into the
third shared principle of the social constructionist school; that is, an understanding
of discourse as being historical and culturally specific. The discourse surrounding cli-
mate change is different today from what it was fifty years ago. The main discourse
is probably different in China from what it would be in Belgium. In other words, the
way of interpreting and representing something – such as climate change – is contin-
gent (i.e., dependent on or variable in a specific context in terms of space and time).
Discourses on a certain topic can change over time and place, once again stressing the
importance of taking into account the context when studying a text and conducting
discourse analysis.
The different social constructionist strands tend to differ in terms of their analytical
focus (see Jørgensen Phillips, 2002, for an in-depth discussion). As this falls beyond
the scope of this chapter, we will restrict ourselves here to CDA and a broader description
of its history and position in the academic field. Characteristic for CDA is its focus on
the specific while acknowledging the general, methodologically manifesting itself in an
analysis of texts by incorporating their context. As a methodology, CDA emerged in the
late 1980s as an interdisciplinary European school of discourse studies and ‘[s]ince then,
it has become one of the most influential and visible branches of discourse analysis’
(Blommaert Bulcaen, 2000, p. 447). Illustrated by Figure 2.1, CDA clearly manifested
itself within the social sciences from the mid-2000s onwards, growing steadily in popu-
larity ever since. The approach is found particularly in scholarly areas of communication,
linguistics and educational research.
Recently, a number of eminent scholars have voiced their doubts about the
appropriateness of using the label of ‘critical discourse analysis’ as a methodology
or indication of the field, instead proposing to speak of ‘critical discourse studies’
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and even updating the titles of their seminal works (Flowerdew Richardson, 2019;
Wodak Meyer, 2016). According to van Dijk (quoted in Flowerdew Richardson,
2019, p. 2) ‘the rationale for this change of designation resides in the fact that CDA was
increasingly not restricted to applied analysis, but also included philosophical, theo-
retical, methodological and practical developments’. Elsewhere, van Dijk also referred
to CDA as not being an explicit method and methodologically as diverse as discourse
analysis in general (Wodak Meyer, 2016, p. 3). Indeed, residing under the new
label of critical discourse studies we find a broad group of ‘varying approaches each
with distinctive, but also overlapping methods’ (Flowerdew Richardson, 2019, p. 2),
including but not limited to socio-cognitive approach, discourse historical approach,
(multi-modal) critical discourse analysis, cognitive linguistic critical discourse stud-
ies, cultural critical discourse analysis and discourse-theoretical analysis. All share
a central interest in a systematic investigation of semiotic data such as newspaper
articles, conversations in the playground, public speeches, films, interviews, etc., in
order to unravel how people use language to create meaning, to persuade others to
think about events in a particular way, and to manipulate those people while simul-
taneously concealing their own intentions (Hansen Machin, 2013, p. 115). In other
words, echoing one of the main characteristics of social constructionist approaches
to discourse analysis, the plethora of approaches linked to critical discourse studies
are all inherently defined by a critical stance. Therefore, we should regard critical
discourse studies more as an interdisciplinary and heterogeneous school, paradigm or
research stance that starts from, is fully informed by and ends with a critical state of
mind and attitude, manifesting itself in all steps of the research process (cf. 2.3.2). As
CDA is one of the most solicited students of this school, it will be our focal point for
the remainder of this chapter.
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Figure 2.1 Inclusion of term ‘critical discourse analysis’ in ‘topic’ in Web of Science
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22
2.2.2 CDA: what’s in a name? Some key concepts
and principles
So CDA is a systematic, linguistic analysis of discourse – existing of written and spoken
language, non-verbal communication and images – in social interactions and within its
broader context. Given the critical stance, CDA aims to deconstruct ideology and power
relations that are articulated by means of a (socially shared) group of statements, ideas,
images, etc., regarding a specific topic. To achieve this goal, analysts working from a CDA
framework will relate their discursive analysis to broader social, economic and political
processes. In the above brief description of the method we have highlighted in italics the
three building blocks that form the basis for a research project inspired by CDA: power,
ideology and articulation. Let us take a closer look at these three key concepts.
Power
As with all approaches covering social constructionist discourse analysis, Foucault’s
(1972) interpretation of power as productive rather than oppressive and bound up with
knowledge is central to CDA. Foucault argues that ‘power operates through discourse by
creating our social world and identities in particular ways’ (Foucault cited in Schrøder
Phillips, 2007, p. 894). Power in general and issues of power asymmetries, manipulation
and exploitation in particular, are the central focus of many investigations within the
field. Research questions set out by critical discourse analysts typically stress ‘patterns of
domination whereby one social group is dominated by another’ (Phillips, 2006, p. 288).
Underlying this process is the unequal distribution of power and resources within soci-
ety as power is derived from the privileged access to social resources such as education,
wealth, knowledge, etc. According to Machin and Mayr (2012), this privileged access and
thus power provides authority, status and influence to those with access while enabling
them to dominate, coerce and control subordinate groups who do not have such access
or who have only limited resources to their disposal.
In a CDA framework, these power structures or relations of inequality, exploitation,
exclusion and manipulation are produced through, maintained by and embedded in texts.
Therefore, in applying CDA, you will approach apparently neutral and objective news
reports from a critical perspective, posing the questions: what kind of a world or reality is
constructed in or by the text? Whose benefits are served by that constructed representa-
tion and reality? To offer an example, numerous studies have examined how the UK press
has covered the EU Referendum leading up to Brexit and have disclosed how national
newspapers basically created two alternate realities tied to the ‘leave camp’ or the ‘remain
camp’ by their choice of front-page stories, titles, tone, actors cited and issues addressed or
neglected (see, e.g., Levy, Aslan Bironzo, 2016). This observed bias in the news coverage
is of course tied to the differences in viewpoints and opinions of political parties, economic
actors and other social organizations in the United Kingdom with regard to the decision
to be taken at that time. Media outlets such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The
Sun were found to be biased in their reports in favour of stepping out of the European
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Union, hence generating and legitimating the power position of the leave camp in their
texts while simultaneously challenging or resisting the reality constructed by media outlets
affiliated with the remain camp.
Ideology
The case of the EU Referendum in the United Kingdom is, furthermore, a good illustra-
tion of the notion of ideology and its ties to discourse and CDA. Ideology can be defined
as ‘some organised belief system or set of values that is disseminated or reinforced by
communication’ (McQuail, 2000, p. 497) and is the basis of a discourse as language is the
way that ideologies materialize and manifest themselves, according to van Dijk (1988). In
the example of the referendum, UK news media have operated on an ideological level by
distributing and supporting the values, norms and ideas (thus ideology) of specific social
groups (i.e., the remain camp and the leave camp) with particular interests (i.e., to put it
bluntly, to remain in or leave the European Union, respectively). To be clear, these inter-
ests are generally concealed in texts and it must be noted that the above is not always
an active or conscious effort on behalf of individual journalists, but often achieved or
produced through (internalized) routines and practices related to the news organization,
profession or broader societal structures in which one operates. In addition, on the level
of texts, we need to point towards the idea of intertextuality, defined as a blended environ-
ment in which different kinds of text condition each other in order to legitimate certain
worldviews (Chouliaraki Fairclough, 1999). One single opinion piece on the European
Union should thus be interpreted as one particular element in a rich intertextual network
of other opinion pieces, news reports, interviews by key actors, policy documents, etc.,
all generating meaning and conditioning each other’s meanings. Or, as the attentive
reader will have remarked by now, text and context.
Articulation
How do we now connect or integrate the notions of power and ideology in our concrete
research design? The answer to this question is the concept of articulation. In short, it
refers to how texts express or articulate discourses. It is your empirical entry point into
conducting a discourse analysis. As mentioned earlier, CDA researchers are interested in
addressing questions of power. On a societal level, we can identify a wide range of actors
who all have particular or different ideas, values, norms, etc., and access to resources (cf.
the definition of power). These actors are caught in networks and relations of power that
are, per definition, unequal. People with similar ideologies or interests might find each
other and form a group. For instance, a political party named ‘Education First’ that has
a clear and shared vision on how the educational system should be organized. They use
language to express their thoughts, make statements about the central role of teachers,
construct an ideal model of what a school should look like, and so on. In other words,
they produce a discourse on education. Of course, other people may have a different take
on this and might also form a political party, ‘Make Children Great Again’, that holds
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24
opposing ideas regarding educational matters. ‘Make Children Great Again’ could, for
instance, degrade the role of teachers and instead discursively construct an educational
system that centres on the individual child. The latter group’s discourse clearly conflicts
with the former one and only one of them can be the (temporarily) dominant one and
form the basis for a reform of the educational system. This struggle between conflicting
views on education is also found in the texts that these parties produce or that are being
produced over them.
According to Kress (1985), ‘[e]very text arises out of a conflict between discourses and
the struggle over which discourse is to impose its own meaning as the “natural” meaning
of a text’. In other words, the discourses of both our fictitious political parties are articu-
lated through texts such as a campaign leaflet of the party (i.e., a manifest articulation of
the discourse as the party will probably be very explicit on their position and ideas about
education) or newspaper reports (i.e., a more latent or concealed articulation as journal-
ists will report on the issue in detached and factual ways). Reminding ourselves of the
earlier definition of discourse as a group of statements regarding a specific topic – education
in this example – not all statements will find their way to concrete texts. For instance,
Figure 2.2 portrays a situation in which five statements or elements of a discourse are
picked up by journalists or whoever authors a text and are accordingly articulated in a
text. The way we – as audiences or as researchers – get in contact with a discourse is thus
through texts. These are tangible, these are the empirical manifestations of a discourse
and consequently our starting point as a researcher. When analysing these texts, we must
look for specific statements on educational matters that can be assigned to one of our fic-
titious actors and need to identify remarkable patterns in the texts. If a certain newspaper
Manifest - explicit
Latent - implicit
Newspaper
Speech
Radio broadcast
Television show
Interview transcripts
TEXT
DISCOURSE
SOCIAL CONTEXT - SOCIETY
Figure 2.2 The concept of articulation
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covers a speech by the president of ‘Education First’ but always refers to her as ‘insecure’,
‘stammering’, ‘grey personality’, this kind of motivated choice of words should attract
our attention as researchers since the representation is telling about the reality that is
being constructed by that particular journalist who is apparently not in favour of the
party, the president or their ideas. To put it more generally, we focus on texts to draw out
a discourse that is concealed by or buried within a particular text and which supports the
interests of a particular group of people in any given society. Our analysis of the linguistic
choices in the text are put in a broader context by relating them to the power relations
and struggles of the social world. The idea of articulation allows us to empirically engage
in a process of re-assembling a discourse by looking at particular linguistic choices in a
text that attract our attention.
According to Richardson (2007), CDA is thus mainly used to explore how discourses
are realized linguistically in texts to constitute knowledge and social relations. Focus is
put on the way that these power relations are enacted, reproduced and challenged by
discourse. This approach raises the complex issue of agency attributed to the author
of a text. On the one hand, we have stressed multiple times how texts are produced
with a certain intention of and motivation by the author, stressing the deliberate and
thoughtful choices made by an author and placing the latter in the driver’s seat. On the
other hand, texts are said to be moulded by and interwoven with social structures, rather
hinting at a determining role of structure and thus not awarding much agency to the
author of a text. While at first sight this might seem to be a contradiction, it is actually
a prime example of how texts and their authors cannot be analysed without taking into
account the context and, secondly, an example of how power is not an unidimensional
given but something that operates on different levels of society, combining bottom-up
and top-down relations of power.
Now, what are some of the other most uttered criticisms on CDA (see, e.g., Carvalho,
2008)? First, critics refer to the lack of longitudinal studies and diachronic analyses in
the field, as most studies focus on only one particular event, what can be regarded as
a snapshot rather than an overview. Second, there appears to be a bias in terms of the
actors who are being examined. Many studies opt to analyse discourse in mainstream
news outlets and/or articulated by dominant (political, economic, cultural) actors in
society, hence paying little attention to the discursive strategies of less dominant social
actors such as alternative news media or non-governmental organizations. Third, we
have already hinted several times at the importance of studying the text within its con-
text. It regularly happens that people claim to have conducted CDA while said person
has focused too much, if not entirely, on the text, getting lost in a purely linguistic
analysis and therefore ignoring the broader context. Often, research papers display too
strong a connection to the text and not enough attention is paid to the (journalistic)
production process, the consumption or public understanding of texts, the power
relations in society – in other words, the context of a text. Finally, critical discourse
analysts are frequently criticized for being biased and negative, implying the idea
of a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the socially committed and engaged researcher
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26
starts off the study with a well-delineated research question dealing with, for example,
power inequalities and subsequently finding evidence of said premise. To avoid these
criticisms, de Lange, Schuman and Montesano Montessori (2012) assert that a criti-
cal attitude as a researcher also includes necessary moments of critical self-reflection,
acknowledging your own subjectivity, while always guaranteeing transparency about
the research process and the position that you take as a (engaged) researcher. The latter
is common to all forms of qualitative methods and is generally referred to as reflexivity.
That is, being aware of your personal bias, coming from a certain (temporal, spatial, cul-
tural, political) context and having a specific background, training and knowledge. In
other words, everyone is biased and so are our observations. Therefore, the prerequisite
to be reflexive on and attentive towards these biases is a key part of your methodology
and research. In the context of CDA and other forms of qualitative research, this
is achieved through systematic analysis, where you provide your audience with
a rich argument and description of all steps taken in the process and explain the
reasoning behind them, in addition to these decisions being informed by theory
and methodology.
2.3 Doing critical discourse analysis step by step
Before going into the more practical organization and set up of a research design under
the heading of CDA, it is important to be reminded of the fact that CDA is a qualitative
methodology, which implies that this road map is not carved in stone. Some studies
will not involve all steps or delve into all levels of the presented model to equal depth
and focus. Most projects will rather follow a non-linear path and are characterized by a
cyclical process of research. Having said that, this is not a free pass to regard a discourse
analysis as merely summarizing a select number of texts and give your own personal
account or interpretation of them, as is unfortunately too often the case with student
projects. We stress the idea of CDA as a systematic analysis of texts within their context.
One way of taking a systematic approach is to build your research design around an
established model within the field. For this chapter, we will follow the seminal model of
Norman Fairclough (1992, 1995) and its further (empirical) refinements by the likes of
Chouliaraki (2006), Richardson (2007) and Machin and Mayr (2012).
2.3.1 Fairclough’s three dimensions of analysis
Language carries a unique signifying power, a power to represent events in particular
ways (Fairclough, 1995). This idea is central to Fairclough’s (1992) model for the study of
the relations between discourse and social and cultural phenomena. The model consists
of three dimensions: text; discursive practice; and the wider social practice. The first
dimension, text, should be understood ‘as a complex set of discursive strategies that is
situated in a special cultural context’ (Barthes cited in Fürsich, 2009, p. 240). According
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to Chouliaraki (2006) and Richardson (2007), analysing a text is basically analysing the
choices made by the author of that text. Put differently, given the status of a text as being
the empirical manifestation of a discourse or several discourses, researchers will focus on
the linguistic characteristics of a text, including but not restricted to the use of vocab-
ulary, sentence construction, verb conjugations, etc., as well as a number of so-called
‘discursive devices’, all resulting from decisions taken by the author. When embarking
on a multimodal analysis (see Machin Mayr, 2012), the analysis of visual images and/or
sound is added to the study of the written language. For instance, in the case of television
news items, researchers will transcribe the voice-over for the linguistic analysis and will
further examine the footage by observing who or what is in frame and how is it repre-
sented (Chouliaraki, 2006). In this respect, it is important to ‘recognize that textual or
journalistic meaning is communicated as much by absence as by presence; as much by
what is “missing” or excluded as by what is remembered and present’ (Richardson, 2007,
p. 93). In other words, while it is probably the default setting of any researcher to go ahead
with the presented, sampled or retrieved data, it might prove useful to take a moment
and deliberately look for ‘missing’ data. When studying international news coverage, for
instance, it might take some time before an event attracts the attention of the interna-
tional media. A prime example of this was the 2003 SARS outbreak and arguably the same
applies for the covid-19 pandemic. Although the first known case of SARS occurred in
November 2002, it was mid-February 2003 before the disease was reported on by Chinese
media and another month before the western news media picked up on the epidemic.
This period of global media silence or absence of data is very meaningful to critical dis-
course analysts. For one, it can help to unravel the dominant selection criteria applied by
(Western) media, thriving on proximity and an ethnocentric vision of the world. What is
missing or excluded in the news coverage is also a gateway into revealing the underlying
global power relations and hierarchies that are reflected in journalistic practices and the
international news output (Joye, 2009, 2010), echoing the power of the media to sway
public perception by choosing what and what not to publish (Berry et al., 2007).
The other two dimensions of the model are concerned with discursive and social prac-
tices. Representations of reality are – as we have explored throughout this chapter – always
social constructs, embedded in a particular and layered context. But to surpass the level
of mere text analysis,1
we must refer to discursive practices in the sense of ways of using
language in general and, more particularly, the structural and functional properties of the
production, dissemination and consumption processes that may limit or inform the textual
choices of the author. Discourse is, after all, context-dependent (Phillips, 2006) and lan-
guage use – such as news reports, propaganda, radio broadcasts – is the outcome of a range
of specific practices, often of professional and institutional nature (Fairclough, 1995).
1
Here, we explicitly use the term of ‘text analysis’ instead of ‘textual analysis’, so as not to raise confusion
with the methodology of textual analysis discussed in Chapter 9. Although both methods share some similar
ideas and assumptions, textual analysis – to put it bluntly and without nuance – is more appropriate when
dealing with (audio-)visual data (e.g, fiction series, music videos) rather than written texts for which CDA is
more suited.
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28
If we take the example of international news correspondence, this particular produc-
tion context is engraved with numerous editorial practices that might not all be evident
to the individual journalist operating within this constellation but do have the poten-
tial to either facilitate or hinder them in their daily routines, work and thus choices (of
language use). To name a few, we can refer to economic conditions of news production,
such as the high costs related to foreign correspondence in relation to decreasing budgets
of (national) news media, which could limit the opportunities to go abroad and report
events live on site, the editorial policy of the news outlet that hires you to cover a story,
the fierce competition with other journalists for (privileged) access to sources and infor-
mation, among other things.
You could also look into the genre of the texts being studied. Are we dealing with a
peer-reviewed scholarly article, an election pamphlet of a right-wing political party, or a
popularizing opinion piece on a satirical blog? In all three cases, we could find an item
or a text on migration and even the same statements or ideas. However, the intention
and meaning of the three texts will undoubtedly differ substantially according to the
particular (productional) context of the three authors, respectively academia, politics and
comedy. In short, the genre and the particular context in which these texts are written
can help explain why the authors have made the specific choices we have observed on
the previous dimension of text.
In addition, this dimension also entails the notions of interdiscursivity and intertextu-
ality. The former refers to the fact that different discourses can be articulated in one single
communicative event (Fairclough, 1995), struggling to impose their ideas as the dominant
or ‘natural’ meaning of said text (cf. 2.2.2). Intertextuality on the other hand starts from
the understanding that each text or unit of discourse is produced as being conditioned
by previous units and should thus be interpreted and analysed as such. New meanings
are created through the relationships between texts (van Dijk, 2009, p. 192). For instance,
someone who watches the most successful film of all times, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (Russo
Russo, 2019) as an isolated cinematic feature will not share the same viewing experience
as someone who have seen the twenty-one other preceding movies that are part of the
larger Marvel cinematic universe. The former will most likely not understand the plethora
of ‘easter eggs’ and nods to the other texts that are included in ‘Avengers: Endgame’, while
the latter will fully enjoy the intertextual references and award additional meaning to the
same text. This is also an example of how the dimension of discursive practices entails the
context in which texts are consumed in addition to the productional context in order to
understand how meaning is constructed through language use.
While the dimension of discursive practices is thus a contextualization of the textual
dimension, the last level of social practices invites the critical discourse analyst to delve
into the broader social context of the two other dimensions. Discourse is also permeated
by structures, institutions and values from outside the author’s immediate surroundings
or context such as economy, politics and ideology (Richardson, 2007). Neither individual
authors nor larger organizations can escape the fact that they are tied to a broader social
system (Shoemaker, 1991). As indicated above, discourses are both socially constitutive
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and socially conditioned: they (re)produce social structures as well as reflect them. In our
research design, this is consequently the place where we must ask the essential question
of what kind of reality is being discursively constructed. Will the observed and analysed
texts help to continue or reproduce existing inequalities, unwanted identities and other
undesirable social practices? Or do the texts and their (hidden) discourses contribute
towards social change and thus offer an alternative vision or moment of resistance to and
contestation of the established power relations and structures?
It is at this point where our discourse analysis earns the prefix ‘critical’. This dimension
of Fairclough’s model refers essentially to ideological effects and hegemonic processes
(Blommaert Bulcaen, 2000), whereby ideology is generally interpreted as ‘meaning in
the service of power’ (Thompson, 1990, p. 7). Although van Dijk (2009, p. 199) admits
that it is theoretically and empirically impossible to provide a complete and detailed
‘account of the ideologies involved and the structures of news that are controlled by
them’, he states that a polarization between the ingroup (‘us’, a positive self-image of a
social group) and the outgroup (‘them’, assessed and represented in a negative way) is
characteristic of many such ideological structures. Next to relating the textual findings
and the discursive practices to the broader social field or system where the communica-
tive event takes place, you are also invited to relate your findings and interpretations to
a broader theoretical framework and dwell on grand theories in the line of Orientalism,
neoliberalism, imperialism and othering, among others, to further provide context and
analytical depth.
As will become evident in the following section, these three dimensions of analysis play
a prominent role in shaping the actual research process and the separate steps of CDA.
2.3.2 Phases of the research design
When setting up a research design for CDA, we can identify six steps that are part of a
cyclical process, meaning that researchers can go back and forth between the different
steps outlined below.
(1) Choice of research problem
The first step is inherently tied to the broader philosophical and theoretical framework
of CDA and one of its main characteristics is propagating and being determined by a
critical mindset and stance. Critical discourse analysts will typically look for research
problems related to inequalities in social relations and instances of power manipulation,
imbalances and biases within society. This may come from a personal observation or
it may equally be informed or suggested by an existing theory, a literature review, the
empirical findings of a prior research project or an already identified discourse. If that
is the case, the empirical focus tends to shift towards an interest in exploring how a
certain discourse is then articulated in a particular data set. While this might entail
that the researcher thus already has a good prior overview of the problem and a
possibly firm idea of the discourses to be confronted with, do not forget the previously
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30
discussed critique on a potentially biased and negative position of the critical
discourse analyst. In other words, it is crucial to look at the data with an ‘open’ mind
and not to start off with an ambition to just cherry-pick and select evidence of an
already determined outcome.
(2) Formulating research questions
Following its qualitative nature, a discourse analysis will not start from research
questions that deal with frequencies, numbers or percentages. One might of course
make general statements in terms of which discourse is dominant, but it is nonsensical to
ask how many times a discourse is found within a certain text or how many discourses
are present in a data set, as such questions imply a perspective on discourses as perfectly
delineated and measurable entities. Assumptions that contradict many of the philo-
sophical and theoretical underpinnings of a social constructionist approach to discourse.
Instead, questions will deal with issues of representation and meaning in the vein of
how a particular issue is being represented in news reports, which political ideas are
articulated through policy reports, how power inequalities are discursively constructed
and confirmed in presidential speeches, etc. Terminology and concepts proper to the
CDA framework such as articulation, discursive practices, representation, and power
will be frequently used in formulating these research questions. Another option is to
structure possible sub-questions according to the three dimensions of Fairclough’s model
discussed earlier.
(3) Choice of data and sampling
As texts are the empirical manifestations of a discourse, you will gather semiotic
data such as newspaper articles, household conversations, public speeches, films,
interviews, etc., in order to unravel how people use language to create meaning.
The sampling process depends on the research questions of the project, your prior
knowledge, your access to data, etc. The latter is a very pragmatic consideration, but
often turns out to be the most determining factor. You might hold the most amazing
research objectives, but if you are not granted access to the data, there is simply no
research at all. The other side of the spectrum, too much data, can also present a
challenge. It is the question that anyone will be confronted with at some point or
another in the research process: how many cases do I need? A clear-cut answer is
firmly desired but never acquired. The level of detail that is inherently common to
a qualitative in-depth analysis of a text and its context implies a huge investment
of time and labour. To keep everything feasible, a clear research objective or a well-
thought-out selection of discursive devices can help to keep the focus and allow for
a larger number of cases to be studied. However, most scholars will opt for a reduced
sample based on critical discourse moments (Chilton, 1988; Raeijmaekers, 2018). These
are periods of several days in which we see a shift in the discourse following specific
demarcated events (a political hearing, a disaster, a world summit, an
anniversary, a public statement, etc.) that may challenge ‘established’ views and
trigger debate in society (Carvalho, 2008, p 166). In general, media coverage will be
affected by these events, both in quantity (e.g., a peak in news attention) and quality
11/8/2022 3:42:28 PM

(e.g., new perspectives, different discourses) (Raeijmaekers, 2018). Once a critical
discourse moment is identified, you may make a second selection of the data
according to the criterion of relevance. After all, not all documents, news reports,
interviews, etc., that are produced or published within the defined time are fit
or significant for the research. In the case of a newspaper article, a rule of thumb
could be that at least the majority of the article and/or the title and lead should refer
directly to the event under study to be considered relevant.
(4) Transcription of data
When working with written language and text, a transcription is unnecessary and
you can immediately work on the data set as it is. In the case of texts in the sense of
visuals and spoken language, you need to insert an additional phase of detailed
transcription. What is being said or shown (e.g., camera angle, montage) is to be
written out with keen attention paid to extra-textual markers such as tone of voice,
pauses, framing of images, etc., as these might also be signifiers of meaning (cf. 2.3.3).
(5) Analysis of the data
While the previous steps can be considered the necessary preparatory phase, the major-
ity of the workload is to be situated in the fifth step of the research project. Here, you
delve into the data and conduct the actual systematic analysis, generally organized
according to the three dimensions of Fairclough’s model. Given the centrality and
importance of this stage, we will go into it in more detail below. For now, we would
like to point out that the phase departs from a cyclical reading of the data. In several
rounds, you will go back to the data for different, subsequent readings of the same data.
In a first round, we encourage you to just get acquainted with the data, go through
the selected texts with an open mind, and write down the first thoughts or reflections.
Were there any patterns that caught your eye? Remarkable quotes or ways of represent-
ing certain issues? Any notable choices made by the author?
Of course, these observations at face value could also be retrieved during the previous
fourth step when you are transcribing the (visual and spoken) data. A second read-
ing of the corpus allows you to further elaborate on said ‘raw’ analysis. Do you find
more evidence for or examples of the identified patterns of the first reading? Or rather
elements that oppose or qualify those preliminary first reflections? Additionally, this
is also the moment where the researcher adds a more systematic approach to the
analysis by introducing the discursive devices as a way to examine the text in more
detail, depth and focus. Finally, a third reading is meant to further complete the text
analysis while simultaneously moving towards the essential step of contextualizing
the textual or linguistic findings by incorporating the dimensions of discursive and
social practices.
(6) Writing out the research and valorization
The final and logical step of your process is to write out the most relevant findings of
the literature review and the empirical study into a coherent paper or book chapter
and submit it to a publisher or academic journal.
11/8/2022 3:42:28 PM

32
2.3.3 A closer look at the phase of text analysis
Here, we will focus exclusively on the dimension of text as the majority of the analytical
work happens on this level. To briefly recap, our attention is attracted towards a linguis-
tic analysis of the author’s choices by means of discursive devices (DD). In a later stage,
this text analysis is to be complemented with a discussion of the context by means of
the discursive and social practices. The following overview is a selection of the most used
discursive devices within CDA and largely dwells on the works of Richardson (2007)
and Machin and Mayr (2012). First, we will go into some basic lexical choices (DD1),
after which attention is paid to a selection of discursive devices to represent actions and
people (DD2–DD9). Finally, we will briefly discuss some visual representational strategies
(DD10). To be clear, these discursive devices are to be seen as anchor points or handles
that can guide you through your empirical analysis of the text. On the one hand, they
can help to dig further and examine in more detail the patterns that were identified dur-
ing your first reading of the data by showing you what particular kind of language use to
look out for in the data when undertaking the second reading. On the other hand, they
give you an established framework within which you can interpret and categorize your
personal reflections, findings and identified patterns by matching the latter to the several
discursive devices offered by scholarly literature.
DD1: Lexical choices
Every language offers its users a wide range of words with the complimentary option to
form many meaningful combinations with these words. From these practically unlimited
possibilities available to an author or user of said language, one only is eventually chosen
and printed, spoken out, written down, etc. In other words, the semiotic choices of an
author are motivated choices and are therefore very relevant for critical discourse ana-
lysts to take a closer look at. By ‘motivated’ we mean that there is a reason or particular
intention behind the word choice. Why is someone referring to their new living place as
‘house’ and not as ‘home’, something that might only occur after some months? In the
end, the person is talking about the same material place but the different words clearly
trigger different associations, feelings or connotations. When you talk about your living
place as your ‘home’, you articulate a warm and positive relation with that particular
place as compared to the shallow or material bond that is articulated when using ‘house’
instead. Analysing texts means observing patterns in the use of nouns, adjectives, met-
aphors, superlatives, tone, among others, in addition to paying attention towards the
predominance and absence of particular kinds of word. Suppose you always meet up with
a friend to have a drink at the end of a work week. If week after week he talks about his
colleague Donald in a negative manner, only mentioning the mistakes being made and
regularly calling him ‘incompetent’, ‘not fit for the job’ and so on, while in the weekly
account of his other colleague Joe, your friend is repeatedly applauding him for again
doing a ‘tremendous’ job, being ‘simply the best’ and so on, you will quickly get a firm
idea of the discourse that is underlying your weekly updates of your friend’s work life and
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his relationship with his colleagues. Of course, if the texts under study are more factual
and objective of nature than the everyday pub talk during a social Friday, it will be more
challenging for you to grasp the discourse as its articulation is more implicit than in the
case of a biased or subjective text or a personal account.
We previously mentioned that it is important to look at what is absent in a text,
what is missing or downplayed. Likewise, the opposite is also true, as the overuse of cer-
tain words is equally revealing. This practice of overlexicalization refers to the repetition,
abundance and overuse of particular words and their synonyms, hinting at a sense of
over-persuasion and ideological contention (Machin Mayr, 2012). The typical example
here is that of ‘male nurse’ and ‘female doctor’. The use of respectively ‘male’ and ‘female’
is not necessary here and even not meaningful as the same person or author would prob-
ably not talk about a ‘female nurse’ and ‘male doctor’. The gender classifications are thus
an example of overlexicalization and cues to a dominant, underlying ideology for the
critical researcher, articulating unspoken expectations about gender roles in relation to
professions that are tied to patriarchal power structures within a society.
DD2: Transitivity
A second cluster of discursive devices (DD2, 3 and 4) analyses how actions or events are
being represented in texts. A first option is to study the words, verb tense, sentence struc-
tures, etc., of a statement or group of statements from the viewpoint of transitivity. Here
we ask ourselves the question of how events and processes are (un)connected to subjects
and objects. Consider the following headline of a news report on the restructuring of a
fictitious company ADC: ‘100 workers were fired yesterday’. Reminding you of the fact
that the headline and its exact wording are motivated choices made by an author, you
should immediately start to wonder what could be an alternative headline to cover the
same story? Or what could be a different combination of words to describe the event of
100 people being laid off by the company? An option could be the following: ‘ADC fired
100 workers yesterday’. So, if you opt to use the passive verb tense as was the case in our
first headline, the actor ADC who is responsible for firing those 100 people remains con-
cealed or hidden from the audience. The social actor with the power to lay off so many
people is not held accountable nor even being addressed by the semiotic choices of the
journalist. In addition, the fact that 100 people are fired is represented as if it concerns
a natural(ized) way of affairs, something that just happened or was meant to happen as
it apparently occurred without any (human) interference. The focus is on the effect or
outcome of the process, not on the process itself nor on its initiator.
DD3: Nominalization
A similar strategy of concealing the actor in power to take decisions is the discursive
device of nominalization whereby a noun replaces the process. Instead of ‘ADC reorgan-
izes its staff’, the headline would read ‘A reorganization will be implemented’. The verb
‘to reorganize’ is transformed into the noun ‘reorganization’, discursively hiding not
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34
only the social actor who is responsible for the reorganization but also those affected by
the process. Nominalization thus entails strategies of concealment and depersonalization
by obscuring the agency and responsibility of the actors involved. Why would an author
choose to do so? Echoing the critical nature of CDA, critical discourse analysts will argue
that the use of nominalization and its resulting way of representing the event is in the
benefit of the author. The reason could be found in personal interests or motivations of
the journalist; for instance, if they are an individual shareholder of ADC. Or the journal-
ist could work for a newspaper that is part of the same conglomerate of ADC and thus
experience ‘editorial’ pressure to opt for nominalization in covering the news story. The
latter reflection is actually a good example of Fairclough’s second dimension of discursive
practices as we tried to explain the author’s textual choices by looking at their context
of the newsroom.
DD4: Modality
For a critical discourse analyst, direct citations in a text are a fruitful source of data, as
these quotes often entail explicit articulations of a discourse or claims on behalf of the
speaker. Equally important are paraphrased statements of a speaker as these are presented
by the author to the audience of a text in a particular way. In both instances – citations
and paraphrased quotes – you should look at how the relation between a statement and
the source of said statement is discursively constructed. How confidently is the author
being represented, how coherent is the argumentation presented and how persuasive is
the message? These questions deal with modality. A high level of modality would mean
that the author is very committed to and certain about what is being stated. Compare
‘it is cold’ to ‘I am cold’ and ‘maybe it is a little cold’. While all three statements refer to
the temperature as experienced by the speaker, in the first example there is no room for
doubt. The feeling is being communicated as a scientific fact, representing a high modal-
ity. Words like ‘maybe’ or ‘potentially’ tend to downplay the modality of a statement and
create an image of the speaker who is uncertain and less credible (Machin Mayr, 2012;
Richardson, 2007). Again, underlying power relations can inform the author of a text to
attribute high or low modality to speakers and their statements.
Likewise, the author of a text will make use of so-called ‘quoting verbs’ to connect
speakers to their statements. In a neutral manner, the author can use words such as ‘say’
or ‘report’ to describe how someone has spoken. Other verbs might express something
about the person’s mood, attitude or character. Consider choices such as ‘she declared’,
‘he grumbled’, ‘he stammered’, ‘she shouted’, and so on. Depending on what is chosen
by the author of a text, it transmits additional meaning by which the author can pass
judgement, influence the credibility of a statement and/or shape the audience’s percep-
tion of someone.
This fourth discursive device is a nice lead into the next domain of representational
strategies of people, that are the semiotic and visual choices to represent social actors (see
DD5–DD9). Similar to the representation of events, language allows the author to high-
light, conceal or omit certain features and aspects of one’s identity that can be associated
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with certain kinds of discourse. Machin and Mayr (2012) clarify this by considering the
following two possible headlines of a western newspaper and urge us to take a look at
the adjectives that indicate specific characteristics of a person (in italics): ‘Muslim man
arrested for fraudulently claiming benefits’ and ‘Father of two daughters arrested for fraud-
ulently claiming benefits’. Both headlines report on the same event and same actor, but
different articulations, discourses and realities are being constructed by the language use.
DD5: Individualization and collectivization
The focus of a text can be on the individual actor or on collective entities or commu-
nities. Again, a motivated choice of the author with potentially different outcomes. For
example, in the context of the recent refugee crisis, Van Haelter and Joye (2020) showed
that some of the news reports on Belgian television focused on individuals in terms of
visual choices (close-ups) and the main narrative angle (personal testimonials), hence
applying a strategy of individualization that can help to reduce distance and raise empa-
thy for the cause of these forcibly displaced people who are being humanized. This could
occasionally lead to personalization, which means that certain individuals become the
subject of a report and thus can tell their story in a more comprehensive way (Machin
Mayr, 2012). On the other hand, the study demonstrated that the majority of the news
items applied the discursive device of collectivization and represented the refugees in
large groups, referring to them as a collective and attributing stories and statements to
the entire group, creating a more detached position of author and audience towards a
collective other.
DD6: Impersonalization
Collectivization is similar to impersonalization whereby the author decides not to men-
tion the name of the individual actor or institution, but prefers to refer to a larger entity.
Not so much with an intention to create distance or detachment as was the case with the
previous device, but rather to give additional weight to the statement. ‘Belgium says no
to Europe’ resonates more deeply than ‘Belgian politician says no to the proposal by a
Spanish member of the European parliament’.
DD7: Functionalization
Another strategy to grant more gravitas to statements, claims or ideas is to mention the
job title of the actor. If a statement on the health risks of covid-19 is made by ‘medical
expert professor X’ or by ‘stand-up comedian Y’, we have a discursively constructed dif-
ference in perception related to the authority, status and legitimacy of both speakers vis-
à-vis the issue at hand. It is unlikely that you will be comparing professors to comedians,
but, think about it; you might be comparing statements made by male and female doc-
tors, by politicians and activists, or by the chairman of the World Health Organization
and by an obscure entity hidden behind the figure of QAnon.
11/8/2022 3:42:28 PM

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Julia’s first passion was slowly growing in the unsatisfied depths
of her mind, but that is the last name she would have given it. She
was yet to realize that imaginative people with productive activities,
however latent, have passions of the brain or ego as intense and
profound as ever one sex compelled in the other in the interests of
the race. Julia, abominating all that the word love implied (a state of
mind inevitable unless she had been coarse and callous), but young,
fervent, and conceptive, was both situated and tuned to be caught
in the eddies of an impersonal passion. It might have been art, but
she was not an artist; study and politics had failed her, and although
psychology interested her, she was too restless for science in any
form; therefore, she had no sooner chanced upon one or two
picturesque old books of Eastern travel than she succumbed to the
passion for place. She sent for no more books save those that
carried her to the Orient. Her imagination blazed. She was
transported into a new and enchanting world. Her good resolutions
to live for the race were forgotten. The moment she was free she
would fly to the East and live. She was almost happy. Then she
descended into England and the purely personal life with a crash.
Ishbel sent her a marked copy of a newspaper containing the
announcement of Mr. Jones’s death, a week later wrote that she
should marry Lord Dark as soon as a decent interval had elapsed,
and commanding her to leave France and come to London, where
employment awaited her.
Julia became her cool practical self at once. She packed her
boxes, sent for a fly when France had gone for one of his merciless
rides,—he was killing his horses,—and left this note behind her: —

“Mr. Jones is dead. Ishbel will marry Lord Dark as soon
as possible. If you make a second attempt to wreck her
business you will have him to reckon with. He is, in any
case, well able to take care of her, and no doubt she will
give up the business. As there is now no way in which you
can injure her or any of my friends, I have made up my
mind to leave you once for all. You will save yourself
trouble by recalling that we are in the twentieth century
and that the law does not compel me to live with you.
“Julia.”

XII
Bridgit met Julia at the train and there was purpose in her eye.
Julia laughed, knowing that her time had come, but returned the
warm embrace with which she was greeted, and allowed herself to
be carried without protest to the house in South Audley Street. Mrs.
Herbert was no less handsome and fascinating than of old, but if
anything she was still more upright of carriage, determined of eye,
and expressive of ardent purpose. Widowed long before the war,
Geoffrey’s death had made no change whatever in her life, although
she had sent after him the sincere and hearty regret she would have
felt for the loss of any friend. As she was needed in South Africa she
had gone there, made herself useful without any fuss, and returned
as soon as she could to her work in England. This work was now
clearly defined. Bridgit Herbert, indeed, was not the woman to
spend any great amount of time seeking or floundering. No dreamer,
her mind, once awakened to the futilities of the life of pleasure, her
energies roused, she had applied herself immediately to a survey
and study of her times, and found the work which coincided with her
particular talents. Horrified and disgusted with poverty, she sought
and found the obvious remedy in the Socialism of the advanced and
more practical of the Fabians, although the “ideology” of the older
Socialists would have made little appeal to her. Soon convinced,
however, that Socialism could make little headway against the
individualistic and acquisitive mind of the twentieth century male,
her fighting blood had warred with her direct practical mind until she
had happened to go to the north with an inspector of factories, and
listened to somewhat of Christabel Pankhurst’s propaganda in behalf
of Woman’s Suffrage among the trade-union organizations, a factor
in politics of increasing power. She was struck, not only by the
abominable grievances of the working women in general and the
factory women in particular, but by their intelligence; nor was she
long discovering that the average of intelligence all over England
was higher among poor women than among poor men. Where a

man grew dull in the routine of his work and further blunted his
faculties in the public house, his wife, with her manifold petty
interests and schemings to make a little money go a long way, and
filled with ever changing anxieties for her children, was far more
alert of mind and eager for improvement. It did not take either Mrs.
Pankhurst or her sleepless daughters to remind Bridgit that in this
great body of women lay the future hope of Socialism, or of any
reform directed against the elimination of poverty. But this army was
of no more consequence at present than an army of ants. It must
have the ballot, and Bridgit had spent much of her time in the last
two or three years among the working women of England, educating
them to a sense of their responsibilities. It was not until 1903 that
the women of the middle class were generally roused from the
apathy into which they had fallen, with the exception of spurts, since
1884, and the Woman’s Social and Political Union was formed by
Mrs. Pankhurst; but when Julia arrived in London, the old movement
was beginning to lift its head, and Bridgit Herbert was not the only
hopeful and far-seeing mind at work.
“And what is it you want?” asked Julia, listening to the old
familiar and beloved roar of London. They were in Mrs. Herbert’s
den, and the hostess, her eyes still radiant with hospitality, was
standing behind the low fire-screen with a hand on either point. Julia
wondered if White Lodge were a nightmare.
“The vote. Because the time has come, men having made a mess
of most things, for women to apply their higher faculties to the
domestic affairs of the nation; also because the condition of poor
women and children in this country is appalling, and men have
proved their utter indifference to a fact which is also a factor in so
many great incomes. Moreover, men have had their day, just as
monarchies and aristocracies have had their day. The day of woman
and the working-class is dawning, and it is high time.”
“And are women ready?”
“Those that are not can be taught. That is what we are for.”

“We? I suppose,” with a sigh of resignation, “that is my métier,
what I have been struggling toward all this time.”
“You recognize that you have abilities at last, then?”
“Oh, yes, and I shouldn’t wonder if I had ambition, but just now
I don’t feel either ambitious or energetic. I’m wild to go to India and
the rest of the East —”
“Oh, nonsense, we’ve a great fight coming, and you must brace
up and be one of the generals. Time enough to idle when you are
old. Just now, until we can shut France up and ask the courts to give
you an income, you are going to be my secretary —”
“Do you really need one?”
“Do I? Well, rather. I had one of the best, but her mother is ill
and she may not be able to return to me for months. You’ll have
tons of letters to write.”
“So much the better, for I couldn’t live on even your charity.”
“Charity? When my only chance to have an intimate friend is in a
secretary, I am so rushed? I’m companionless, but life is frantically
interesting.”
And if Julia found herself unable to reach this pitch of
enthusiasm, she certainly found the new book of life offered for her
daily reading quite absorbing enough to fill her time and thoughts.
Her clerical hours were short. The rest of the day, and often during
half the night, she was seeing all the problems at first hand. She
went daily with Bridgit to the East Side and saw poverty outside of
books; poverty, unthinkable, criminal, fleshless, stinking. At night she
dreamed that all the babies in the world were wailing for food, all
the mothers were emaciated, with eyes of bitter resignation, all the
little girls pinched and old and hard. Herded misery, hopeless filth,
black despair. Julia was quite unable to recall the reverse side of the
picture, in which many were healthy in spite of poverty, and cheerful
if only because temperament is stronger than circumstance. She
hoped that some day she should fully wake up and burn with a zeal
as great as Bridgit’s, but now her brain was tired, and, had she but
known it, she protested against living for others until she had lived

for herself first. Quite as unconsciously her mind was made up to
live her Eastern romance the moment she was free. She heard not a
word from France, but guessed the truth; he had forgotten her. If
this were the case, however, it might mean that at any moment he
would be a dangerous lunatic, and she felt that the duke should be
warned. As this was a delicate task, and as her uneasiness grew, she
finally, on Bridgit’s advice, wrote to his firm of solicitors. Solicitors
are probably the most conservative members of conservative
England; but full of duty withal. The junior member found himself
overtaken by a storm near White Lodge and craved hospitality of his
patron’s distinguished kinsman. France, either because suspicion was
still active in a brain not clouded, but blazing with a light unknown to
common mortals, or because he happened to be in a good humor,
had never appeared to better advantage. The solicitor returned to
London so inflamed with indignation that the letter he wrote to Julia
breathed his contempt for her entire sex. Julia shrugged her
shoulders and dismissed the matter from her mind. Let them work
out their own destinies.
When she was not haunting the slums, she was attending
meetings: Fabian, labor, working-women, coöperators’, old and new
suffrage; at all of which the eternal problem of poverty was the main
topic of discussion. She was also taken to visit the slaughter-houses,
where the ignorance and savagery of the women employed was
primeval. She visited the textile factories of the north, where the
work of women and children at the loom was relieved only by
alternate hours of drudgery in the home, and where there seemed
no object in living whatever. The pit-brow women, at least, had
developed the strength and endurance of men, and no doubt would
have proved equally efficient in war.
Manchester was a very hot bed of social reform, and Julia was
shown all the horrors to which reform owed its concept. She
wondered increasingly at the frail fabric of aristocracy and wealth
that tottered on its heaving foundations, and conceived some
measure of respect for its cleverness.

This drastic experience was enlivened now and again by glimpses
of Ishbel, still the merriest, and now the happiest, of mortals. The
lines of fatigue and anxiety had disappeared, she was once more the
prettiest woman in London, and she needed but the halo of her
future position as Countess of Dark to make good people wonder
how they could have forgotten it. Julia thought her the most
fortunate of women, if only because she was realizing all the
romantic dreams of her girlhood on the bogs. Dark was handsome,
clever, kind, almost unselfish. He was profoundly in love and he had
a very decent income. Above all he had the most romantic title in
the British peerage—Earl of Dark! No wonder those fluttering moths
of American girls wanted titles. Such a one would make the dullest
man in England look romantic to yearning republican eyes, when
even an Ishbel was enchanted at the prospect of owning it.
“And yet I am the most practical of mortals—the half of me!” she
said gayly, one day, as they sat in the boudoir over the shop,
drinking tea unseasoned with reform. “Odd and modern
combination!”
“But you’ll give up the shop?”
“Not really. It is coöperative now, and too many would suffer if I
neglected it altogether, or withdrew. I must continue to see that it
remains a success, for it is something to have solved the problem of
living for a few women, at least.”
Julia hastily changed the subject.
“Shall you become a society beauty again?”
“I’ve hardly thought of it. I mean to be happy, and I think we’ll
travel and live in the country for a year. Society is always with us.
That first year! No duties shall share an hour of it.”
“Right you are. I never could love and never want to, and I’m
quite resigned to becoming a torch-bearer, suffering martyrdom, if
necessary, in the cause of woman, but meanwhile I’ve something up
my sleeve. I dare not mention it to Bridgit again, and shall have to
run away when my time comes, but I can confide in you. The
moment I am free I am going to India—Persia—Arabia—and stay

there until some other part of me is gratified, I hardly know what. I
only know that the call is unceasing and that I never can accomplish
anything here, whole-heartedly, at least, until I have got that off my
mind.”
“By all means, go. It’s unhealthy to repress your strongest
personal desires, and you are young yet. I wonder, by the way, if
you will ever have the zeal of these other women? You have a sort
of sardonic humor —”
“I want a career, and in this rising inevitable woman’s movement
lies my chance. When my time comes, my zeal will be great enough
—for all they can give me I’ll pay them back a hundred fold. I want
power if only because nothing less will pay the debt of these last
years, and I am horribly sorry for the poor of the world. When I am
ready I shall jump into the arena with my torch, but I’ll find myself
wholly in the East first.”
“Why not go now? I can let you have the money.”
“No, I’ll wait.”
As it happened she did not have long to wait. She and Bridgit
were driving home one evening after talking to an intelligent club of
East End women, when they heard the familiar cry of “Extra,” and a
flaming handbill was waved in front of the window as the brougham
was blocked. Bridgit, whose quick glance overlooked nothing,
exclaimed, “Great heaven!” and leaned out, throwing the boy a
sixpence.
“What is it?” asked Julia, languidly. She had been forced on to
the platform, and was still cold from fright. “A strike?”
Bridgit lifted the tube and gave an order to the coachman that
made Julia sit erect.
“Kingsborough House.” Then to her companion, “France tried to
kill the duke this afternoon.”
They found Kingsborough House in confusion, the flunkys looking
as flabby as if the ramrods in their backs had dissolved, leaving
nothing but the sawdust stuffing. The duchess was in hysterics
upstairs (“she is sure to be an anti,” remarked Mrs. Herbert); the

duke was under the care of his doctor; but Lady Arabella received
them, and graciously observed that she was glad to see that Julia
still felt herself a member of the house of France. She told them the
story, which was brief enough. France had suddenly appeared that
afternoon, and upon being shown into the duke’s study had sprung
upon his kinsman before the footman had closed the door,
demanding that he should abdicate in his favor, threatening him with
immediate death if he refused. The footman had called other
footmen, and it had taken four of them to hold France down while
the duke, his coat torn off and his face bleeding, had himself
telephoned for the police. France meanwhile had struggled like a
demon, shouting that he had come to kill not only the duke but the
boy, that his time had come to live and theirs to die, that they were
deliberate malicious enemies who stood between him and the
greatness which would permit him to send his invitations to the
crowned heads of Europe; and “heaven knows what else,” added the
distressed Lady Arabella. “To think of poor Harold going mad. At first
we thought he might merely have been drinking, but with the police
came poor Edward’s doctor, and he pronounced him as mad as a
hatter. Do stay here with me to-night, Julia. You are a clever little
thing, and always keep your wits about you.”
Julia remained at Kingsborough House for several days. When
the duke heard what little of her own story she was willing to tell,
and that she had endeavored to protect him through his solicitors,
he was honest enough to admit that he would have been hard to
convince of a kinsman’s insanity, and generous enough to be grateful
to her. Indeed, so relieved was he at his narrow escape, and at the
report of the lunacy commission which incarcerated France for life,
that he bubbled over with something like human nature; and, as the
expensive sanatorium would cut deeply into his cousin’s original
income, announced his intention of giving Julia for life seven
hundred and fifty of the thousand pounds he had so long allowed
her husband. Julia refused this offer, until the duke told her
impatiently that if she did not take it he would merely pay Harold’s
expenses in the sanatorium, and leave her to the courts, also that

she was legally a member of his family, and pride, therefore, absurd.
Julia turned this over, and concluding that the house of France owed
her a good deal more than it could ever pay, consented and thought
no more about it. A month later she was on a P. and O. steamer
bound for India.

BOOK IV
HADJI SADRÄ
I
Upon Julia’s return to England in April of 1906 she was greeted
with the news of the destruction of San Francisco by earthquake and
fire. Nigel, to whom it had occurred to her to send a telegram from
Flushing, met her at Queenboro’, and, his imagination fired by the
great physical drama, it was the first piece of news he imparted.
Julia, although she was looking straight into a pair of ardent
handsome eyes (Nigel had recovered his looks, and the subtle marks
of Time enhanced them), sent her mind on a flight of seven
thousand miles to centre about the young American friend that she
had so nearly forgotten.
“He must be—let me see—five- or six-and-twenty,” she
announced.
“Who?” Nigel’s eyes flashed.
“A Californian I met when he was a boy—Mrs. Bode’s brother.
You can’t mean that everybody was killed.”
“Let us hope not. First reports are always exaggerated. But the
Californians in London are frantic—can’t get a penny on their letters
of credit, either. Indeed, nothing outside of our own bailiwick has
excited us as much as this in many a long day.”
“I felt some big earthquakes in India—”
“Oh, nothing like this,” said Nigel, who would brook no
cheapening of the magnificent panorama in his mind. “With the
possible exception of the eruption of Mont Pelée, this is the most
dramatic thing that Nature has done in our time. Think of it! Not a
second’s warning. The most important city on the Pacific Coast and
its half million people wiped out. The earth rocking miles of blazing

buildings for hours. Precipices along the coast plunging into the sea!
The hills rolling like grain. Jupiter! What a sight from an airship!
Would that I had been there to see.”
“I don’t fancy you would have seen much from an airship, if
there was any smoke with the fire. Have you reconstructed all that
from bald cablegrams?”
“The bald facts are enough—”
“To have made your imagination happy. I have always said that
you would satisfy it yet with a work of pure romance. But I don’t
mean to joke. It is too awful. I heard only a confused rumor on the
train yesterday. Poor Dan! But I feel sure that he could take care of
himself, and of a good many others—if there was any chance at all.”
“Possibly. But enough of horrors. I want to look at you.” (They
had a compartment to themselves.) “You must have enjoyed yourself
quite as well as you meant to do. I never saw any one so—well—
improved, although that sounds banal. It never occurred to me that
you could be prettier than when you first came to London, but you
are. Your eyes—what is it?”
“Oh, my eyes have seen things. I have done a good deal more
than enjoy myself.”
“Have you come back to be the high priestess of some cult?”
“Not I. I have sat at the feet of wise men in Benares and in
Persia, and learned—a little. We Occidentals are never initiated into
the deeper mysteries. They despise—or fear—us too much for that.
But even a little of the wisdom of the East must widen our vision and
prove an everlasting antidote to the modern spirit of unrest—about
nothing.”
“And enable you to forget your friends for four years? We have
each had three letters from you and three or four times as many
post cards.”
“One secret of enjoying the East is to forget the West. And for at
least a year I was intoxicated—drunk is more expressive—with its
enchantments. The spell broke in Calcutta, where I spent a winter in
society. Then I went to Benares to study.”

“You could have told me as much in a cablegram. What took you
to Acca?”
“I went to see Abdul Baha Abbas, and investigate the new
religion. My master told me of it in India, and I found that in Persia,
after losing some twenty-five thousand by massacre, it had got the
best of its enemies by converting the government. Even the women
are receiving the higher education. So I went on to headquarters.
Not that any religion could make a personal appeal to me, but I had
an idea about this one. The idea proved to be reasonable, and,
accordingly, I have brought you the Bahai religion as a present.”
“Brought me? What should I do with it?”
“Make use of it to your own glory and the benefit of the race. We
have always agreed that Socialism would never prevail until it
acquired a soul. That admirably constructed but unappealing
machine needs the Bahai religion to give it light and fire; and the
Bahai religion, sane and practical as it is, needs a good working
medium. Combined, they will sweep the world. With your skill and
enthusiasm, you will find the task congenial and not too difficult.
Like Socialism, the new and practical sort, Bahaism must begin at
the top and filter down, for it makes its appeal to the brain, to the
advanced thinker, to those that feel the need of a religion, but have
long since outgrown all the silly old dogmas, with their bathos and
sentimentalities, primarily intended only for the ignorant. Unity in
rights. Freedom of the political as well as the spiritual conscience. In
other words, the elimination of all that provokes war; which means
universal peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. That is the keynote of the
Bahai religion, as love was intended to be of Christianity. All the best
principles of the five prevailing religions are incorporated in this, all
the barriers between them razed, and all the nonsense and narrow-
mindedness left out. And the keynote of all this? Knowledge. True
knowledge, intellectual as well as spiritual. The universal spread of
science and the development of the arts, to war in men’s minds—the
real battleground—against the greed of money which makes man so
stunted, uninteresting, and miserable to-day. One language, one
people, one faith. No hierarchy. Good morals and charitable deeds as

a matter of course. The worship of one God, and the universal
peace, to be founded in the centre of the civilized world. Unity and
Peace! Then we are promised that the earthly world shall become
heavenly. Not in our time. But it will be interesting to help start the
ball rolling, and to watch it roll. Every man is supposed to have a
latent desire for perfection. There is your cue. There lies the brain of
this religion. What a subtle appeal to vanity, man’s primal and
deathless weakness! Even greed only ministers to it. If I wrote
fiction I should take this cue myself, but as it is I have brought it to
you. Go to Acca, get it all at first hand, and write your immortal
book.”
“So you did think of me that far?” Nigel stared at her, fascinated,
but with his man’s ardor checked. In spite of her frank delight in
greeting him, the spontaneous friendliness of her manner, she
seemed to him incredibly remote. The eyes that looked straight into
his had new and unfathomable depths, and he wondered if she had
not learned more of Eastern lore than she had any intention of
admitting.
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “And I have speculated a great
deal about you. All I know is that you won the Nöbel Peace Prize—a
wonderful book! I read it—and your last—in the colonial edition. But
I know nothing else about you. Have you fallen in love with any one
else?”
“No, I have not,” said Nigel, crossly, “and I am not so sure that I
am still in love with you. I only know that you haunt my imagination
and make all other women seem flat.”
“Ah! We could be the ideal friends. But hasn’t anything happened
to you besides merely writing books and becoming a peer of the
realm?”
“Oh, yes, I have been discovered by the United States of
America.”
“They were long enough about it. But they always get hold of the
little men first.”

“Well, I might be one of the little ones, judging by the fuss they
are making over me. Reams of stuff in magazines and the Sunday
newspapers—all about my ‘great’ works; in which I find myself
credited with an assortment of philosophies no two men could carry;
at least a hundred attitudes toward Life; and incredible designs upon
the peace of the world—although still others maintain that I am
merely a dilettante aristocrat playing with picturesque material. I am
so bewildered that I hardly know what I am myself. Some of the
adverse criticisms are so good that I forget the writer doesn’t in the
least know what he is writing about. The only thing clear to me is
that my income is trebled, and that I am offered unheard-of sums
(from the modest European point of view) to write for their
magazines and newspapers. I have even been invited to go over and
lecture, and am promised a unique advertisement: ‘The Peer among
Authors.’ Fancy trying to be original after that! I believe I have also a
cult—and am making hay while the sun shines; for I am given to
understand that crazes don’t last long over there. Each of us, as
discovered,—sometimes a few of us at once,—is the ‘greatest of
modern English authors.’ I should think their own authors would
combine, capture the press, and train their guns on us, and their
eloquence on their public: it would appear that the American public,
in art matters, believes everything it is told long enough and loud
enough. Far be it from me, however, to complain. It has enabled me
to put a new roof on my old castle—as good as an American wife,
without the bother—and buy a villa on the Riviera—which I am
hoping you will consent to occupy with me.”
“Not I. You go to Acca, and I to my work here. If it hadn’t
haunted me, assisted by indignant letters from Bridgit, I doubt if I
ever should have left the East. But if the East is in my blood, some
magnet in the West directed at my brain cells dragged me home.
Besides, what have I developed myself for? Now is the time to find
out.”
Nigel sighed. “The old order changeth. You women are not far off
from getting all you want, no doubt about that, but you will lose
more than you gain.”

“From your point of view. It is not what you want. We shall get
what we want, which is more to the point.”
“Well, I can’t blame you,” said Nigel, honestly. “Man was bound
to have his day of reckoning. For my part I hardly care, being a lover
of change, and wanting to see all of this world’s progress it shall be
possible to crowd into my own little span. And although you are far
from all the old ideals, it would be the more interesting to live with
you. I have always had a sneaking preference for polygamy—one
wife for children and solid comfort, and one for companionship—to
keep a man from roving abroad.”
To his surprise Julia colored and a look of distress and
apprehension routed the bright composure of her face.
“I should like children!” she exclaimed. “They would not interfere
with my work, either. Why should they?” Then she darted off the
track of self. “Tell me of Ishbel. She is happy, I feel sure, and she
has two dear little babies. I am the godmother of the first.”
“Yes, but she haunts that shop. It was running to seed without
her, and she had no sooner taken hold again than the work microbe
woke up. Dark doesn’t fancy it, but says there’s nothing for a
sensible man to do these days but take woman as he finds her and
chew his little cud in silence. He doesn’t forget how both Ishbel and
Bridgit calmly shuffled off their husbands when they had no further
use for them.”
“Work. I fancy that was the real magnet that brought me back. I
revelled—revelled—but the reaction set in like a rising tide, and at
last was quite as irresistible. I should have come back before this,
but I wanted to remain in Acca until I was convinced that the Bahai
religion was all it attempted to be. Go there at once. Abdul Baha has
promised that you shall live in his house. Moreover, they want a big
author to exploit it in the West before it has been misrepresented
and cheapened by the swarm of little writers, always in search of
what they call ‘copy.’ ”
“I should feel like a bally hypocrite. I’ve no more religion in me
than you have. If God is in man, and self is God, then that atom we

call self is what is given us to lean on without asking for more. To
demand help outside of ourselves is a confession of failure.”
“Of course. But how many have penetrated the secrets that far?
The majority must have a religion to talk about and lean on. When
they get the right one, the world will be a far more comfortable
place to live in. That, to my mind, is the whole point. You and I have
useful brains, and it is our business to help the world along. In my
inmost soul, I don’t care any more for the cause of woman or the
rights of the working-class—save in so far as it gives me the horrors
to think of any one being cold and hungry—than you care about
religion; but I shall work just as hard for both as if I never had had a
thought for anything else. Now tell me about Bridgit.”

II
Nigel left her at the door of her hotel and did not see her again
for two days. Little did he guess the reason. He carried away to his
club (both resentfully and sadly) the picture of a new Julia, all
intellect, poise, and mystery; a Julia from whom the impulsiveness,
ingenuousness, and young enthusiasm had gone forever, left in that
unfathomable East which gives knowledge and takes personality; a
cold brilliant creature, with developed genius, no doubt, but with
nothing left to beg unto a man’s heart and senses. And this, indeed,
was one side of Julia, and the only one she purposed the world
should see; because in time it was to be her whole self, and she a
happy mortal.
When she shut the door of her sitting-room in the gloomy
exclusive hotel in one of the quiet streets near Piccadilly, to which
she had telegraphed for rooms, she subsided into the easiest chair
and cried for half an hour; nor did she ascend from the slough of her
despondency for the rest of the day. For the past four years she had
lived virtually out of doors. As her angry frightened eyes looked back
they recalled nothing but floods of golden light, an endless
procession of Orientals, gleaming bronze or copper, turbanned,
hooded, dressed in flowing robes of white or every primal hue;
streets, crooked, latticed, balconied, sun-baked; gorgeous bazaars;
life, color, beauty, romance (to Western eyes) everywhere. She was
come to a London wrapped in its old familiar drizzle; huddled over
the small grate, its cold penetrated her marrow; in the narrow
street, dull, grimy, flat, there was rarely a sound. As she had entered
the ugly entrance hall below she had been met by two solemn
footmen, one of whom had conducted her slowly up three flights of
stairs (there was no lift in this exclusive hostelry); another followed
an hour later with her luncheon of good food cooked abominably.
The butler stood in front of her like a statue and pretended not to
observe her swollen eyes.

If she had been wise, she would have gone to the Carlton or the
Ritz, where at least she could have descended at intervals into a
very good similitude of luxury and magnificence, been able to fancy
herself in the midst of “life”; she would have dined with brilliantly
dressed and animated people, and, incidentally, been cheered by
French cooking. But, like many others, she favored the small hotel
where one was almost obliged to bring a letter of introduction,
where one was supposed to be “at home” with personal servants;
and where, indeed, one was as deeply immersed in privacy and
silence as if quite at home in North Hampstead. Julia, who had been
consoled for the loss of the dainty dishes of the East by the
kaleidoscopic pleasures of the continent, choked over her shoulder
of mutton, large-leaved greens, and hard round peas unseasoned,
boiled potatoes, and pudding, wept once more after the remains and
the butler had vanished, cursed women, and half determined to take
the night train for Egypt and Syria.
She had not wanted to “be met,” shrinking from too prompt a
reminder of the past. Now she wished that everybody she had ever
known had crowded the platform at Victoria, and “rushed her
about,” until she felt at home once more in this huge and dismal and
overpowering mass of London. And as ill-luck would have it even her
two best friends would be denied her for days, possibly for weeks.
Ishbel was in Paris. Bridgit was in Cannes recovering from severe
physical injuries incurred in the cause of woman. At one of the great
Liberal meetings in the north, during the General Election, she had
risen and demanded that the new Government declare its intentions
regarding the enfranchisement of women. She had been pulled
down, one man had held his hat before her face, and when she
struggled to her feet again, protesting that she had the same right
to interrupt the speaker with questions as any of the men that had
gone unreproved, she had been dragged out by six stewards and
plain-clothes detectives, with as much vigor as if she had been the
six men and they the one dauntless female. They had mauled her,
twisted her, pummelled her, and finally flung her with violence to the
pavement. She had gathered herself up, although suffering from a

broken rib, attempted to address the crowd in the streets, been
arrested and swept off to the town hall. She had given a false name
that she might be shown no favor, and the next morning, refusing to
pay her fine, was sent to gaol for seven days. She had lain in a cold
cell for nearly twenty-four hours unattended, in solitary confinement,
and on a small allowance of food which she could not have eaten if
well. At the gaol she asked to be sent to the hospital, but before her
request was granted, a member of the new Government ascertained
her name, and, horrified at the possible consequences to himself,
paid her fine summarily, and sent her to a nursing home. Here she
had lain until her broken rib had mended, and was now in the south
of France assuaging a severe attack of intercostal neuralgia.
This story, told by Nigel, had filled Julia with an intense wrath,
and struck the first real spark of enthusiasm in her for the cause of
woman, but it burned low in these dull hours of loneliness and
nostalgia, and she wished that her magnificent friend had remained
as in the early days of their acquaintance, whole in bone and skin,
and untroubled of mind.
But if Julia was acting much as the average woman acts during
her first hours alone in an immense and inhospitable city, which the
sun refuses to shine upon, a city that knows not of her existence
and cares less, she was furious with herself, even before she
recovered. Where was the poise, the serenity, the grand impersonal
attitude, she had learned from her subtle masters in the East?
Where the full calm determination with which she had returned to
take up her self-elected duties, to gratify a long latent but now full-
grown ambition to build a unique pedestal for herself in the world; in
other words, to achieve fame and power? Out there it had been both
easy and natural to plan, to dream, to vision herself at the head of
womankind, burning with the enthusiasm of the artist, even if the
cause itself left her cold. She had believed herself made over to that
extent, at least; and now she dared not see Nigel Herbert lest she
marry him off-hand, and insure herself a life companion and the
common happiness of woman.

She denied him admittance, even refusing to go down to the
telephone (such were the primitive arrangements of this exclusive
hostelry), and vowed that once more, peradventure for the last time,
she would wrestle with her peculiar problem and inspect her new
armor at every joint.
For Julia, even during her first year in India, had learned lessons
untaught by Eastern philosophers. She had no difficulty in recalling
the moment when that green shoot had wriggled its head out of
what she called the morass in the depths of her nature. She had
been floating one moonlight night in a boat propelled by a
turbanned silhouette, on a small lake surrounded by a park as dense
as a jungle. From the head of the lake rose a marble palace of many
towers and balconies, whose white steps were in the green waters.
Just overhead was poised the full moon,—a crystal lantern lit with a
white flame. A nightingale was pouring forth its love song. Warm,
delicious odors were wafted across the lake from the gardens about
the palace.
Julia, whose soul had been steeped in all this beauty, her senses
swimming with pleasure, suddenly, with no apparent volition, sat
upright and gasped with resentment. Why was she alone on such a
night? Why, in heaven’s name, was not a man with her,—the most
charming man the world held, of course (there never was anything
moderate in Julia’s demands upon Life)? why was not this perfect
mate, his own soul steeped, his senses swimming, even as were her
own, sitting beside her, looking at her with eyes that proclaimed
them as one and divinely happy? It was the night and the place for
the very fullness of love, and she was alone. How incongruous! How
inartistic! What a waste! Women have been known to feel like this in
Venice. How much more so Julia, in the untravelled undesecrated
depths of India, at night, with the moon and the nightingale and the
heavy warm scents of Oriental trees, and shrubs, and flowers!
When Julia realized where her unleashed imagination had soared,
she frowned, deliberately laughed, and opened her inner ear that
she might enjoy the crash to earth. But she sat up all that night.
From her room in the guest bungalow (her friends had provided her

with many letters), she could look upon the white palace, gleaming
like sculptured ivory against the black Eastern night, hear the waters
lapping the marble steps. Strange sounds came out of the quarters
devoted to the superfluous wives and their female offspring:
passionate melancholy singing, sharp infuriated cries, monotonous
string music, infinitely hopeless.
And she was free, free as the nightingale, free to love; young,
beautiful, with the world at her feet. What a fool she was!
Although she had now been in India for nearly a year, this was
the first time the sex within her had stirred, and she had been one
with scenes lovelier than this, revelled from first to last in all the
beauty and variety and mystery and color which she had craved so
long in England. In spite of dirt and stench, of entomological
bedfellows, bullock carts, and lack of every luxury in which the
British soul delights, she was too young and too philosophical to
have permitted the worst of these to interfere with her complete
satisfaction. And it had, this wondrous East, absorbed and satisfied
her until to-night. She had asked for nothing more. And now she
wanted a lover.
Looking back upon her life with France, she discovered that she
had practically forgiven him the moment she had been assured of
his insanity. No doubt he had been irresponsible from the first. This
admission had subconsciously wiped out his offences, and with them
the memory of that whole odious experience. She still blamed her
mother, but she had pitied France when she thought of him at all.
The heavy noxious growth in her soul had withered and
disappeared, the dark waters turned clear and sparkling. She was
ready for love, for the rights and the glory of youth.
Kneeling there, gazing out at the enchanted palace, watching the
moon sail over the misty tree-tops to disappear into the dark
embrace of the Himalayas, her annoyance passed, she exulted in
this new development, these vast and turbulent demands. She
would find love and find it soon.

With Julia to think was to do. The next day she set out on her
quest. To love any of these Indian princes was out of the question,
even though she might live in marble palaces for the rest of her life.
There was nothing for it but to go to Calcutta and present her letters
to the viceroy and notable British residents. She found Calcutta the
most ill-smelling city on earth, but its society was brilliant and
industrious, and she met more charming men than in all her years in
England. For some obscure reason Englishmen always are more
charming, natural, and even original in the colonies and
dependencies than on their own misty isle. Perhaps they are more
adaptable than they think, more susceptible to “atmosphere” than
would seem possible, bred as they are into formalities and
mannerisms of a thousand years of tradition, too hide-bound for
mere human nature to combat unassisted.
Moreover, in India they wear helmets, which are vastly becoming,
and white linen or khaki, which wars with stolidity. Julia met them by
the dozen and liked them all. She danced six nights out of seven,
flirted in marble palaces whose steps were in the Ganges, on marble
terraces vocal and scented. She had never been so beautiful before,
she was quite happy, she was indisputably the belle of the winter,
she had several proposals under the most romantic conditions
(carefully arranged by herself), and she was wholly unable to fall in
love.
At the end of the season she understood, and was aghast. She
demanded the wholly impossible in man, a man that never will
emerge from woman’s imagination and come to life; a man without
common weaknesses, who was never absurd, who was a miracle of
tenderness, passion, strength, humor, justice, high-mindedness,
magnetism, intellect, cleverness, wit, sincerity, mystery, fidelity,
provocation, responsiveness, reserve; who was gay, serious,
sympathetic, vital, stimulating, always able to thrill, and never to
bore; a being of light with no clay about him, who wooed like a god,
and never looked funny when his feelings overcame him, and never
perspired, even in India.

In short, Julia packed her trunks and went to Benares to study
Hindu philosophy.
But although she was not long finding her balance (in which
humor played as distinguished a part as her learned masters), she
never wholly ceased to be haunted by the vision of the perfect lover
and the complete happiness he must bestow upon a woman as yet
not all intellect. There were times when she sat up in bed at night
exclaiming aloud in tones of indignation and surprise, “Where is my
husband? Mine? He must exist on this immense earth. Where is he?”
She knew that other women of humor and intellect, Ishbel, for
instance, had ended by accepting the best that life purposed to offer
them, and been quite happy, or happy enough. But she dared make
no such experiment with herself. Genius of some sort she had, and
she guessed that geniuses had best be content with dreams and
make no experiments with mere mortal men. She knew that if she
exiled herself to America, or the continent of Europe, with the most
satisfactory man she had met in Calcutta, or even with Nigel
Herbert, she ran the risk of hating him and herself before the
honeymoon was out. Nevertheless, the woman in her laughed at
intellect and went on demanding and dreaming.
But all this did not affect her will nor hinder her mental progress.
While automatically hoping, she was hopeless, and bent all her
energies toward accomplishing that ideal of perfection she had
vaguely outlined the night at White Lodge when once more settling
the fate of Nigel. Here in Benares, sitting at the feet of men that
appeared to live in their marvellous intellects, and to be quite purged
of earthly dross, it seemed simple enough to her strong will and
brain. Of mysteries she was permitted more than one glimpse. She
felt herself drawing from unseen, unfathomable sources a vital fluid
which she chose to believe would in time restore in her that perfect
balance of sex qualities, that unity in the ego, which had been the
birthright of the man-woman who rose first out of the chaos of the
universe, who was happy until clove in half and sent forth to wage
the eternal war of sex, even while striving blindly for completion.
She learned that in former solar systems, whose record is open only

to those so profoundly versed in occult lore that their disembodied
selves read at will the invisible tablets, that chosen women had
attained this state of perfection, of absolute knowledge, of original
sex, and with it immortality. Immortal women. Wonderful and
haunting phrase! At certain periods of even earth’s history, they had
reappeared in human form to accomplish their great and individual
work. But their number so far had been few, and they were easily
called to mind, these great women that stood out in history;
indispensable, mysteriously powerful; disappearing when their work
was done, and leaving none of their kind behind them.
Julia’s favorite teacher, an old Sufi Mohammedan named Hadji
Sadrä, told her that the world, the Western world particularly, was
ripe for them again, that now their numbers would be many, for
modern conditions made their general supremacy possible for the
first time in Earth’s history. There was no movement in the East or
West that this old philosopher was not cognizant of, no tendency, no
deep persistent stifled mutter; and although he had all the contempt
of the ancient Oriental brain for the crude attempts of the Occident
to think for itself, he had a growing respect for Western women, and
told Julia that all conditions, both in the heavens and on the earth
pointed to the coming reign of woman; led in the first place by those
reincarnated immortal souls of whom he was convinced she was
one, possibly the greatest. So he interpreted her horoscope,
laughing at the narrow wisdom of the Western mind which could see
naught but a ridiculous position in the peerage of Europe; the starry
hieroglyphics plainly indicated that she was to rule her sex and lead
it to victory.
All this was highly gratifying to Julia (to whom would it not be?),
and feeling herself destined to greatness, found its spiritual part
simpler of achievement than if the suggesting had been lacking. In
this ideal of perfection there was no question of eliminating human
nature, with its minor entrancing elements, its sympathy,
tenderness, its power to love; merely the complete control of a
highly trained mind over the baser desires, the contemptible faults,
the foolish ambitions and temptations, which keep the average mind

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