Discourse-Analytic Approaches

to Text & Talk

Research Project 2024-2025 Mona F. Attia

 OUTLINE

• Introduction
• De nition of ‘Discourse’
• Conversation Analysis (CA)
• Discourse Analysis (DA)
• Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
• Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA)
• Conclusion
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 Introduction

• Discourse analytic methodology is mainly qualitative.

• Developments in linguistics:
• Chomsky’s focus on linguistic competence.
• The introduction of the concept of “communicative competence”.
• The study of everyday conversation.
• Focus on the study of real language use within its context.
• Language is not a neutral medium, but a form of social practice (constitutes &
re ects social realities).
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 Introduction (cont’d)

• Four signi cant discourse analytic approaches with di erent

epistemological paradigms.

• Conversation Analysis (CA); Discourse Analysis (DA); Critical Discourse

Analysis (CDA); Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA)

• A key way to di erentiate between them is in terms of the relationship

between micro-analytical and macro-analytical approaches.

• The di erence is between micro-analytical (bottom-up) approaches (CA),

macro-analytical (top-down) approaches (CDA), the combination of both (DA)
or challenging both (FPDA)
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 Definition of ‘Discourse’

• Discourse is a contested term, having di erent de nitions.

• Language above the level of sentence, a sequence of sentences or
utterances, forming a text.

• Language in use
• Language in social context
• The situational context of language use, involving the interaction between
reader/writer and text. ff
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 Conversation A analysis (CA)

• The main source of inspiration for CA is ethnomethodology.

• CA is based on the belief that ‘talk-in-interaction’ has clear rules of how
language works.

• In everyday conversation, utterances are social actions which speakers use to

get things done or to avoid getting things done.

• So, everyday conversation constructs social realities.

• CA investigates “how turn-taking within a stretch of talk is negotiated between
participants, in order to produce some form of social action or ‘reality’” (p.122)
 Conversation Analysis (CA) (cont’d)

• The key features of CA:

• Orderliness: socially organized structure of interpersonal action; sequential
turn-taking

• Data-centered approach: focus on the transcript data; a micro-analytical

approach to spoken discourse

• Neutral and subjective stance: speakers’ context is irrelevant unless it is

part of the interaction.
 Conversation Analysis (CA) (cont’d)

• CA is concerned with both everyday conversation as well as professional and workplace conversations.
• There are di erences between formal and informal settings.
• Contributions of CA:
• How participants construct conversations within social contexts.
• Mechanism of turn-taking, how such mechanisms are violated.
• Allows linguistic data to be analyzed neutrally.
• Can be used as a tool in other elds.
• To conclude, CA approach uses microanalysis methodology, a bottom-up approach, focussing on
the value of the data itself.
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 Discourse Analysis (DA)

• Like CA, DA has its origin in sociology.

• Like CA, DA focuses on linguistic performance withs orderliness and
meaningfulness.

• Like CA, DA can study language in its own right or can be used as a tool in other
disciplines.

• Unlike CA, DA takes context into consideration.

• According to DA, “speci c forms of language use were seen to construct di erent
versions of reality.” (p.124)

•
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 Discourse Analysis (DA) (cont’d)

• The key features of DA:

• Principle of variability: used for a variety of functions, having variable
consequences.

• Constructed and constructive nature of language: any account of

experience is a form of interpretation, constituting a new version of reality.

• Interpretative repertoire: refers to recurrent features that evaluate actions,

events and any other phenomena.

• A combination of micro- and micro-analytical approaches: the use of

linguistic features to interpret social and contextual processes.
 Discourse Analysis (DA) (cont’d)

• Contributions of DA:
• Evolved into a theoretical framework, developing the eld of linguistics.
• Its social and constructionist and interpretative stance
• Combination of microanalysis of language and microlevel discussion about the constitution of
di erent versions of reality.

• Limitations of DA:
• A lack of a formal apparatus to conduct the microanalysis of language.
• Borrowing methods eclectically from di erent elds.
• To conclude, recent versions of DA “have become more closely associated with Discursive
Psychology…, which in turn has some links with CDA” (p.126).
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 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

• Evolved in the early 1990s.

• Critical Linguistics is the forerunner of CDA.
• Di erent forms of CDA: French Discourse Analysis (focus on macro-
linguistic features), Social Semiotics (focus on micro-linguistic features),,
Socio-cognitive approach, Discourse-historical Approach (combines both
features).

• Common reference point for all approaches is Halliday’s Systemic

Functional Grammar
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 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (cont’d)

• CDA, like CA and DA, analyses real, extended spoken and written discourse.
• Unlike CA, CDA applies mainly macro-analytical approach.
• CDA focuses on how language works within institutional and political
discourses in order to uncover inequalities in social relations.

• CDA, unlike CA and DA, does not regard itself as a sub discipline of DA or a
methodological approach.

• CDA regards itself as a ‘critical’ perspective, that can be combined with other
approaches within di erent disciplines related to linguistics and social
sciences.
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 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (cont’d)

• The key features of CDA:

• Language as social practice: discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially shaped.
• Relationship between language and power: discourses (re)produce unequal power relations.
• A committed emancipatory agenda: CDA chooses the perspective of those who su er, critically
analyzing those in power.

• Text and context: dialectical relationship between reading of a text and its context and social structure.
• Self-re exivity: CD analysts are explicit about their assumptions and value systems
• Interdiscursivity/intertextuality: discourses and texts have traces of other discourses and texts.
• Deconstruction: aims to uncover how binary power relations constitute identities, creating social
inequalities.
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 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (cont’d)

• Contributions of CDA:
• Focus on institutional discourse where di erentials in power are systemic.
• Providing di erent models of analysis and tools to analyze public and media discourse.
• Limitations of CDA:
• Criticized for vagueness of its method, methodology and analytical approaches.
• Criticized for its biased interpretations of discourse.
• Questioned about representativeness, selectivity and bias in the choice of data.
• To conclude, CDA needs “to declare its principles and to marry ideological commitment to the
pursuit of rigorous, replicable and retrievable research methods.” (p.129)
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Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA)

• Like CDA, FPDA has its roots in DA approaches.

• FPDA mainly originated from Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis.
• FPDA embraced a feminist post-structuralist perspective.
• The main focus is on gender di erentiation.
• Like CDA, FPDA embraces some concepts such as: language as social practice,
the relationship between language and power, self-re exivity of the researcher,
intertextuality and deconstruction.

• However, FPDA is not a sub-branch of CDA, but a contrasting, supplementary

paradigm.
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Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) (cont’d)

• The key features of FPDA:

• Not an emancipatory agenda, but a transformative quest: focuses on localized
social transformations that are vital in the quest to challenge dominant texts.

• The diversity and multiplicity of speakers’ identities: many powerful variables

construct speakers’ identities.

• Complexity rather than polarization of subjects of study: challenges binary

thinking that structures thoughts in oppositional pairs.

• An interplay between micro- and macro-analysis: draws upon both levels of

analysis.
 Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA) (cont’d)

• Contributions of FPDA:
• O ers a supplementary approach, complementing other methods.
• A multi-perspectival approach, combining di erent methodological tools.
• The post-structuralist, supplementary approach encourages several competing readings unlike CDA.
• Every reading can be contested in the light of competing perspectives or methods of analysis.
• Limitations of FPDA:
• Both CDA and FPDA can generate “new discourses to suit their ideological (CDA) or epistemological
(FPDA) purposes” (pp.132-3)

• To conclude, FPDA needs to device linguistic methods of analysis.

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 Conclusion

• CA is a micro-analytical approach, o ering a theoretical framework and a

terminology for analyzing spoken discourse.

• DA o ers linguistics a bridge between mico-and macro-analysis, in its concept

of interpretative repertoire.

• CDA focuses on the critical perspective, concerned with macro-societal

processes such as inequality, abuse of power, transcending interest in language
for language’s sake.

• FPDA shows how the contradiction between mico- and macro-approaches is

irrelevant. It uses micro-linguistic analysis as a reference point to identify larger-
scale discourse shifts in power relations.
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 Sources

Baxter, J. (2010). “Discourse-Analytical Approaches to Text and Talk ” in

Litosseliti, L. (ed.) Research Methods in Linguistics. Continuum.