A critical discourse analysis of american ideologies embedded in some american online news on the conflicts in the south china sea from 2014 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES QUÁCH HẢI YẾN A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN IDEOLOGIES

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

QUÁCH HẢI YẾN

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN

IDEOLOGIES EMBEDDED IN SOME AMERICAN ONLINE NEWS

ON THE CONFLICTS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA FROM 2014-2015

PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN VỀ HỆ TƯ TƯỞNG MỸ TRONG CÁC BẢN TIN ĐIỆN TỬ MỸ VỀ CÁC CUỘC XUNG ĐỘT Ở BIỂN ĐÔNG GIAI ĐOẠN

2014-2015

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HANOI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

QUÁCH HẢI YẾN

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN

IDEOLOGIES EMBEDDED IN SOME AMERICAN ONLINE NEWS

ON THE CONFLICTS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA FROM 2014-2015

PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN VỀ HỆ TƯ TƯỞNG MỸ TRONG CÁC BẢN TIN ĐIỆN TỬ MỸ VỀ CÁC CUỘC XUNG ĐỘT Ở BIỂN ĐÔNG GIAI ĐOẠN

2014-2015

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Supervisor: Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn

HANOI - 2017

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis, entitled “A Critical Discourse Analysis of

American ideologies embedded in some American online news on the conflicts in the South China Sea from 2014-2015” has been carried out in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Master of Art at the University of Languages and International Studies This work is original and all the sources that I have used or

quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references

Hanoi - 2017

Quách Hải Yến

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, for his encouragement and support throughout the process of studying I have especially appreciated his gentle manner of giving feedback and

the wealth of ideas I have been introduced to over these years

I would like to give my very special thanks to my friends and the members of my family who have been supporting me in various ways

ABSTRACT

This is a qualitative study that presents the findings of a linguistic analysis

on American online news on the conflicts of the South China Sea from 2014-2015 The research has applied Fairclough‟s three-dimension framework and Halliday‟s Systemic functional grammar to identify and explain how American ideologies are portrayed and represented through language used in the American online news written by the American reporters In this research the writer used the descriptive method to study the problem There were ten newspapers collected from some well-known online websites such as CNN, Los Angeles Times, NBC News, New York Times and Center for Strategic and International Studies The use of transitivity, metaphors and negative sentences are analyzed to see how ideologies of the journalists are embedded in the news The findings reveal clearly the ideologies of the American that they are in approval of law-based, equal and anti-hegemonic policy towards the South China Sea conflicts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION……….….………….iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

PART A 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aim and objectives of the study 3

3 Research question 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Structure of the study 4

PART B.…… ……… …….5

DEVELOPMENT……… ……… 5

CHAPTER 1 5

LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Discourse analysis 5

1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 6

1.2.1 The origin of Critical Discourse Analysis 6

1.2.2 The definition of Critical Discourse Analysis 7

1.2.3 Critiques to CDA 9

1.2.4 The relations of CDA to Power and Ideology 10

1.3 Michael Halliday‟s systemic functional grammar 12

1.4 Norman Fairclough and CDA 15

1.5 A review of related studies 22

CHAPTER 2 25

METHODOLOGY 25

2.1 Research question 25

2.2 Research approach 25

2.3 Research method 26

2.4 Framework of data analysis 27

CHAPTER 3 29

FINDINGDS AND DISCUSSIONS 29

3.1 Transitivity analysis 29

3.1.1 Mental process 29

3.1.2 Verbal process 30

3.1.3 Relational process 32

3.2 Metaphors 34

3.3 Negative sentences 35

PART C 36

CONCLUSION 36

1 A summary of findings 38

2 Limitations and recommendation for further studies 40

REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I

PART A INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter provides a general description of the research work It covers the following: research topic, research purpose, research questions, theoretical background, research strategy, and finally the outline of the thesis

1 Rationale of the study

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a recent school of discourse analysis,

is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which views “language

as a form of social practice” (Fairclough, 1989) In the modern times, the mass media such as newspapers, magazines, broadcasts, etc are playing a vital role in human life Media discourse, one of the seven fields of CDA, has become the primary source of information, which can standardize and control social life and personal values

In recent years, the South China Sea‟s conflicts has been a matter of controversy all around the world, especially in some powerful countries such America, China and other Asian countries There are thousands of online news

on this issue produced every day and they can be found in numerous websites This study is based on the analytic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) described by Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1995a, 1995b), and Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to analyse the data to find out the American ideologies through the discourse

O‟Halloran (2003, p.1), views the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as

a branch of linguistics that specifically searches and identifies the traces of cultural and ideological meaning in spoken and written language; while Parker (1992, p.5) looks at discourse in general as a system of statements which constructs an object A lot of work on discourse analysis has been carried out by

a number of experts in the field The quest for gaining a clear understanding of the meaning behind some speeches both written and spoken, has given rise to CDA Often times, some speeches and news texts are masked in secrecy and listeners can sometimes struggle to understand the meaning behind the spoken words CDA provides a good platform for explaining spoken and written language

Moreover, CDA uses a number of techniques to resolve the meaning of some texts The 21st century society is now immersed with a lot of information coming from the news media and coming from different kinds of people equally serving a variety of purposes In order to understand the true nature of news reports, namely the social and power relationship, the hidden ideologies, and the way they present people and issues, it is necessary to employ CDA

Tensions between China and Vietnam over the disputed South China Sea are at their highest levels in years On May 2, 2014, the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) placed its deep sea drilling rig HD-981 in disputed waters south of the Paracel Islands Vietnam objected to the placement, declaring that the rig is located on its continental shelf China has since sent approximately 80 ships, including seven military vessels, along with aircraft to support the rig In response, Hanoi dispatched 29 ships to attempt to disrupt the rig‟s placement and operations The situation escalated dramatically

on May 7, when Vietnam accused Chinese vessels of turning high powered water cannons on the Vietnamese ships and eventually ramming several vessels The implications of these developments are significant However, few attempts have so far been made to analyze language use in online news related to this topic Therefore, under the light of CDA the writer will attempt to unravel the American ideologies behind the American online news and what exactly the writers were trying to say about the conflicts on the South China Sea

2 Aim and objectives of the study

The study aims to:

 Investigate American ideologies embedded in some American online news on the conflicts in the South China Sea from 2014-2015

readers: to develop the ability of critical thinking when they read a text

The following objective is set to accomplish the aim:

 Explore the American reporters‟ underlying ideologies through analyzing the linguistic features of the news reports, which also present the close link between ideologies and media language

3 Research question

In accordance with the objectives of the study, the research is conducted

to find out answers to the following research question:

What are American ideologies on the issue of the South China Sea conflicts hidden in the linguistic expressions?

4 Scope of the study

In this study, the writer would focus on the online news reported on the South China Sea conflicts from 2014 to 2015 The writer acknowledges that the more extensive the scope of information accomplished, the more dependable the study results will be However, due to the constraint of time and the limited length of a minor thesis, in this study, only ten online news reports were tested, which came from CNN, Los Angeles Times, NBC News, New York Times and Center for Strategic and International Studies This minor thesis does not express the writer‟s opinions related to political issues to change the readers‟ thoughts In fact, it is entirely served for scholastic goal

5 Method of the study

The methodological approach is built totally on the foundation of

discourse analysis The research method involves a qualitative content analysis Within this area of investigation, the three dimension model given by Fairclough (2001) will be combined with Halliday‟s Systemic functional grammar to analyze the news

6 Structure of the study

The organization of this thesis is presented as follows

Part A: Introduction

This part presents an overview of the research in which the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope as well as the organization are shortly expressed

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion (This sector gives the findings and discussions of the study)

Part C: Conclusion

The last part summaries the study, gives some conclusion points to the study, and discusses the limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Discourse analysis

Van Dijk, T.A (1998) states discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies,

is a general term for a number of approaches to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event

The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event) are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech, or turns-at-talk Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond the sentence boundary' but also prefer to analyze “naturally occurring” language use, not invented examples Text linguistics is a closely related field The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is that discourse analysis aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a person/persons rather than text structure

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including linguistics, education, sociology, anthropology, social work, cognitive psychology, social psychology, area studies, cultural studies, international relations, human geography, communication studies, biblical studies, and translation studies, each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies Topics of discourse analysis include:

 The various levels or dimensions of discourse, such as sounds (intonation, etc.), gestures, syntax, the lexicon, style, rhetoric, meanings, speech acts, moves, strategies, turns, and other aspects of interaction

 Genres of discourse (various types of discourse in politics, the media, education, science, business, etc.)

 The relations between discourse and the emergence of syntactic structure

 The relations between text (discourse) and context

 The relations between discourse and power

 The relations between discourse and interaction

 The relations between discourse and cognition and memory

1.2 Critical discourse analysis (CDA)

1.2.1 The origin of Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Linguistics (CL) arouse in the mid-1970s as a necessity for an academic branch which would examine the connections between language and ideology, social structure CL was theoretically affected by the Critical Theory

of the Frankfurt school and by the Marxist philosophy Roger Fowler, Tony Trew and Gunther Kress were the pioneers of CL and their explicit argument was that: “the world-view comes to language-users from their relation to institutions and the socio -economic structure of their society It is facilitated and confirmed for them by a language use which has society‟s ideological impress Similarly, ideology is linguistically mediated […]” (Fowler, Kress 1979: 185) This argument presented the need for a linguistic analysis which would not only be formal or neutral, as Fowler and Kress put it, but also critical “The need then is for a linguistics which is critical, which is aware of the assumptions

on which it is based and prepared to reflect critically the underlying cause of the phenomena it studies, and the nature of the society whose language it is (1979: 186)”

The systemic functionalist linguistics was where CL relied for an

analytical framework M A K Halliday‟s books Language as Social Semiotic (1978) and Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985) were central to Critical

Linguistic Analyses The concepts of these books became important for

understanding grammar and interpreting texts, keeping in mind that: “grammar has to interface with what goes on outside language: with the happenings and conditions of the world, and with the social processes we engage in” (Halliday 2004: 24)

Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics became the groundwork to establish three basic assumptions for CL: “that language serves a number of specific functions, and that all linguistic forms and processes express one or all these functions; 2 that the selections which speakers make from among the total inventory of forms and processes are principled and systematic; and 3 that the relation between form and content is not arbitrary or conventional, but that form signifies content.” (Fowler, Kress 1979: 185)

Moreover Halliday‟s Functionalist Grammar was the foreground of an

analytic method, or the linguistic toolkit to CL, but not only to them It still seems to be very important even to do and understand CL descendant: Critical Discourse Analysis “In most studies there is reference to Hallidayan systemic functional grammar This indicates that an understanding of the basic claims of Halliday's grammar and his approach to linguistic analysis is essential for a proper understanding of CDA.” (Wodak and Meyer 2002: 8)

1.2.2 The definition of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

According to Van Dijk, discourse has three main domains: “(a) language

use, (b) the communication of beliefs (cognition), and (c) interaction in the social situation” (Van Dijk 1997a:2) The coexistence of these domains urges the

necessity to analyze discourse from a multidisciplinary perspective

In the beginning of 1990s a new school of thought arose, aiming to analyze the discourse through a multidisciplinary approach This school established a new paradigm in Discourse Analysis, that of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

CDA can be described as „a type of discourse analytical research that

primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context‟(O‟Halloran,2003,p.11) CDA is historically interested in the examination of news texts for language manipulation This has allowed much of the current research on CDA to also focus on news texts in an effort to find language manipulation However, there are a sizeable number of researchers who use CDA to interpret the meaning of speeches given by modern day politicians and other interesting personalities Politicians are notorious for manipulating language for their own benefit The ordinary man may be misled by some of the speeches given by these politicians and CDA endeavours to unravel the hidden meaning behind some of these speeches (O‟Halloran, 2003, p.3)

Furthermore, CDA is characterised by a number of common elements namely; its ability to address social problems, the discursive nature of power relations, the relationship between discourse, society and culture, how discourse

is historical and how it performs ideological work; and how discourse is a form

of social action All these elements are present in our everyday lives (O‟Halloran, 2003, p.16)

O‟Halloran (2003) suggests that mystification is embedded within CDA and suggests a few concepts in mystification analysis These include

"transitivity; which deals with the grammatical meaning of words in a clause, ideal passivisation; which can help create a distance impression between the writer and the reader and ideal normalisation; which refers to the process where

a verb is changed into a noun" (pp 17-18)

In addition, Wodak et al., (2001, p.2) uses Critical Linguistics and CDA interchangeably and many other experts in linguistics do the same They further advise that the purpose of CDA is to "critically investigate social inequality as it is expressed, signalled, constituted and legitimised" (Wodak et al., 2001, p.2) A review of the available literature on CDA largely supports this

concept However, it is not rooted in any one particular theory It encompasses theoretical concepts from a variety of researchers (Wodak et al., 2001, p.18) Van Leeuwen (2008) makes use of a number of modern tools in CDA Nonetheless, most of these tools are a combination of theories and frameworks from past work on discourse analysis

1.2.3 Critiques to CDA

CDA has continuously been criticized for having theoretical shaky grounds, for the lack of scientific methods and for the way analyses are undertaken Edward Haig makes a remarkable statement regarding the large number of the critics of CDA, whose activity “threatens to develop into a whole new academic cottage industry of its own” (2014: 5)

The work of Critical Discourse Analysts is criticized for offering a single plausible interpretation and for claiming that the more detailed the analysis, the more convincing the interpretation will be Henry Widdowson (1998), one of the faultfinders of CDA argues that the principles of analysis are unclear To add Widdowson claims that the analyses is biased and to some extent arbitrary, as it does not take into account the standpoints of the writers or the readers of the texts “The producers and consumers of texts are never consulted Thus, no attempt is ever made to establish empirically what writers might have intended

by their texts Their intentions are vicariously inferred from the analysis itself, by reference to what the analyst assumes in advance to be the writer's ideological position Nor is there any consultation with the readers for whom texts are designed Their understanding is assigned to them by proxy, which in effect means that the analysts use the linguistic features of the text selectively to confirm their own prejudice” (Widdowson 1998: 143) The matter of a single plausible interpretation is also related to the levels of adequacy of CDA While its faultfinders argue that the discourse analysis can at its best reach an interpretative adequacy, the critical discourse analysts and theorists disagree

According to them the range 20 of possible interpretations can be narrowed down by deconstructing the text and discovering the ideologies and power relations embedded in it Fairclough and Wodak (1997) emphasize the fact that CDA can reach an explanatory adequacy: This marks the point where critical readings differ from reading by an uncritical audience: they differ in their systematic approach to inherent meanings, they rely on scientific procedures and they naturally and necessarily require self-reflection of the researchers themselves In this point, they differ clearly from pure hermeneutics We might say they are explanatory in intent, not just interpretative We also have to state that interpretations are never finished and authoritative; they are dynamic and open, open to new contexts and new information (Fairclough, Wodak 1997: 279) Besides these objections toward CDA, another central critique is that of analysts having partial or political stances, which effect their interpretations Although this claim accuses CDA researchers for being biased and subjective, they do not oppose it Having such a stance does not make CDA less scientific

“Unlike much other scholarship, CDA does not deny but explicitly defines and defends its own sociopolitical position That is, CDA is biased – and proud of it” (Wodak, Meyer 2001: 96) In conclusion the critique towards CDA has been addressed by Critical Discourse analysts themselves In this study the PDA aims

to consider what is more trustworthy from the discipline of CDA, to understand the way politicians talk As we are convinced that the linguistic features of the political discourse cannot be considered simply stylistic expressions or preferences Wodak and Meyer (2001) emphasize that CDA analysts do

“discourse analysis with an attitude”, and they are in “solidarity with the oppressed ones” (96)

1.2.4 The relations of CDA to Power and Ideology

The word “critical” is a key theoretical concept in CDA that requires

some explanation here “Critical” indicates the need for analysts to decode the

ideological implications of discourse that have become so naturalized over time that we begin to treat them as common, acceptable, and natural features of discourse That is, ideology has become common belief or even common sense Adapting “critical” approach enables us to “elucidate such naturalizations, and make clear social determinations and effects of discourse which are characteristically opaque to participants” (Fairclough, 1985, p 739)

Ideology plays a vital role in CDA According to Wodak (1996),

“ideologies are particular ways of representing and constructing society which reproduce unequal relations of power, relations of domination and exploitation” (p 18) Fairclough (1992) explains ideology as “an accumulated and naturalized orientation which is built into norms and conventions, as well as an ongoing work to naturalize and denaturalize such orientations in discursive events” (p 89) For Widdowson (1990), “all discourses of theory, including those of linguistics, are ideologically loaded” (p 39) Newspapers, which claim to be politically neutral and ideology free, have to choose their discursive representations in line with their institutional policies which are ideological themselves because they are not nameless and neutral but have a history and a politics (Cameron, 1993, p 316)

Power in CDA is everywhere and no language in use can ever be 'neutral'

or 'objective' (Fairclough, 1989) and no discourse can ever be free of power and the exercise of power (Watts, 1992) Power is not derived from language, but language can be used to challenge power, to provide a finely articulated means for differences in power in social hierarchical structures Language is not powerful on its own, but gains power by the use powerful people make of it as Deborah Cameron (2001) (in Muralikrishnan 2011, p.23) says, "words can be powerful: the institutional authority to categorize people is frequently inseparable from the authority to do things to them” Following Cameron (2001), Muralikrishnan (2011) pointed out that a great deal of power and social control

in the modern age is exercised not by brute physical force or even by economic coercion, but by the activities of "experts" who are licensed to define, describe and classify things and people Fairclough (1995) argued that power can be conceptualized both in terms of asymmetries between participants in discourse events, and in terms of unequal capacity to control how texts are produced, distributed and consumed in particular social contexts This type of power mainly stems from ideology, the knowledge that enables persons or groups to carry out their will, or to influence others in spite of their resistance (Andersen, 1988; Fairclough, 1989)

1.3 Michael halliday’s systemic functional grammar

Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is an approach to language developed mainly by Michael Halliday in the U.K during the 1960s It is the

part of a broad social semiotic approach to language called systemic functional

linguistics The term “systemic” means “a network of systems, or interrelated

sets of options for making meaning” The term “functional” tells us that the approach focuses on meaning rather than formal grammar

SFG explains how the language is used According to Halliday, 1994: xiv, SFG is a lexico-grammatical theory grounds upon the notion of choice where language and/or any other semiotic system for that matter, is interpreted

as “networks of interlocking options” In other words, SFG is concerned primarily with the choices the grammar makes available to the speakers and writers These choices relate speakers‟ and writers‟ intentions to the concrete forms of a language Grammar choices are viewed in terms of either the content

or the structure of the language used In SFG, language is analyzed in three different strata: semantics, phonology and lexico-grammar SFG presents a view

of language in terms of both structure (grammar) and words (lexis), and “lexico grammar” describes this combined approach In more detail, Halliday's SFG consists of three metafunctions: textual, interpersonal, and ideational All three

metafunctions contribute to the meaning of what is said but are usually

represented by different parts of the message (Thompson 2004: 30) While the

ideational metafunction embodies the world of experience; the interpersonal

metafuntion sets up language as a medium through which interactional meaning such as attitudes, judgements and feelings are expressed; and the last one, the

textual metafunction looks at how the information is ordered, organized and

presented

The ideational metafunction

Transitivity is a key analytic component to examine the ideational metafunction of language Transitivity includes six types of process: Material, Mental, Relational, Behavioral, Verbal and Existential The table 1 below presents a summary of these process types:

Summary of process types (adapted from Halliday, 1994: 143)

Process type Definition Category

meaning

Participants Example

1 Material

Processes of doing things; express the notion that some

may be done “to”

some other entity

behavior like breathing, coughing, dreaming, staring

'behaving' Behaver,

Phenomenon

He stared at

me

3 Mental A kind of activity in

people‟s mind, requires a conscious participant

4 Verbal Processes of saying 'saying' Sayer,

Target, Recipient

John told me the truth

Identified, Identifier;

Token, Value

Tom is the leader

The interpersonal metafunction

The interpersonal metafunction consists of language features aimed at interacting with others These features include asking for and providing information and expressing attitudes (which involve the mood structure of English (i.e whether the clause is a declarative or interrogative clause, for

example)

In other words, this metafunction relates to a text's aspects of tenor or interactivity Like field, tenor comprises three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social status Social distance and relative social status are applicable only to spoken texts The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalization and standing of the speaker or writer This involves looking at whether the writer or speaker has a neutral attitude, which can be seen through the use of positive or negative language Social distance means how close the speakers are, e.g how the use of nicknames shows the degree to which they are intimate Relative social status asks whether they are equal in terms of power and knowledge on a subject, for example, the relationship between a mother and child would be considered unequal Focuses here are on speech acts (e.g whether one person tends to ask questions and the other speaker tends to answer), who chooses the topic, turn management, and how capable both speakers are of evaluating the subject

The textual metafunction

The textual metafunction is concerned with the organization of the message (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004: 30) and is realized in texts through features such as cohesion (e.g ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion) and thematic structure

In short, CDA and SFL have a common interest in the link between language and society CDA uses SFL as a tool to analyze texts and discourses SFL is of special interest to CDA, mainly due to its focus on language use, its informative and social functions Other linguistic models are also useful to CDA but they may lack strong attraction to CDA analysts due to their emphasis on syntactic structure and less on functional aspects of language SFG is now used world-wide, particularly in language education, and for purposes of discourse analysis

1.4 Norman Fairclough and CDA

Within the CDA field, one of the most dominant approaches for analyzing discourse was developed by Fairclough in the 1980s and it has been revisited in several publications thereafter Fairclough's method is based on the formulation that the way people produce and interpret language is ultimately affected and controlled by power Fairclough explains it through the following process: the way people produce and interpret language is affected by their experiences of the world, and experiences are affected by social organization, which, in turn, is affected and controlled by power (1989: 25) To paraphrase, power dictates to a considerable degree how the world works (e.g the news is shaped by commercialism and corporate interests), which, in turn, affects what kinds of experiences (e.g the experience of what reading news articles is like), and the experiences affect aspects of language use (e.g which point of view of

an event is prominent in everyday discussions) Therefore, in order to analyze texts, one must analyze "the relationship between texts, processes, and their social conditions [i.e.] the situational context and institutional and social structures" This three-layer view of discourse is at the core of Fairclough's three-dimensional model The following quote summarizes the model in the most concise and explicit manner:

I see discourse as a complex of three elements: social practice, discoursal practice (text production, distribution and consumption), and text, and the analysis of a specific discourse calls for analysis in each of these three dimensions and their interrelations The hypothesis is that significant connections exist between features of texts, ways in which texts are put together and interpreted, and the nature of the social practice

Fairclough 1995: 74

In other words, Fairclough's model of CDA divides discourse into three distinct aspects: the physical text (spoken or written), the discourse practice, and the social practice Furthermore, Fairclough stresses the importance of analyzing