Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourse is “a practice not just of representing the world, but signifying the world, constituting and constructing the world in meaning” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 64). As such, critical discourse analysis (CDA) allows for the development of an account of the role of language, language use, and discourse in the (re)production of dominance and inequity (van Dijk, 1993).

Data to which CDA is applied can vary - any textual source (e.g., books, policy, curriculum, etc.) or discursive form (e.g., speeches, debates, transcripts, narratives). CDA dictates what you look for, and how you look for it - and it must focus on issues of power (that's what the "critical" part of CDA addresses).

Readings to understand the method:

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.

van Dijk, T.A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249-283.

Full text of Gee, J.P. (2011). How to do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit. New York: Routledge.

A very handy, 20-step summary for doing critical discourse analysis based on Hill (2012).

Examples of its application in research:

Pinto, L.E. & Coulson, E. (2012). Social justice and the gender politics of financial literacy education. Canadian Journal of the Association for Curriculum Studies, 9(2), 54-85.

Bührmann, A.D., (2005). The Emerging of the Entrepreneurial Self and Its Current Hegemony. Some Basic Reflections on How to Analyze the Formation and Transformation of Modern Forms of Subjectivity. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(1). Retrieved from: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/518/1122

Additional notes:

Bührmann's (2005, see above for citation) study is an interesting CDA using a corpus of policy documents. She discusses "Variegated and interdependent levels of investigation" and these levels:

• the object or area of knowledge 
• the enunciative modalities
• the construction of concepts
• the strategic choice. 

She also distinguishes between

• power relations
• authority of authorization
• technologies of power
• strategies of power. 

These can be useful systems of organization for other researchers.