A Literature Review of Critical Discourse Analysis

王娟

【Abstract】Proposed by Fowler and Kress in 1979， Critical discourse analysis （CDA）， is a new form of discourse analysis. It was initially brought into China in 1995， and caught many scholars eyes in linguistic field. Correspondingly， a multitude of works about CDA have emerged with increasing speed. Through summaring and analyzing the literature from 1995 to 2016， the author intends to point out the domestic situation and the trendency of CDA.

【Key words】CDA； limitation； trend

1. Introduction

CDA is a transdisplinary analysis that views language as a form of social practice. Experiencing a 37-year development， achievements that have been made are noticeable. Within over 30 years， CDA has enlarged its influence to almost every field of discourse study. This article intends to review the development of CDA at home and abroad and recent trends of it.

2. Studies Abroad

Norman Fairclough， the most distinguished scholar in CDA， published his monograph Language and Power， in which the relationship among language， power and ideology was illustrated. Fairclough was also interested in investigating media discourse. Recently， Fairclough shifted his interests to new genres of discourse， such as discourses of global capitalism， neo-liberalism etc. The achievements of Fairclough are as follows：Language and Power （1989）， Discourse and Social Change.

Van Dijks most critical works concentrated on “racism in discourse”， “the reproduction of racism” and “the reproduction of ethnic prejudices”. Recently， Van Dijk focused on the abuse of power and reproduction of inequalities. He then purposed most noticeable idea-the socio-cognitive model. More recently， Van Dijk are devoted to investigating the importance of context on production and understanding of discourse. The masterpieces of Van Dijk include：News as Discourse （1988）， Racism and the Press （1991）， and Political Discourse and Ideology （2000）.

Ruth Wodaks work is mainly about racism， sexism and anti-semitism. Wodak was keen to observe the institutional discourses in public places. To comply with semitism， Wodak designed his model-historical-discourse approach to integrate background information to analyze discourse. Recently， Wodak （2009） had been concerned with investigating identity politics and patterns of decision-making in EU organizations.

3. Studies at Home

Compared with the 37-year development abroad， studies of CDA at home remains at the period of borrowing foreign theories and approaches into application. Through summarizing and analyzing the literature about CDA， it can be generally divided into three types：endprint

3.1 Theoretical studies of CDA

In 1995， it was Chen Zhongzhu that initially brought in the idea of CDA in A Survey of Critical Linguistics， which marked the start of CDA in China. In this article， Chen elaborated on CDA from four parts：the philosophical and linguistic foundation of CDA， the concept of language， discourse and context under CDAs framework， the analytical tools applied by CDA and the developmental stages of CDA.

The following year， Xinbin， further explained CDA in his article Language， Power and Ideology：Critical Linguistics （1996）， in which he took two news reports as an example to show how ideology influenced the use of language. He concluded that the convey of ideology in the discourses was unconcious for either speaker or reader because of the schemata in human brains. Later， Xin published several books and journals on CDA， among which the most famous one was Critical Linguistics：Theory and Application. In this book， Xin （2005） elucidated the interrelationship among language， power and ideology， different methodologies to study CDA. Recently， he introduced different approaches of CDA and pointed out that CDA was absorbing new achievements from psycho-linguistics and cognitive linguistics to be diversified. He（2013） and Gao Xiaoli published the article CDA：the Goal， Methodology and Trends in 2013. He pointed out the origin， goal， scope of research， methodology of CDA， then reviewed development of CDA at home and summarized the problems in the development of CDA and predicted the future trends of CDA.

As great efforts have been made by Chen Zhongzhu and Xinbin， other scholars also made contributions to the studies of CDA. Tian Hailong （2013） published his article `Cognition-Oriented CDA：Two Paths and Features， in which he introduced two paths of Cognition-Oriented：cognitive discouse analysis and cognitive context analysis path. Three years later， in his article A New Perspective of the Essence of CDA （2016）， he discussed the relationship between CDA and Hallidays systemic-functional grammar， the relationship between CDA and Positive Discourse Analysis.

Shi Guang （2007） published his article A Review of CDA. In this article， he elaborated the philosophical and linguistic foundation of CDA， Faircloughs Three-dimensional framework， four linguistic structures to reveal ideology， and the recent developmental trends of CDA. He holded that CDA was developing towards multidiscipline.

3.2 Empirical Studies of CDAendprint

As to empirical studies， lots of works had also been done from different perspectives such as political discourse， mass media etc. Most of scolars， such as Xin Wen， Li Xia etc， tended to take Faircloughs three-dimensional model and Hallidays systemic functional grammar as the theoretical framework to analyze discourse. However， there are some limitations. Firstly， the research is mainly based on researchers personal knowledge. The analysis of discouse lacks objectivity. Secondly， the data that can be examined is limited. Thirdly， besides Hallidays systemic functional grammar， there are still other linguistic theories， such as cognitive linguistics， intextuality， genres.

Xin Wen （2013） in her academic paper CDA of News Reports on Ye Shiwens Performance in London Olympics in The Guardian took the Faircloughs three-dimensional model and Hallidays systemic functional grammar as the theoretical framework to analyze news reports about Ye Shiwen winning the swimming gold medal in London Olympics. She concluded that though the reporters strived to be neutral and objective when reporting the news reports， they were still revealing foreigners jealousy and discontency towards Chinas achievement made in London Olympics in the later report. Li Xia （2007） published her article CDA of President Bushs Second Inaugural Address， in which she applied contextual theory and ideational， interpersonal and textual functions in Hallidays systemic functional grammar to analyze it to reveal the idealogy and power hidden in the discourse.

3.3 The Interdisciplinary research of CDA

In the process of reviewing theoretical and empirical studies of CDA， some problems emerged in the field of CDA. Firstly， many scholars holded that the objectivity and reliability of the discourse analysis is enough and that most of a results is not persuasive in terms of lacking data support. Secondly， they claimed that the interpretation of discourse was filled with strong subjectivity rather than analyzing scientifically. Aiming at these problems， some scholars， such as Tang Liping， Zhu Qing， Ji Yuhua etc， attempted to find new ways of CDAs develpoment. They tended to combine CDA with other disciplines， such as corpus linguistics， cognitive linguistics etc.

3.3.1 The Combination with Corpus

Tang Liping （2011） in her article The Potentials of Corpus Linguistics in Strengthening CDA expounded the potentials of corpus linguistics in CDA from the theoretical perpective. The potentials was mainly in analyzing texts as products in co-text and inter-text， batch processing a large number of meaning actuals， and making lexicogrammatical analysis at lower ranks. Zhu Qing （2016） published the article A CDA of News Report on Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank in Chinese and American mainstream newspapers. In her article， she collected the news reports about AIIB from 2014 to 2015 and used corpus analytical methods， including frenquency， key words， concordance and collocation to reveal what attitudes China and US hold towards AIIB and the hidden political and economic goals.endprint

3.3.2 The Combination with Cognitive lingusitics.

Ji Yuhua and Chen Yan （2007） co-authored the article Critical Metaphor Analysis：A New Method of CDA. They firstly introduced the definition of critical metaphor analysis. Secondly， they elaborated the methodology and procedures of critical metaphor analysis：how to identify metaphors which are then interpreted from cognitive and pragmatic perspectives， and analyzed the motivation factors hidden in UK/US politicians speeches to affect the chice of metaphor.

Xin Bin （2012） published the article Cognitive Discourse Analysis in the CDA. In this article， he elucidated the nature， mechanisms， mediation roles and problems of basic cognitive cocepts. He argued that discourse represented both mentality and society by mentality. So CDA should be conducted from social and cognitive perspectives. Tian Hailong （2013） published his article `Cognition-Oriented CDA：Two Paths and Features， in which he introduced two paths of Cognition-Oriented：cognitive discouse analysis path and cognitive context analysis path. Based on it， he discussed the features of the them and analyzed the mutual relationship between them.

4. Conclusion

Through summarizing all the papers from 1995 to 2016， studies based on CDA had embraced outstanding achievements through decades， both theoretically and empirically. Although the studies on CDA tended to be diversified， they have common limitation. The common limitation both at home and abroad， is that the analysis of researches lack objectivity and reliability. Due to their own limitations of cognition and corpus linguistic， critical metaphor analysis is a better initiative linguistic analytical method to avoid it. The application of critical metaphor analysis in CDA will be the latest trendency of CDA in China.

References：

[1]Fairclough，N.1989.Language and Power[M].London： Routledge.

[2]Van Dijk，T.A.，1998.Ideology：A multidisciplinary approach[M].London：Sage.

[3]辛斌.批評性語篇分析方法論[J].外國語，2002（6）.endprint