Mighty Digests # 21: ROGERS, An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education (Chapter 1)

Rogers, R. (2011). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education, 2nd edition. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Chapter 1 – Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis in Educational Research

Power

“Critical approaches to discourse analysis recognize that inquiry into meaning making is always also an exploration into power.” (p. 1)

“Blommaert suggests that critical discourse studies should offer an analysis of the effects of power, the outcomes of power, of what power does to people/groups/societies and how this impact comes about.” (p. 3)

“Critical analysis of discourse is an analysis not only of what is said, but of what is left out; not only what is present in the text, but what is absent.” (p. 15)

Critical Social Theory (CST)

“Critical Social Theory (CST) provides a theoretical foundation for critical approaches to discourse analysis. […] At the heart of critical social theory is a commitment to work with heart, head, and hands.” (p. 4)

“It is important to note that while critique is an important part of the “critical project” it is not the end goal. The end goal is to hope, to dream, and to create alternative realities that are based in equity, love, peace, and solidarity.” (p. 5)

Discourse

“Discourse is never just an artifact but a set of consumptive, productive, distributive, and reproductive processes that exist in relation to the social world.” (p. 6)

Analysis and important authors

“Three of the most influential traditions of critical approaches to discourse analysis in educational research are those of James Gee […], Norman Fairclough […], and Gunther Kress.” (p. 10)

James Gee

“Over time his work has included narrative research (1985, 1991, 1999), analysis of situated cognition (1992), social linguistics (1996), and discourse analysis (1999/2005) of video games and learning (2003).” (p. 11)

“Gee reminds us that anytime we are communicating, we are building social relationships, identities, and figured worlds. The question for the discourse analyst is: What sign systems are being used to accomplish these social goals?” (p. 11)

“Gee’s approach to discourse analysis asks the analyst to attend to learning – how meanings are built and transformed over time.” (p. 12)

Norman Fairclough

“Fairclough has consistently worked on the question of mediation between the textual and social work. […] This recursive movement between linguistics and social analysis, a key feature of Fairclough’s approach, is what makes CDA a dialectical approach.” (pp. 12-13)

Gunther Kress

“[He] developed an approach for making sense of the social meanings of texts through a methodology strongly influenced by systemic functional linguistics.” (p. 13)

“Language as Ideology (1979) […] was concerned with how power gets realized in linguistic forms.” (p. 13)

“He […] viewed a speaker as a socially located individual who uses semiotic systems to achieve particular functions or goals.” (p. 13)

“Ideology [can] be found in many forms of representation, not just language.” (p. 13)

“A social semiotic approach is concerned with how meanings are made. […] A key development has been the development of a transcription system that does not privilege language over other representational systems; or, put another way, a convention for representing modally dense meaning making (Norris, 2004). Depending on the social practice, this could mean that body kinesthesics or gestures (not language) are most salient in meaning making.” (p. 14)