Critical Insights: A Perspective on Discourse Analysis

The authors present a social linguistic/social interactional approach to the discourse analysis of classroom language and literacy events. Building on recent theories in interactional sociolinguistics, literary theory, social anthropology, critical discourse analysis, and the New Literacy Studies, they describe a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis that provides a reflexive and recursive research process that continually questions what counts as knowledge in and of the interactions among teachers and students. The approach combines attention to how people use language and other systems of communication in constructing classroom events with attention to social, cultural, and political processes. The focus of attention is on actual people acting and reacting to each other, creating and recreating the worlds in which they live. One contribution of the microethnographic approach is to highlight the conception of people as complex, multi-dimensional actors who together use what is given by culture, language, social, and economic capital to create new meanings, social relationships and possibilities, and to recreate culture and language. The approach presented by the authors does not separate methodological, theoretical, and epistemological issues. Instead, they argue that research always involves a dialectical relationship among the object of the research, the theoretical frameworks and methodologies driving the research, and the situations within which the research is being conducted. Discourse Analysis and the Study of Classroom Language and Literacy Events: A Microethnographic Perspective: *introduces key constructs and the intellectual and disciplinary foundations of the microethnographic approach; *addresses the use of this approach to gain insight into three often discussed issues in research on classroom literacy events--classroom literacy events as cultural action, the social construction of identity, and power relations in and through classroom literacy events; *presents transcripts of classroom literacy events to illustrate how theoretical constructs, the research issue, the research site, methods, research techniques, and previous studies of discourse analysis come together to constitute a discourse analysis; and *discusses the complexity of "locating" microethnographic discourse analysis studies within the field of literacy studies and within broader intellectual movements. This volume is of broad interest and will be widely welcomed by scholars and students in the field language and literacy studies, educational researchers focusing on analysis of classroom discourse, educational sociolinguists, and sociologists and anthropologists focusing on face-to-face interaction and language use.

One of the phenomenal Tafsir in Indonesia written by non-Arabic commentators is Tafsir Al-Azhar by Hamka (Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah). This interpretation becomes a reference for Muslims in Indonesia before other modern interpretations come. This interpretation is widely referenced by Qur’an scholars because the language is easy to digest and detailed explanation in accordance with present times. Based on a search of some literature there is no specific discussion about manhaj Tafsir Al-Azhar and its application. So this article will critically examine Hamka’s Tafsir Al-Azhar, especially from the aspect of manhaj and its application in its interpretation. Specifically this article will discuss the method of interpretation, the mechanism of interpretation, and the style of interpretation. The approach used by the writer is Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. Critical discourse analysis is one of the methods of analyzing discourse in a work by critically analyzing. Fairclough uses discourse analysis by pointing the use of language as a social practice not just an individual activity. In addition, Fairclough also created a model that brought together discourse analysis which was based on linguistics as well as on socio-political thought, or generally integrated with social change. The results of the study shows that Tafsir Al-Azhar is included in the category of non-school interpretation (non-madzhab), which is also characterized by patterns of thought and modern interpretation, especially from Tafsir Al-Manâr and Fî Zhilâl Al-Qur'ân, two books of tafsir are more patterned of adabi -ijtima’î.

The article is devoted to formation and development of discourse analysis as an effective method to study functional aspects of political communication in global political space. It reports on main theoretical and methodological approaches to critical analysis of political discourse. Mainly, it deals with theoretical and methodological perspectives of three leading schools of critical discourse analysis: discourse analysis of N. Fairclough, that presents a relational approach to considering social problems in their relation to textual analysis; socio-cognitive theory of T.A. van Dijk, oriented to investigating relations between cognitive structures, discourse and social coordination; discourse analysis of R. Wodak, that uses historical approach to discourse and is aimed at description of powerful language of the elite that helps to maintain dominance in society. The paper characterizes some frameworks of critical analysis of political discourse, including the Duisburg School of Critical Discourse Analysis (S. Jäger, F. Maier), System-Functional and Social-Semiotic Theory (M. Halliday, T. van Leeuwen), and Mediated Discourse Analysis (R. Scollon, S. Scollon). It is stated that within its boundaries critical discourse analysis includes a variety of approaches, analytical tools and methodologies. The author underlines that scientific consideration of critical discourse analysis will demonstrate its potential and prospects for integrating this interdisciplinary qualitative methodology into a set of empirical tools of modern political science.

Gay men's health typically relies on traditional forms of qualitative analysis, such as thematic analysis, and would benefit from a diversity of analytic approaches. Such diversity offers public health researchers a breadth of tools to address different kinds of research questions and, thus, substantiate different types of social phenomenon relevant to the health and wellbeing of gay men. In this article, I compare and contrast three qualitative analytic approaches: thematic, critical discourse, and conversation analysis. I demonstrate and distinguish their key analytic assumptions by applying each approach to a single data excerpt taken from a public health interview conducted for a broader study on gay men's health. I engage in a discussion of each approach in relation to three themes: its utility for gay men's health, its approach to dilemmas of voice, and its capacity for reflexivity. I advocate that qualitative researchers should capitalise on the full range of qualitative analytic approaches to achieve the goals of gay men's health. However, I specifically encourage qualitative researchers to engage with conversation analysis, not only because of its capacity to resolve dilemmas of voice and to achieve reflexivity, but also for its ability to capture forms of social life hitherto undocumented through thematic and critical discourse analysis.

This chapter investigates and endorses the integration of two existing research traditions, electronic discourse analysis (EDA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), into a more powerful and comprehensive form of analysis of electronic discourses, Critical Electronic Discourse Analysis (CEDA). It sets this analytic project against the massive, unpredictable changes in culture and society which are associated with the electronic media revolution. It argues for innovative forms of analysis, in which ‘electronic discourse analysis’ acquires two over-lapping interpretations: electronically enabled analysis of discourses in all media; and all forms of analysis of electronic discourses and the social forms they express. It uses McLuhan and multi-modality theory to argue for major continuities and significant breaks in semiotic modes over long periods. It argues that powerful innovations in analysis and technology need to recognize and incorporate the two fundamental semiotic modes, digital and analogue, and not seek to replace one with the other.

This paper attempts to demonstrate Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework by conducting internal and external level analyses on two online news articles that report on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) submission of its findings on the “Mamasapano Incident” that happened in the Philippines in 2015. In performing analyses using this framework, the social context and background for these texts, as well as the relationship between the internal discourse features and the external social practices and structures in which the texts were produced are thoroughly examined. As a result, it can be noted that from the texts’ internal discourse features, the news articles portray ideological and social distinctions among social actors such as the Philippine Senate, the SAF troopers, the MILF, the MILF fighters, and the civilians. Moreover, from the viewpoint of the texts as being external social practices, the texts maintain institutional identities as news reports, but they also reveal some evaluative stance as exemplified by the adjectival phrases that the writers employed. Having both the internal and external features examined, it can be said that the way these texts were written seems to portray power relations that exist between the Philippine government and the MILF. Key words: Critical Discourse Analysis, discourse analysis, news articles, social practices, social structures, power relations

We Are All Ballooning: Multimedia Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Measure Up’ and ‘Swap It, Don’t Stop It’ Social Marketing Campaigns

Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) combine corpus linguistics and (critical) discourse analysis to explore how language reflects and shapes discourse. CADS researchers derive macro-level social explanations based on micro-level description of texts. Interpretation (the meso level of discourse analysis) is mostly accomplished by deriving discursive patterns from linguistic patterns observed across many texts. CADS blends close reading (examining individual examples in concordances) and distant reading (looking at results of keyword and collocation analyses). While effective, we argue that CADS lacks a true integration of qualitative and quantitative techniques, which results in a unidirectional workflow where qualitative-hermeneutic interpretation is detached from quantitative analysis. To bridge this gap, we propose operationalising the grouping of linguistic surface realisations in terms of discoursemes – building blocks for discourse analysis. Discursive patterns can then be approximated by co-occurrences of discoursemes. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by means of a case study analysing the discourse related to refugees in the German federal parliament during two salient moments in Germany’s history. The case study is carried out using a new open-source software toolkit that facilitates the construction of a consistent database of discoursemes and overcomes some of the technical limitations faced by most CADS studies. Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CADS); Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA); German parliamentary debates (GermaParl); Corpus Workbench (CWB); discoursemes

This paper is concerned with the concept of ‘presupposition’, specifically as it is applied in critical approaches to discourse analysis such as Critical Discourse Analysis or Societal Pragmatics, and proposes a systematisation of a socio-cognitive approach to the concept. Presupposition analysis is crucial for uncovering naturalised ideologies underlying discourse, and examining manipulative functions of discourse, especially strategies making it socially or cognitively harder to challenge ideological assumptions. However, the way presupposition is analysed in current critical discourse analysis is not methodologically consistent and not necessarily theoretically consistent with an understanding of discourse as socio-cognitively grounded social practice (the major overarching tenet of critical discourse analysis). I demonstrate this through a brief overview of the two main current approaches to presupposition in discourse analysis – the truth conditional and the socio-cognitive one. I propose examining presupposition on different levels of analysis, ranging from lexical-item triggered presuppositions to discourse presuppositions and mutually presupposed pragmatic competence.

The main objective of Discourse Analysis is the study of language in use, either oral or written, and verbal or nonverbal, by particular speakers on particular occasions. Discourse Analysis focuses not only on what is said but also on how it is said, to whom, when, and where. In political communication, it is important to take into account not only what politicians say but how, when, to whom, and in what context. Sometimes their gestures say much more than their words. There are different schools in Discourse Analysis and all of them focus on language not as an abstract system but rather as the means of communication. Some of the most widely known perspectives are: Pragmatics, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Conversational Analysis, Ethnography of Communication, Variation Analysis, Functional Perspective, Discursive Psychology, and Critical Discourse Analysis. They study how people use language and how they do things with language (express feelings, entertain others, or exchange information). Depending on the perspective, studies can focus on: cooperative principle and conversational maxims, speech acts, explicature and implicature, inferences, felicity conditions, face‐work, politeness, topic organization, turn‐taking, language variation, information structure, expression of attitude and emotion, or power relations.

This paper, targeting at the news coverage related to the insider trading of the Taiwan Development Corporation share in Liberty Times and United Daily News-two ideologically opposed newspapers in Taiwan, aims to reveal how these two newspapers represent the same event. Taking critical discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory as the theoretical consideration, this paper, exploring the representations of the whole case, the key persons involved as well as the prosecuting/investigating system(s) in Taiwan, has confirmed that UDN's strategy exposes its disbelief toward Chao and President Chen. On the other hand, the representation of this issue in LT shows it leans toward the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, especially toward President Chen.

The media, especially movies, play a significant role in disseminating information and shaping real-life images using language as a powerful social tool. Critical analysis of movie discourse has become a popular trend among discourse analysts, yet there is limited research on films related to the massacre of Hindu Pandits. In recent years, there has been an increase in anti-Pakistani/Muslim movies produced in Bollywood, coupled with a growing interest among students from the sub-continent in these films. This trend underscores the need for research into the portrayal of Pakistani Muslims in Bollywood movies. This article critically analyzes “The Kashmir Files,” a movie accused of being propagandistic, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with Van Dijk’s framework. The analysis aims to reveal any ideological manipulations and misrepresentations in the movie. It was found that the film employs a discursive strategy of in-group favoritism versus out-group derogation. The filmmakers use language as a tool to portray Muslims negatively, presenting a distorted and unrealistic image of Pakistani/Muslim history, culture, and ideologies. This approach indicates the film’s underlying ideological biases and potential impact on viewers’ perceptions.Keywords: Van Dijk’s Framework, Critical Discourse Analysis, Ideological Biases, Muslim Portrayal, Propaganda

Some of the previous studies on media representation of men and women in Nigeria only provided impressive theoretical and critical analyses of ideology. Little has been done to show how such ideology(ies) could be accounted for through lexicalization and transitivity choices. Given the fact that ideologies are very crucial in discourses on gender, this study investigates the ways two Nigerian newspapers, The Guardian and Vanguard, ideologically construct men and women in discourses on politics in Nigeria between 2014 and 2016.The present study adopts Fairclough theoretical model on Critical Discourse Analysis which takes on board Halliday’s theoretical model on ‘lexico–grammar’. In the analysis, it is observed that both newspapers used linguistic tools to represent their ideological affiliations, that is, men are domineering and women are nation builders.

This paper describes how discourse analysis, and in particular critical discourse analysis, can be used in nursing research, and provides an example to illustrate the techniques involved. Discourse analysis has risen to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s in disciplines such as the social sciences, literary theory and cultural studies and is increasingly used in nursing. This paper investigates discourse analysis as a useful methodology for conducting nursing research. Effective clinical reasoning relies on employing several different kinds of knowledge and research that draw on different perspectives, methodologies and techniques to generate breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding of clinical practices and patients' experiences of those practices. The steps in a discourse analysis include: choosing the text, and identifying the explicit purpose of the text, the processes used for claiming authority connections to other discourses, construction of major concepts, processes of naming and categorizing, construction of subject positions, construction of reality and social relations and implications for the practice of nursing. The limitations of discourse analysis, its relationship to other qualitative approaches and questions for evaluating the rigour of research using discourse analysis are also explored. The example of discourse analysis shows how a text influences the practice of nursing by shaping knowledge, values and beliefs. Discourse analysis can make a contribution to the development of nursing knowledge by providing a research strategy to examine dominant discourses that influence nursing practice.

This study investigates how students’ comments on social media have been conceptualized, analyzed, and theorized within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)-oriented scholarship. Employing a qualitative library research design grounded in an interpretivist–critical epistemology, the study systematically examines peer-reviewed literature to identify dominant analytical patterns, ideological tendencies, and methodological convergences in the analysis of student-related digital discourse. Rather than analyzing primary social media data, this research applies CDA as a meta-analytical framework to synthesize how power relations, identity construction, and social practices are discursively framed in existing studies. The findings reveal a consistent reconceptualization of students as active discursive agents whose online comments function as sites of ideological negotiation shaped by institutional, cultural, and technological forces. Recurrent ideological formations, including normalization of authority, resistance discourse, moral regulation, and identity positioning, are observed across diverse platforms and contexts. Methodologically, the literature demonstrates strong convergence around CDA principles, while simultaneously indicating limitations related to textual reductionism. This study contributes to digital discourse studies by offering an integrative theoretical mapping that clarifies how knowledge on students’ social media discourse is constructed and stabilized within contemporary CDA scholarship...