Critical discourse analysis

Abstract

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is the field of study interested in analyzing discourse to find hidden meanings and to uncover the relationships among discourse, ideology, and power (Fairclough in Discourse and social change. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992). Fairclough (Critical discourse analysis. Longman, London, 1995), the father of modern CDA, defined it as: “The kind of discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony (pp. 132–133)”.