Critical Discourse analysis: Journal Review

By: Jepri NIM :1025086030 [CRITICALDISCOURSE ANALYSIS] January 7, 2014

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

BY

J E P R INIM:1025086030

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS REVIEWER: JEPRI NIM : 1025086030


ENGLISH EDUCATION POST GRADUATE PROGRAM

MULAWARMAN UNIVERSITY

Januari, 2014

Critically Analyzing Information Sources

This paper will address the following topics:

Initial appraisal of the journal The “content analysis” of the journal

Authors : Jan Blommaert and

Chris Bulcaen

Date of publication: 19/09/2008

Publisher: Annual Reviews

Title of journal: CRITICAL

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Intended Audience

Objective Reasoning

Coverage

Writing Style

Evaluative Reviews

INITIAL APPRAISAL



A. Author

Jan Blommaert (November 4, 1961) is a Belgian sociolinguist

and linguistic anthropologist, Professor of Language,

Culture and Globalization and Director of the Babylon Center

at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He is considered to

be one of the world's most prominent sociolinguists and

linguistic anthropologists, and has contributed

substantially to sociolinguistic globalization theory,

focusing on historical as well as contemporary patterns of

the spread of languages and forms of literacy, and on

lasting and new forms of inequality emerging from

globalization processes.

He was Born in Dendermonde, Belgium, Blommaert received his

PhD in African History and Philology from Ghent University

in 1989.

After graduation Blommaert started as research director at

the International Pragmatics Association hosted at the

University of Antwerp. In 1999 back at the Ghent University

he became Associate Professor and head of the Department of

African Languages and Cultures. In 2005 he was appointed

Professor and Director of the Institute of Education at the

University of London. In 2008 he moved to Finland, where he

was appointed Finland Distinguished Professor at the



Department of Languages of the University of Jyväskylä,

which he held until 2010. In 2007 he was appointed Professor

of Language, Culture and Globalization and Director of the

Babylon Center at Tilburg University. He is also Professor

at Ghent University.

He holds honorary professorships at Beijing Language and

Culture University, the University of the Western Cape and

Hellenic American University.

Blommaerts work focuses on analyzing issues of power and

social inequality in language and society under conditions

of contemporary globalization, from a discourse analytical

and ethnographic perspective. His main focus is the

ethnographic study of inequality in society, and

particularly how it relates to language usage. Apart from a

voluminous academic body of work, Blommaert has written

extensively in Dutch, empirically addressing broader social

and political issues in Belgian and Dutch society:

nationalism, populism and democracy, asylum politics, issues

in language and education, and essays on the sociology of

work under neoliberalism. Blommaert's oeuvre in Dutch has

also contributed to the debate on the status of the left on

the political spectrum

Publications



1998. Debating Diversity: Analyzing the Discourse of

Tolerance (with Jef

Verschueren). London: Routledge.

1999. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: Mouton De

Gruyter.

1999. State Ideology and Language in Tanzania. Köln: Rüdiger

Köppe Verlag.

2005. Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

2008. Grassroots Literacy: Writing, Identity and Voice in

Central Africa. London:

Routledge.

2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge:

Cambridge University

Press.

2010. Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Introduction (with Dong

Jie). Bristol:

Multilingual Matters.

2013. Ethnography, Super diversity and Linguistic

Landscapes: Chronicles of

Complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Awards and honours



Ark Prize of the Free Word, 1993.

Emile Verhaeren chair, Free University Brussels (VUB),

Belgium, 2002-3.

Finland Distinguished Professor, University of Jyväskylä,

Finland, 2008-10.

first Barbara Metzger Prize, Wenner-Gren Foundation and

Current Anthropology, 2010.

Chris Bulcaen

Chris Bulcaen is Curriculum manager at Linguistics &

Literature, UGent, Belgium

Formerly he was Secretary & Librarian at English Department,

UGent university

In the past he worked an an editor at Vlabin vzw from

January 2006 to December 2006 (1 year) Antwerp Area,

Belgium and Editor of De Leeswolf & De Leeswelp

Specialist in Youth Literature & Comics

Chris Bulcaen's Education

Lancaster University

Master of Arts (M.A.), Cultural Studies

1993 – 1994

Universiteit Gent



Licentiate degree, African Languages, Literatures, and

Linguistics

1986 – 1991

Publications

Political Linguistics (Belgian Journal of Linguistics) by

Prof. Dr. Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen (Jan 1, 1998)

Handbook of Pragmatics: 1997 Installment by Prof. Dr. Jef

Verschueren, Prof. Dr. Jan-Ola Östman, Prof. Dr. Jan

Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen (Oct 15, 1999)

C.I.E newsletter, book by Chris Bulcaen; 1999

De stem van de vertaler : Chris Bulcaen sprak met Peter

Flynn by Chris Bulcaen

Language: Dutch De Leeswelp : door boeken gebeten De

Leeswelp, Vol. 14, No. 3 (april. 2008), p. 118-119, Vol. 14,

No. 3 (april. 2008), p. 118-119, 2008.

And many more….

B. Date of Publication



This Journal was published for the first time in Annual

Review of Anthropology, Vol. 29 (2000), pp. 447-466 Vol. 29:

447-466 (Volume publication date October 2000)

This source is current and up to date to my topic since this

journal provides a survey of critical discourse analysis

(CDA) furthermore, it is written by a well-known scholar

from a recent school of discourse analysis that concerns

itself with relations of power and inequality in language.

The other reason why I choose this Journal of CDA that

explicitly intends to incorporate social-theoretical in-

sights into discourse analysis and advocates social

commitment and interventionism in research.

The main programmatic features and domains of enquiry of CDA

are discussed here, with emphasis on attempts toward theory

formation by one of CDA's most prominent scholars, Norman

Fairclough.

Another section reviews the genesis and disciplinary growth

of CDA, mentions some of the recent critical reactions to

it, and situates it within the wider picture of a new

critical paradigm developing in a number of language-

oriented (sub) disciplines. In this critical paradigm



topics, such as ideology, Inequality and power figure

prominently, and many scholars productively attempt to

incorporate social-theoretical insights into the study of

language.

C. Edition or Revision

This is the first edition of this publication since I did not

any information related to the its edition or revision, so I

assume this is the first edition of the publication and it does

not have any revision so far. One thing that I am sure is, the

journal was marked as A1 type of journal as it is displayed on

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/386041 .

D. Publisher

The Publisher of this journal is Annual Review that is under

University Press, the address site is

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=publisher+exact+

%22ANNUAL+REVIEWS%22.

This site is under management of Ghent University.

The university was founded by King William I of Orange in 1816

and officially opened on October 9, 1817. The first of


https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=publisher+exact+%22ANNUAL+REVIEWS%22

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=publisher+exact+%22ANNUAL+REVIEWS%22

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/386041


professors had 16 members, 190 students enrolled in the four

faculties: Arts, Law, Medicine and Science.

Today, Ghent University has over 38,000 students and 8,000

staff one of the largest universities in the Dutch language.

Ghent University occupies a special position among the Flemish

universities open, socially committed and pluralistic. 120

departments offer high quality and research-based courses.

Disciplines such as biotechnology, aquaculture,

microelectronics and history enjoy worldwide fame.

E. Title of Journal

The tittle of this journal is Critical Discourse Analysis, by Jan

Blommaert UGent and Chris Bulcaen UGent(2000) ANNUAL REVIEW OF

ANTHROPOLOGY. 29. p.447-466. It is a scholarly journal under the

subject of Languages and Literatures.

Critical Analysis of the Content

CONTENT ANALYSIS

The author's intentions of writing this journal are:

1. To give an overview of the main thrusts of CDA movement

(Critical discourse analysis (CDA) emerged in the late 1980s


https://biblio.ugent.be/person/801001280760



https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=parent+exact+%22ANNUAL+REVIEW+OF+ANTHROPOLOGY%22

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=parent+exact+%22ANNUAL+REVIEW+OF+ANTHROPOLOGY%22

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication?q=year+exact+2000


as a programmatic development in European discourse studies

spearheaded by Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk,

and others).

2. To discuss critically its main concentrations of attention.

3. To situate it in a wider panorama of developments in

linguistics.

4. To show that the critical turn in studies of language is by

no means restricted to any single approach but represents a

more general process of (partial) convergence in theories

and practices of research on language. CDA provided a

crucial theoretical and methodological impetus for this

paradigm, but it could benefit from a closer integration

with new developments.

The bibliography of this journal show us that the author is

very interested on how to make this movement in wider view and

give us a closer integration with this new development. Some

of the author’s sources that guide us to this conclusion are:

1. Fairclough N. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman

2. Fairclough N. 1992a. Discourse and Social Change.

Cambridge, UK: Polity

3. Fairclough N. 1992b. Linguistic and intertextual analysis

within discourse analysis. Discourse Soc. 3:193-217



4. Fairclough N, ed. 1992c. Critical Language Awareness.

London: Longman

5. Fairclough N. 1995a. Media Discourse. London: Arnold

6. Fairclough N. 1995b. Critical Discourse Analysis. London:

Longman

7. Fairclough N. 1996. A reply to Henry Widdowson's

'Discourse analysis: a critical view.' Lang. Lit. 5(1):49-

56

8. Fairclough N, Mauranen A. 1997. The conversationalization

of political discourse: a comparative view.

9. Hymes DH. 1996. Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative

Inequality: Toward an Understanding of Voice. London:

Taylor, Francis

10. van Dijk T. 1987. CommunicatingR acism: Ethnic Prejudice

in Thought and Talk. Newbury Park, CA: Sage

11. van Dijk T. 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge

12. van Dijk T. 1993a. Critical and descriptive goals in

discourse analysis. J. Pragmat. 9:739-63

13. van Dijk T. 1993b. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury

Park, CA: Sage

14. van Dijk T. 1993c. Principles of critical discourse

analysis. Discourse Soc. 4:249-83

15. van Dijk T. 1995. Discourse analysis as ideology analysis.

See Schaffner & Wenden 1995, pp. 17-33



The author also mentions some other phenomena to discuss in this

journal as shown in the abstract of this paper. The phenomena

are:

1. The relations of power and inequality in language.

2. The incorporation of social-theoretical in - sights into

discourse analysis

3. The advocates social commitment and interventionism in

research.

4. The main programmatic features and domains of enquiry of CDA

with emphasis on attempts toward theory formation by one of

CDA's most prominent scholars, Norman Fairclough

5. Another section reviews the genesis and disciplinary growth

of CDA, mentions some of the recent critical reactions to

it.

6. The situation of wider picture of a new critical paradigm

developing in a number of inequality and power figure

prominently.

Some Scholars are quoted here, related to the movement of critical discourse analysis

and its wider development. Beginning with what Wodak (1995:204) stated about the

purpose critical discourse analysis: “ CDA is to analyze opaque as well as transparent

structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested

in language"

The highlight points of this statement are both analyzing opaque

and transparent structural relationship of the four supremacies,

dominance, discrimination, power and control that can be found or



manifested in language. Those fours supremacies will be clearly

found by analyzing the language as suggested by Wodak.

Then, there are also some other scholars’ hypotheses to supports

the thoughts of the author such as:

Chouliaraki& Fairclough

Discourse and Social Change

Fairclough

1. Discourse and characteristic of the economic, social and

cultural changes of late modernity

2. A methodological blueprint for critical discourse analysis in

practice

3. A three-dimensional framework for conceiving of and analyzing

discourse

A. Discourse-as-text

The linguistic choices and patterns in vocabulary( e.g.

wording, metaphor)

Grammar (e.g. transitivity modality),

Cohesion (e.g. conjunction, schemata)

Text structure ( e.g. episoding, turn-taking system)

B. Discourse-as-discursive-practice

Something that is produced, circulated, distributed

consumed in society

Analyzing vocabulary, grammar, cohesion, and text

structure, attention should be given to speech acts,

coherence, and intertextuality.



Manifest intertextuality" (i .e. overtly drawing upon

othert exts)

Constitutive intertextuality" or "interdiscursivity"(i.e.

texts are made up of heterogeneous elements: generic

conventions, discourse types, register, and style).

C. Discourse-as-social-practice

The ideological effects and hegemonic processes

Constructing alliances and integrating classes and groups

The articulation and rearticulation of orders of

discourse is correspondingly one stake in hegemonic

struggle

The author said that Fairclough successfully identifies large-

scale hegemonic processes such as democratization,

commodification, and technologization on the basis of

heteroglossic constructions of text genres and styles. He also

identifies the multiple ways in which individuals move through

such institutionalized discursive regimes, constructing selves,

social categories, and social realities. At the same time, the

general direction is one in which social theory is used to

provide a linguistic meta-discourse and in which the target is a

refined and more powerful

Technique of text analysis

In this journal I found the practice of discourse on a

methodological level:



1. Systemic-functional linguistics (historical research)

2. Discourse-historical method ( tracing the (inter-textual)

history of phrases and arguments

3. The socio-semantic representation of social actors

A. Intended Audience

The type of audience is addressing university learners and

researcher and general audience. This is a specific field of

study under Linguistics and literature, thus the intended

audience must be specific learners and researcher that interested

on Linguistic and Literature fields.

It is also obviously understood from the publications that the

aims of the audience are who interested in linguistic, literature

and English education but most of all, this paper appropriately

right for my needs.

B. Objective Reasoning

This journal covers some facts, hypotheses and interpretation of

the author on the precede theories proposed by the experts on the

field the study.

Most the information appears valid and well-researched since it

is discussing the coherencies, correspondences and the pragmatics

values of the study he conducted, all the information of the data

and theories here are fully supported by the evidences taken from

the previous researches and studies.



The idea and arguments more advanced in line with other works I

have read on the same topics. Even though I found the language

the author use in the abstract of this paper is not free of

emotion arousing words such as: “We provide an overview of the

main thrusts of this movement, discuss critically its main foci

of attention, and situate it in a wider panorama of developments

in linguistics.

C. Coverage

The work updates other sources, substantiate other materials I

have read, and add new information. It extensively covers my

topic.

Even though this material is secondary in the nature of this

field of study but It contributes and suggest a new paradigm on

this study. This paper suggest us to look the Critical discourse

Analysis not positioned CDA as still burdened by a very

"linguistic" outlook, which prevents productive ways of

incorporating linguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions of semiosis

(apparent, for instance, in the very partial interpretation of

Foucault's" discourse" in Fairclough's work). Here as well, a

more ethnographically informed stance, in which linguistic

practice is embedded in more general patterns of human meaning-

ful action, could be highly productive. Goodwin's work could

serve as an example here.



D. Writing Style

The publication is organized logically and the main point is

clearly presented. The text is easy to read and to understand.

The author's argument is not repetitive but mostly he uses very

clear understanding words and more showing emphasizes to the

wider thinking in this field of study.

The descriptions of the problem, in term of sentences, are always

prove the by the A1 journals marked. D. Evaluative Reviews

To support my reasons and the thoughts of the writer I will

locate critical reviews of journals:

CDA practitioners tend to work on applied and applicable topics

and social domains such as the following.

1. Political discourse See, for example, Wodak (1989),

Chilton et al (1998), Fairclough (1989, 1992a), and

Fairclough & Mauranen (1997).

2. Ideology Discourse is seen as a means through which (and

in which) ideologies are being reproduced. Ideology itself

is a topic of considerable importance in CDA. Hodge &

Kress (1979) set the tone with their work. More recently,



van Dijk (1998) has produced a socio-cognitive theory of

ideology.

3. Racism Particular attention within this study is given to

racism. Van Dijk stands out as a prolific author (1987,

1991, 1993b), but the topic has also been covered by many

others (for a survey, see Wodak & Reisig l 1999). Related

to the issue of racism is a recent interest in the

discourse on immigration (e.g. Martin Rojo & van Dijk

1997, van Leeuwen & Wodak 1999).

4. Economic discourse See, for example, Fairclough (1995b).

The issue of globalization has been formulated as an

important preoccupation for CDA (Slembrouck 1993,

Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999:94).

5. Advertisement and promotional culture See, for example,

Fairclough (1989, 1995b), Slembrouck (1993), and

Thorborrow (1998).

6. Media language See, for example, Fairclough (1995a), van

Dijk (1991), Kress (1994), and Martin-Rojo (1995).

7. Gender See especially the representation of women in the

media (e.g. Talbot 1992; Caldas-Coulthard 1 993, 1996;

Clark& Zyngier 1998; Walsh 1998; Thorborrow 1998).

8. Institutional discourse Language plays a role in

institutional practices such as doctor-patient

communication (e.g. Wodak 1997), social work (e.g. Wodak



1996, Hall et al 1997), and bureaucracy ( Sarangi&

Slembrouck 1996)

9. Education See, for example, Kress (1997) and Chouliaraki

(1998). Education is seen as a major area for the

reproduction of social relations, including representation

and identity formation, but also for possibilities of

change. Fairclough and associates have developed a

critical language awareness (CLA) approach that advocates

the stimulation of critical awareness with students of

pedagogical discourses and didactic means (cf Clark et al

1989, 1990; Fairclough 1992c, Ivanic 1998).

10. Literacy CDA studies of literacy have linked up with those

anthropological and sociolinguistic analyses that view

literacy as "situated practices" (e.g. Heath 1983, Street

1995), e.g. in the context of local communities (Barton &

Hamilton 1998) or education (Baynham 1995, New London

Group 1996, Cope & Kalantzis 2000). Scholars working in

these "new literacy studies" have joined efforts in a new

book series (Barton et al 2000, Cope & Kalantzis 2000,

Hawisher & Selfe 2000).

All domains, issues of power asymmetries, exploitation,

manipulation, and structural in equalities are highlighted on

this article; the positive review goes to the journal under

review considered as a valuable contribution to the field? It is



also very informative and humble by showing a valuable

contribution to the field of Linguistic and Literature. Some of

them are:

A New Critical Paradigm

1. Ideology One prominent feature is the development of ideology

into a crucial topic of investigation and theoretical

elaboration

2. Inequality and Power a second feature of the critical

paradigm is the renewed attention to inequality and power in

relation to language in society.

3. Social Theory a third feature of the critical paradigm,

already mentioned in passing, is the common desire to find

social-theoretical support for analytical treatments of

language

4. Assessing CDA

The above selective survey is aimed at demonstrating that

CDA, as an original and stimulating research discipline,

should be situated within a wider panorama of common

concerns, questions, and approaches developing among a much

wider scholarly community.


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