CDA Assignment 3 PDF
CDA Assignment 3 PDF
CDA Assignment 3 PDF
the basis of CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) framework in studying the influence of power
relations on discourse, through social and linguistic analysis. Two case studies are discussed
in the following in relation to the use of Fairclough’s CDA approach in analysing politic and
Thomas Huckin, an English professor at University of Utah, used his own correspondence
explaining the discourse of condescension that is generally found in most political discourse
of the officials. In his letter, Thomas stated several reasons to justify his objection over the
government’s decision to slash the education funding and transfer the funds to a massive
project of road building project. In return, Thomas received a letter as an official response
from Senator Clayton Johnson. Thomas carefully analysed the letter and how the response
was structured. He then deduced three observations as to what makes the correspondence a
good example of the discourse of condescension. First, Thomas noticed the evasion , or “the
textual silence”, in the response from directly addressing the points raised by Thomas in his
first letter. Thomas raised several reasons why government should not sacrifice education
funding to finance the road building project, and suggested the raise of fees on road users
(toll or taxes). The letter from Senator Clayton, however, did not touch on any of the
substance or topics, instead, provided an epistolary brush-offs which lead to Thomas’ second
observation. It was noticed that the official’s response is comprised of a pastiche of different
discourse, mainly the bureaucratese opening and closing of the sentence, the fortune-cookie
discourse and the paternalistic discourse of the sentences that formed body of the text.
Thomas made his third observation on the letter’s ambiguity in aspect of speech-act. The
absence of personal pronouns (I and You) in some sentences prompted the need to make
inferences on the statements, in which Thomas realized that the senator was implying that
Thomas was “not truly objective”, does not understand the issue from “all of different sides”,
and “lack of correct information” (Huckin, 2002). This observation is further supported from
the repetitive use of words such as “opinion” and “false perceptions” in the text (Huckin,
2002). It may not be the official’s intention to come across offensive, however, the politeness
strategy failed miserably in its delivery. After the analysis done on microscopic and
in what Senator Clayton represented himself in public as someone determined to “get the
governments off our back” in contrast to his official response in the letter, which Thomas
claimed that the official exudes air of superiority, and that makes him no different than other
politicians (Huckin, 2002). The purpose of Thomas’ analysis was to cultivate the civic
literacy among civilians, especially young adults in participating the local politics. Through
the CDA framework, it could be used as tool in honing rhetorical sensibilities and in
developing acute sense of awareness of the power abuse by politicians through the
In a paper presented by Taylor (2002), she examined how CDA would be valuable in
analysing the process of policy making as well as how it could be used for other social goals,
which would in turn further social change. She cites Fairclough, stating that his many
researches have established that CDA looks at the relationships between texts and the cultural
or social representations of the world. In her paper, she studies education policy research
specifically, and calls policy making an “arena of struggle over meaning”, using a CDA
approach as it investigates the usage of language amongst power relations. Taylor uses
interdiscursive and linguistic analysis to analyse various policy texts that were taken from the
Education Queensland’s 2010 strategy, which was produced in 2000, to reform Queensland’s
state education. In her analysis, she found change to be a major theme, with students,
teachers, and schools changing for the better. There was a tone of uncertainty throughout one
of the texts analysed as well, as seen through the phrases “a challenge facing education”,
among other examples given. It can be inferred that the uncertainty seen in the text was
inserted so that the theme of change would be one that is welcomed. Another major theme
that was present was globalisation and flexibility, both of which were linked. Taylor stated
that the two themes above came under neo-liberal and social democratic discourses, which
reinforced the link to public communities and how education is supposed to serve the public.
On a linguistic perspective, there were many declarative statements that were present in the
text, as well as an urgent undertone throughout, as seen with the usage of words like “should”
and “must”. Furthermore, another dominant theme seen in the texts was the future, along with
the vision for the state. All in all, the main themes mentioned in Taylor’s analysis all tie
together for policy texts. Policy making is so that the welfare of the state will continue to be
maintained, and these themes highlight that these policies intend to make the lives of the
general public better through education. However, the researcher also found that there was a
subtle discursive shift. The voice of the active citizen, also known as social democratic
discourse, although mentioned, was a minority. The power relations can be seen here as well,
In conclusion, CDA can be a useful tool when analysing and researching policy change, as
well as studies on rhetorical strategy used in political discourse by politicians. Both of these
issues are related to our society at large, and are important in driving social change.
(971 words)
References
Barton and G. Stygall (Eds.), Discourse studies in composition. Retrieved on 27th July from
http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/wrconf08/Pdf_Articles/Huckin_Article.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiJ8
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Taylor, S. (2002). Critical Discourse Analysis in education policy research - to what ends?,