Research report, "Critical discourse analysis in teaching and learning foreign languages​​" pot

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING PHAN HƯƠNG a Abstract.. Critical Discourse Analysis first eme

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

PHAN HƯƠNG (a)

Abstract Critical Discourse Analysis first emerged in the 1970s as a form of discourse and text analysis that drew attention to not only formal aspects of language

in texts but also text production and interpretation, and relation of texts to societal impulses and structures It has been attracting the attention of many researchers, both linguists and social researchers In Vietnam, however, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has not yet been known to linguists, researchers, teachers and learners of foreign languages until recently This article aims at providing an overview of basic issues concerning Critical Discourse Analysis In this article we will also briefly discuss the relevance of Critical Discourse Analysis in foreign language education

1 Before addressing Critical

Discourse Analysis, let us recall the

terms discourse and discourse analysis

Cook (1989) distinguishes between two

different kinds of language as potential

objects for language study The first

kind is sentence – the object for the

study of how the rules of language

work The second kind of language is

used “to communicate something and is

felt to be coherent” (p 6) This type of

language is called discourse It is

agreed upon by many scholars that

discourse is language-in-use as opposed

to formal aspects of language, and

discourse analysis (DA) is the search for

how stretches of language become

meaningful and unified In the

evolution of linguistics, there have been

two main approaches to language: the

first one is formal approach being

concerned with language out of context,

taking the rules of language as an

isolated object, and the other one is

functional approach dealing with

language in context (Cook, 1989: 12)

Discourse analysis is a branch of the

second approach Discourse analysis is

carried out by not only linguists but

also by researchers in many other

disciplines such as philosophy, psychology and psychiatry, sociology and anthropology, etc that examine their object of study through language (Cook, 1989: 13)

2 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

is a term used to denote a theory formerly known as Critical Linguistics

As its name suggests, CDA is a discourse analysis approach and it is primarily concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts So how does CDA differs from other DA approaches? Unlike other approaches to the study of language, CDA focuses on not only linguistic issues but also social, political and historical aspects of texts

to reveal the discursive sources of power abuse, dominance and inequality Thus, Critical Discourse Analysis can be simply defined as the analysis of discourse “with an attitude” NguyÔn Hoµ (2006: 37-38) points out that by taking a stance in favour of those people who are less privileged in the modern life in which the gap between the rich and the poor has become more visible, CDA helps to

NhËn bµi ngµy 29/9/2006 Söa ch÷a xong 17/11/2006

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

make changes in social life CDA sees

discourse - language in use in speech

and writing - as “a form of social

practice” and considers the context of

language use to be crucial (Fairclough

& Wodak, 1997: 258) CDA starts from

the perception of discourse (language

and other forms of semiosis) as an

element of social practices, which

constitutes other elements as well as

being shaped by them (Chouliaraki &

Fairclough, 1999: vii) It has been

agreed by many CDA practitioners that

discourse involves power and ideologies

What follows is a brief account of

history of CDA, fundamental concepts

in CDA, and methodology of CDA

2.1 In the 1970s, much linguistic

research was merely concerned with

the study of formal aspects of language

At that time, researchers argued that

these aspects of language constituted

speakers’ linguistic competence and

they studied them separately from

specific instances of language use Even

in pragmatics, where the relation

between language and context was

taken into account, sentences and

components of sentences were still

considered to be the basic units In such

a context, Critical Linguistics, or what

is known today as Critical Discourse

Analysis, emerged as “a form of

discourse and text analysis that

recognized the role of language in

structuring power relations in society”

(Wodak, 2001: 5) CDA from its birth

not only brought into consideration

texts as well as the processes of

producing and interpreting texts, it also

paid attention to their relations to

societal impulses and structures In the

early stage of CDA history, the most

prominently introductory and

explanatory works are those by Kress &

Hodge (1979), Fowler et al (1979), van

Dijk (1985), Fairclough (1989) and

Wodak (ed.) (1989) These CDA scholars made a great attempt to introduce this new approach into the study of language, explain and illustrate the main assumptions, principles, procedures and methodology of CDA (Wodak, 2001:5)

By the end of the 1980s, CDA was able to describe its aims, research interests, chosen perspective and methods of analysis much more specifically and rigidly that hitherto The most important characteristics of critical linguistic research are listed, explained and illustrated in Fairclough (1989), Wodak (1989) Later Fairclough (1992, 1995b) and Chouliaraki & Fairclough (1999) explain and elaborate some advances in CDA, showing the development of the analytical framework for investigating language

in relation to power and ideology and also clarifying the usefulness of CDA in disclosing the discursive nature of much contemporary social and cultural change (Wodak, 2001: 6)

2.2 The concepts of great importance

in CDA are critical, historical, power, and ideology (Wodak, 2001: 3-11) For Wodak, ‘critical’ means “having distance to the data, embedding the data in the social, taking a political stance explicitly” The notion history also occupies a significant position in CDA According to her, any discourse is

“historically produced and interpreted That means every discourse is “situated

in time and space” There are specific historical reasons that drive people to feel, reason, desire and imagine the way they do The importance of the historical contexts of discourse therefore should be highlighted in the processes of interpretation and explanation of discourses ‘Ideology’ in CDA is seen as “an important aspect of establishing and maintaining unequal

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

power relations” Language mediates

ideology in a variety of social

institutions According to Thompson

(quoted in Wodak, 2001: 10) the study

of ideology is the study of “the ways in

which meaning is constructed and

conveyed by symbolic forms of various

kinds” For Eagleton (1994), in studying

ideology one has to take into

consideration the variety of theories

and theorists that have examined the

relation between thought and social

reality (quoted in Wodak, 2001: 10)

‘Power’, according to Wodak, is about

“relations of difference, … particularly

about the effects of differences in social

structures” Surely language itself is

not powerful, but gains power by the

use powerful people make of it

2.3 CDA, according to van Dijk, is

not a specific direction of research

Therefore, it does not have a unitary

theoretical framework He asserts that

there are many types of CDA (e.g

critical analysis of conversation, of

lessons and teaching at school, news

reports in the press, etc.), and they can

be theoretically and analytically diverse

(Meyer, 2001: 17-23)

Methodologies in CDA differ greatly

There can be found in CDA small

qualitative case studies as well as

studies on large data corpora from

fieldwork and ethnography Each

method focuses on different levels of

analysis Siegfried Jager distinguishes

two steps of analysis: firstly a more

content oriented step of structure

analysis, and secondly a more language

oriented step of fine analysis within

which he focuses upon context, text

surface and rhetorical means (Meyer,

2001: 25) Ruth Wodak and Martin

Reisigl work out a four-step strategy of

analyzing racist and discriminatory

discourse: establishing the specific

contents or topics of a specific

discourse, investigating the discursive strategies, studying the linguistic means, and then examining the specific, context-dependent linguistic realizations of the discriminatory stereotypes (Meyer, 2001: 26-27) Van Dijk focuses on various levels in the analysis of ideologies in news discourse: Social analysis, cognitive analysis and discourse analysis (van Dijk, 1995: 20) Similarly, Fairclough develops a three-dimensional framework for critical analysis of news discourse: text, discourse practice and sociocultural practice (Fairclough, 1995b: 59)

The analysis of text is, for Fairclough, “form – and – meaning analysis”, that is, “the analysis of … interwoven meanings in texts necessarily comes down to the analysis

of the forms of texts” He argues that

“form is part of content” and content cannot be properly analyzed without form simultaneously being analyzed because “contents are always necessarily realized in forms, and different contents entail different forms and vice versa” (Fairclough, 1995a: 133-188) Linguistic forms under analysis should include vocabulary, grammar, semantics, the sound system, and cohesion – organization above the sentence level (Fairclough, 1995b: 57) Fairclough also suggests three stages that CDA runs through: description, interpretation and explanation (in NguyÔn Hoµ, 2006: 160) In reality, different discourse analysts adopting different CDA approaches employ various lists of analytical categories For example, Jager takes into account many linguistic aspects such as certain

metaphorism, vocabulary and styles, actors, references, etc.; van Dijk concentrates on a great deal of linguistic markers, some among which

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

are: stress and intonation, word order,

lexical style, topic choice, schematic

organization, etc (Meyer, 2001: 25) The

analysis of discourse practice involves

sociocognitive aspects of text production

and consumption For Fairclough

(1995a: 134), sociocultural practice may

involve “different levels of social

organization” such as “the context of

situation”, “the institutional context”,

and “the wider societal context” or

“context of culture” Fairclough (1995b:

62) outlines more specifically three

aspects of the sociocultural context of a

communicative event: economic,

political and cultural According to him,

when considering a communicative

event, the analyst should take into

consideration not necessarily all levels

but any level that might be relevant to

understanding that particular event

According to Fairclough, critical

discourse analysis of any

communicative event is the analysis of

relationships between the three

above-mentioned dimensions of that event

Discourse practice plays the mediating

role between text and sociocultural

practice The relationship between the

sociocultural and textual facets is an

indirect one and made by way of

discourse practice That is, properties of

sociocultural practice shape texts, but

indirectly through shaping the nature

of discourse practice, which is realized

in features of texts

Regarding collecting data, Meyer (2001:

23-25) maintains that in CDA there is

no typical way, and that no clear-cut

boundary between data collection and

data analysis can be made Data

collection is not regarded as “a specific

phase that must be completed before

analysis begins” and “is never

completely excluded It can be spelt out

that researchers may begin to analyze

data right after the first collection in

order to find indicators for particular concepts and expand them into categories, then collect further data In the analyzing process, new questions may arise, and the answers to these questions can only be found on the basis of analysis of new data or re-examination of earlier data The linguistic character of CDA becomes evident in the analysis of data since

“CDA strongly relies on linguistic categories”

CDA has opened a new approach to the study of language and also the study of linguistic aspect of social phenomena With its view of discourse (language in use) as social practice and its methods of analyzing discourse from

an interdisciplinary perspective, CDA allows us to have a deeper insight into the relations between language and society, more precisely between language use and language users’ opinions and attitudes behind linguistic features in discourse

3 Another important issue that needs to be addressed is the theory upon which Fairclough (1995a, 1999, 2003) and many other researchers draw for their analytical framework This is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),

a linguistic theory particularly associated with Michael Halliday According to Halliday, this theory of language can help researchers to make transparent the relationship between the grammatical system and the social and personal needs that language is required to serve In discussing the role

of SFL in CDA, Fairclough (2003) points out that SFL is a valuable source for critical discourse analysis since it is concerned with the relationship between language and other elements and aspects of social life

It has been the foundation for Fairclough’s analytical framework of

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

CDA since there is a “complementary

relationship” between SFL and CDA

Fairclough & Chouliaraki (1999: 140)

state that in SFL lexicogrammar is

“functionally grounded, shaped by the

social functions it serves, and … built

around the intersection of the

‘macrofunctions’ of language” The

‘macrofunctions’ of language include

the ideational function (language in the

construction and representation of

experience in the world), the

interpersonal function (language in the

enactment of social relations and the

construction of social identities), and

the textual function (language in the

specifically semiotic – textual – form of

productive practice) Corresponding to

these three macrofunctions of language

are three major ‘networks’ of

grammatical system (transitivity, mood

and modality, and information) In the

light of SFL text is not static but is seen

as always located in and participating

in the social process, and language is

seen dialectically as ‘structured’ and

‘structuring’ The relationship between

the semiotic and the social in SFL is

viewed as a dialectical one in the sense

that language “internalize differences

in social membership and relations”,

and the social itself “is constructed as

internalizing language” (p 142)

Since CDA’s subject of study is

discourse – language in use, which is

“always simultaneously constitutive of

(i) social identities, (ii) social relations

and (iii) system of knowledge and

beliefs” (Chouliaraki & Fairclough,

1999: 131), here is where SFL can make

contributions to CDA They claim that

CDA analysts “need a theory of

language such as Halliday’s, which

stresses its multifunctionality and sees

any text as simultaneously enacting …

the ‘ideational’, ‘interpersonal’, and

‘textual’ functions of language” What is

more, since discourses are ideological and there is no arbitrariness of signs, SFL can therefore be considered to be the most important for the text analysis

in order to uncover the ideological meanings hidden within texts

To cut it short, all the above-mentioned information provides proofs for the claims made by Fairclough & Chouliaraki (1999: 139) that SFL “has most in common with CDA and most to offer CDA”, and that it “theorizes language in a way which harmonizes far more with the perspective of critical social science than other theories of language”

4 Let us now proceed to a brief discussion of the relevance of Critical Discourse Analysis in foreign language teaching and learning Why Critical Discourse Analysis can contribute to teaching and learning foreign languages? We will limit ourselves to teaching and learning reading comprehension as a foreign language skill in universities Here come some important questions

The first question that needs to be taken into account is how important discourses and texts are in education For van Dijk (van Dijk, 1981),

“discourses play a primary role in education” as “most of our learning materials consists of texts”, and the various uses of texts ‘influence the process of learning: the acquisition of knowledge, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, abilities, and other cognitive and emotional changes’ (p 2) Van Dijk also asserts that reading and comprehension of the various discourse materials is ‘one of the most serious textual problems’ (p 21) In the case of foreign language learning, the learner reads texts not only to study the target language but also to learn from text and to learn about the world Reading

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

materials in a target language for

effective language learning and

profound understanding is, therefore, a

challenging task, especially those

written by foreigners

The question that follows is why it

is a challenging task Fairclough

(1995b: 106-107) observes that any text

is a combination of explicit and implicit

meanings He asserts that the reader of

that text should focus not just on what

is ‘there’ in the text In other word, it is

of equal importance to be sensitive to

both ‘presences’ (what is ‘there’ in the

text) and ‘absences’ (what might have

been ‘there’, but aren’t) To achieve this,

readers should develop the skill of

reading between the lines, or ‘critical

reading’, the term used by Wallace

(1992: 59), that is, readers need to

become more critical audiences

Wallace claims that one of the goals of

critical reading is reconstructing the

discourses within the text and ‘Central

to the idea of critical reading is an

awareness of the role that language

plays in conveying not just a

propositional message but an

ideological one’ (p 68-69)

Then, what can be done to train

students to become critical readers, not

just for the purpose of their foreign

language learning in schools but for the

sake of their life-long reading? What

follow are some implications of CDA to

teaching and learning reading

comprehension First, reading activity

should always be placed in social and

historical context Second, students

should be encouraged to look critically

at texts themselves and at the whole

process of reading as dependent on

social context Third, there is a constant

need for teachers to guide students

(readers) to an awareness of ideological

content as well as propositional meaning of the reading texts Last but not least, teachers and students should not always accept automatically the writer’s view of the world which language tends to impose on the readers Rather, they need to question and if necessary reject the pre-established view of the world presented

in reading texts

In short, since discourses and texts are vital in education in general and foreign language teaching and learning

in particular, how to use texts is significant For an effective use of texts

in teaching and learning reading comprehension, both teachers and learners need to develop the skill of critical reading CDA is an approach to language study that can make its practical contributions to the field of foreign language education in the sense that it drives teachers and learners to

be aware of social and historical aspects

of texts as well as the role of both text producers and text interpreters when dealing with them

To make clear the role of CDA in foreign language teaching and learning, let us now consider an example of how CDA can be useful in teaching and learning reading comprehension The text chosen as a possible reading material for students of English is a news report on Iraq in a British newspaper, The Guardian The title of the news report is “UN team finds Iraq has illegal missiles” This text is authentic in the sense that it is not written for pedagogic purpose The general aims of the reading tasks are to encourage reflective critical reading of the text and to help raise awareness of the ideology of the text

§¹i häc Vinh T¹p chÝ khoa häc, tËp XXXVI, sè 1b-2007

Pre-reading

tasks

- What is your personal opinion about the topic?

- What is the topic? (ask the students to scan the headline, subheading)

- What does the title tell you?

- Why has the topic been selected?

While-reading

tasks

- Ask all students to read the whole text and find the answers

to given questions

- Match the words in column A with their definitions in column

B

- Say whether the following statements are true or false

- Find a word/phrase

in the text to complete the summary paragraph

- Ask each group to read a paragraph and write 5 questions, then exchange the paragraphs and answer questions about a different paragraph generated by another group

- Find presupposition-embedded clauses What presuppositions are they? Why are they embedded

in the text?

- How does the writer construct the image of Iraq

as possessing illegal missiles? (lexical repetition)

- What is the image of the UN team? What strategies does the writer use to achieve this? (lexicalization, voice usage, etc.)

- How does the writer build up the US and Britain’s determination to take action on Iraq?

- Who is writing to whom?

Post-reading

tasks

- Write a summary

of the text

- Do you think Iraq has illegal missiles?

- What message does the writer want to pass on to the readers?

- Do you think it is a true message? Why/why not?

- In what other ways could the text have been written? (less hostile toward Iraq)

The above suggested questions help

clarify how CDA can be applied into

teaching and learning English as

foreign language A reading

comprehension activity from the critical

perspective does not simply require an understanding of what is present in the text but also an interpretation of what

is hidden from the text

Conclusion

With the emergence of critical

discourse analysis, there has been a

new approach to the study of language

that takes into consideration not only

formal aspects of language in texts but

also the role of text producers and

interpreters, and the relation between

texts and social aspects as well In

other words, CDA provides a theoretical

framework and an effective tool for the

study of language in use and linguistic

aspect of social phenomena What can

help us achieve a deeper insight into

the relations between language and

society, more precisely between language use and power and ideology brought into discourse by language users, is that CDA sees discourse (language in use) as social practice and that CDA attempts at analyzing discourse from an interdisciplinary perspective Beside its significance in linguistic and social researches, CDA also plays an active role in language teaching and learning The knowledge

of CDA will help raise the awareness of the importance of (i) processes of text production and interpretation, (ii)

Đại học Vinh Tạp chí khoa học, tập XXXVI, số 1b-2007

discursive practices used in texts, and

(iii) what is present in texts as well as

what is absent from texts It can help

people become conscious of “how

language can be disrespectful,

offensive, excusive, or the opposite”

(Janks, H & Ivanic, R., 1992: 312) This critical view of discourses and texts will bring about a better understanding and use of texts in teaching and learning foreign languages, particularly reading comprehension

References

[1] Chouliaraki, L & Fairclough, N (1999) Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

[2] Cook, G (1989) Discourse Oxford: Oxford University Press

[3] Fairclough, N.L (1995a) Critical Discourse Analysis: The critical study of language London: Longman

[4] Fairclough, N.L (1995b) Media discourse London: Edward Arnold

[5] Fairclough, N.L & Wodak, R (1997) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, in T.A van Dijk (ed.), Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, Vol.2 London: Sage, pp 258-284

[6] Meyer, M (2001) ‘Between Theory, Method, and Politics: Positioning of the Approaches to CDA’, in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis London: Sage Publications, pp 15-31

[7] Nguyễn Hoà (2006) Phân Tích Diễn Ngôn Phê Phán: Lý Luận và Phương Pháp

Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia

[8] van Dijk, T.A (1981) ‘Discourse Studies and Education’, Applied Linguistics, 2,

pp 1-26

[9] Wallace, C (1992) ‘Critical literacy awareness in the EFL classroom’, in N.L Fairclough (ed.), Critical Language Awareness London & New York: Longman,

pp 59-62

[10] Wodak, R (2001) ‘What CDA is about – a Summary of Its History, important Concepts and its Development’, in R Wodak and M Meyer (eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis London: Sage Publications, pp 1-13

TóM TắT

PHÂN TÍCH DIễN NGôN PHê PHáN TRONG DạY VÀ HọC NgoạI NGữ

Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán (CDA) kể từ khi bắt đầu xuất hiện vào những năm

70 của thế kỷ trước đã thu hút sự quan tâm của các học giả kể cả các nhà ngôn ngữ học và xã hội học Đường hướng phân tích diễn ngôn này không chỉ phân tích các khía cạnh cấu trúc ngôn ngữ trong văn bản mà còn quan tâm tới các quá trình tạo lập và diễn giải văn bản, đồng thời xem xét mối quan hệ giữa văn bản và các xung

đột cũng như cấu trúc xã hội ở Việt Nam phương pháp phân tích diễn ngôn này chưa được nhiều người biết đến Mục tiêu của bài viết này nhằm cung cấp cho độc giả một cái nhìn toàn cảnh các vấn đề cơ bản liên quan tới CDA đồng thời bước đầu bàn luận về vai trò của phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán trong việc dạy và học ngoại ngữ