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Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on 5 May 2022 by Amy Luo . Revised on 5 December 2022.

Discourse analysis is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real-life situations.

When you do discourse analysis, you might focus on:

  • The purposes and effects of different types of language
  • Cultural rules and conventions in communication
  • How values, beliefs, and assumptions are communicated
  • How language use relates to its social, political, and historical context

Discourse analysis is a common qualitative research method in many humanities and social science disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies. It is also called critical discourse analysis.

Table of contents

What is discourse analysis used for, how is discourse analysis different from other methods, how to conduct discourse analysis.

Conducting discourse analysis means examining how language functions and how meaning is created in different social contexts. It can be applied to any instance of written or oral language, as well as non-verbal aspects of communication, such as tone and gestures.

Materials that are suitable for discourse analysis include:

  • Books, newspapers, and periodicals
  • Marketing material, such as brochures and advertisements
  • Business and government documents
  • Websites, forums, social media posts, and comments
  • Interviews and conversations

By analysing these types of discourse, researchers aim to gain an understanding of social groups and how they communicate.

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Unlike linguistic approaches that focus only on the rules of language use, discourse analysis emphasises the contextual meaning of language.

It focuses on the social aspects of communication and the ways people use language to achieve specific effects (e.g., to build trust, to create doubt, to evoke emotions, or to manage conflict).

Instead of focusing on smaller units of language, such as sounds, words, or phrases, discourse analysis is used to study larger chunks of language, such as entire conversations, texts, or collections of texts. The selected sources can be analysed on multiple levels.

Discourse analysis is a qualitative and interpretive method of analysing texts (in contrast to more systematic methods like content analysis ). You make interpretations based on both the details of the material itself and on contextual knowledge.

There are many different approaches and techniques you can use to conduct discourse analysis, but the steps below outline the basic structure you need to follow.

Step 1: Define the research question and select the content of analysis

To do discourse analysis, you begin with a clearly defined research question . Once you have developed your question, select a range of material that is appropriate to answer it.

Discourse analysis is a method that can be applied both to large volumes of material and to smaller samples, depending on the aims and timescale of your research.

Step 2: Gather information and theory on the context

Next, you must establish the social and historical context in which the material was produced and intended to be received. Gather factual details of when and where the content was created, who the author is, who published it, and whom it was disseminated to.

As well as understanding the real-life context of the discourse, you can also conduct a literature review on the topic and construct a theoretical framework to guide your analysis.

Step 3: Analyse the content for themes and patterns

This step involves closely examining various elements of the material – such as words, sentences, paragraphs, and overall structure – and relating them to attributes, themes, and patterns relevant to your research question.

Step 4: Review your results and draw conclusions

Once you have assigned particular attributes to elements of the material, reflect on your results to examine the function and meaning of the language used. Here, you will consider your analysis in relation to the broader context that you established earlier to draw conclusions that answer your research question.

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Luo, A. (2022, December 05). Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 21 October 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/research-methods/discourse-analysis-explained/

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COMMENTS

  1. Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples

    Critical discourse analysis (or discourse analysis) is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real life situations.

  2. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Social Change in Women ...

    For data analysis, a sample of forty posts has been collected on five different topics: women in politics, women and the driving ban, women in non-traditional work environments, women and sports, and gender segregation. Using a three-levelled analysis, the posts at hand have been examined from textual, intertextual and socio-cognitive perspectives.

  3. A critical discourse analysis of student and staff ...

    The thesis critically analyses different representations of the student in practice and argues from a social-constructionist perspective that there are multiple constructions of the student which may be deployed concurrently.

  4. 18 Critical Discourse Analysis - Teun A. van Dijk

    Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that prim-arily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.

  5. A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for ...

    Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a qualitative analytical approach for critically describing, interpreting, and explaining the ways in which discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities.

  6. Critical Discourse Analysis - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

    Critical discourse analysis focuses on the investigation of the ways in which social-power, dominance and inequality are practiced, reproduced, and sometimes resisted through the inspection of several forms of communication in relation to social and political contexts (van Dijk, 2015).

  7. Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples

    Discourse analysis is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real-life situations. When you do discourse analysis, you might focus on: The purposes and effects of different types of language; Cultural rules and conventions in communication

  8. Theories and concepts in critical discourse studies: Facing ...

    Over 30 years since its original inception as critical discourse analysis (CDA) by a small group of scholars, critical discourse studies (CDS) is nowadays practised across the globe and has established itself as a widely recognised approach in (critical) social research.

  9. Critical Discourse Analysis - The Handbook of Discourse ...

    Summary. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; better named critical discourse studies [CDS]) is a movement or perspective of multidisciplinary discourse studies that specifically focuses on the discursive reproduction of power abuse, such as sexism, racism, and other forms of social inequality, as well as the resistance against such domination.

  10. Principles of critical discourse analysis - Teun A. van Dijk

    This paper discusses some principles of critical discourse analy-sis, such as the explicit sociopolitical stance of discourse analysts, and a focus on dominance relations by elite groups and institutions as they are being enacted, legitimated or otherwise reproduced by text and talk.