DIVERSITY
Lesgarcia0829
CDA-VanDijkppt4.pptxCritical Discourse Analysis: Van Dijk
Maria de Mar Farina
CDA
What is it? A theoretical framework that examines how social power, abuse and subjugation are “enacted, reproduced and resisted through language in the social and political context”
Goal: to exposed the underlying ideology and its normalizing workings (hegemony)
All knowledge is positioned and embedded in a certain ideology; there is no objectivity even in the production of science
CDA
Focuses on social problems
Multidisciplinary: draws on other disciplines to examine discourse constructions and their functions
Is not descriptive but explanatory
Examines how discourses enact, confirm, legitimize, reproduce and challenge power dynamics and thus domination/subjugation
Discourse
Language constitutes societal dynamics and culture
It disseminates a particular ideology
Discourses have a history (Historicity)
Discourses promote social action
CDA
When, how and why are certain discourse deployed?
Micro level: language, discourse, communication
Macro level: Power, dominance, inequality
Members of a group: use language
Actions of an individual: are thus actions of a part of the group
CDA
Context: where is a certain discourse taking place?
Personal and social cognition: personal knowledge that is shared with other members of the group. Rooted in cognitive theory.
Power as control
Groups: how much control does a certain group have over discourse in a certain context?
To have power: you have to be able to influence specific forms of discourse i.e., political, media, scholarship.
The aim: to control the discourse implies controlling what can be thought about, the ideas and possibilities in individual minds.
Control of public discourse
Access to public discourse: members of powerful social groups, particularly leaders have exclusive access and control over public discourse
The context: which attributes power to a certain group
Use of schemas that are composed by certain categories
Who controls the topic: what can be talked about, for how long and how it can be talked about
Mind Control
Required for the reproduction of power and hegemony
Who is speaking? An authority figure vs. unknown individual
In what context? Casual conversation versus classroom
Alternative discourses cannot enter the space; information that is presented is consistent with a certain worldview/ideology. Other forms of “knowing” are excluded and thus cannot influence the audience in a different direction. Dynamics of persuasion.
Discourse hence leads to the creation of mental representations, which are in turn used to understand a particular social issue. When these explanations are accepted, they are in turn reproduced, and reinforce the social norms that lead to the oppression and subjugation of others, and even of oneself.
CDA
Who is constructing?
How is the social issue defined?
Who benefits from that construction?
Who is subjugated/excluded by that construction?
Why now?
What is the history of the social issue? What are the power relations between the groups?
What is the ideology that informs such a construction?
