The project on
Critical Discourse
Studies (CDS) has been an ongoing concern since my early work on
discourse and racism, that is, as from the early 1980s. Rooted in
Critical Linguistics (as presented in the well-known study Language and Control
(1979), by Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress, Bob Hodge and Tony Trew, as
well as in other 'critical' paradigms, such as the Kritische Theory of
the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Habermas,. etc.), the Cultural Studies
work led by Stuart Hall in the UK (itself inspired by variants brands
of continental neo-marxism, as well as film studies and related new
developments), the critical study of discourse took shape since the
early 1980s, for instance in the work of Ruth Wodak (then in Vienna,
now in Lancaster), Norman Fairclough, Theo van Leeuwen, Gunther
Kress, and soon many others. Since a first meeting I organized
in
Amsterdam in the early 1990s, this group held (near) annual meetings in
various European cities. Whereas the customary designation of this line
of research has been "Critical Discourse Analysis" (CDA), I have begun
to advocate to broader this term to "Critical Discourse Studies" -
e.g., so as to emphasize that critical study is not a ready made
"method" of analysis, but also has theoretical and applied dimensions.
Besides my own work on discourse and racism, ideology and discourse,
and knowledge and discourse, as contributions to the foundations of
CDS, I also have regularly contributed to the formulation of the aims
and nature of CDS as a movement of socially and politically concerned
scholars in the field of discourse studies and related fields. Unlike
much other work in CDS (and for that matter in discourse studies more
generally), my specific emphasis has been on the integration of social
and cognitive approaches to discourse and critical analysis. As is
obvious from such concepts as ideology and knowledge, CDS deals with
social problems and issues that have both a social and a cognitive
dimension. Although there are many approaches, methods, etc in CDS, I
have myself focused mostly on the multidisciplinary. sociocognitive
study of the reproduction of power abuse (domination) by discourse. My
studies on racism and discourse show how social aspects of racism (from
social practices of discrimination to the role of groups and
institutions at the macro-level) are closely related to cognitive ones
(from biased mental models of ethnic events, to broadly shared ethnic
prejudices as well as racist ideologies, which in turn are at the basis
of discriminatory social practices, including discourse). Discourse,
thus is at the interface of the social and the cognitiive: It is itself
a social practice, but at the same time it is the major way we acquire
ideologies).
In the meantime, CDS has grown out to a vast movement of critical
scholarship in many of the humanities and social sciences, associated
with (if not including) studies on discourse and gender, and other
critical approaches, with its own meetings and journals (such as Discourse & Society
and Critical Discourse
Studies).
CDS also has had its critics, on the one hand from more formal
approaches in linguistics and conversation analysis, less interested in
the study of the role of social context, and on the other hand from
those who have doubts about the rigor of the methods used by CDS
scholars -- accused to 'find' in discourse what they were set out to
find in the first place. Whatever the relevance of these critiques, it
is obvious that precisely because of such attempts at delegitmization
-- not seldom from more conservative perspectives -- it is crucial that
CDS is very explicit and rigorous in its theories and methods. The
multidisciplinary and critical study of such complex social problems as
those of racism, sexism, poverty and other forms of inequality requires
the most explicit approaches.
My organizational work of promoting CDS has focused first of all on
editing the journal Discourse
& Society,
as well as on the foundation and management of the CRITICS-L discussion
list on the internet, an initiative of the international CRITICS
Foundation, organizing Centers for Research Into Texts, Information and
Communication in Society (C.R.I.T.I.C.S).
SOME
OF MY PUBLICATIONS ON CDS
Not included here are the studies cited under other projects, e.g., on
racism and on ideology, but on the other hand including my studies in
discourse and power.
BOOK
Discourse and Power.
Contributions to Critical Discourse Studies.
Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hamps, UK, Palgrave, 2008 (in
preparation)(collection of earlier published articles and a new
preface).
ARTICLES
Social cognition, social
power and
social discourse. Paper for the International Conference on Social
Psychology and Language. Bristol, July 1987. TEXT, 8, 129-157. Text 8
(1988).
Structures of discourse and
structures of power. In J.A. Anderson
(Ed.), Communication Yearbook 12, pp. 18-59. Newbury Park, CA: Sage,
1989.
Power and the news media.
Paper contributed to the international
conference "The role of communication and information in contemporary
societies", Mundaka, Vizcaya, Spain, September 13-15, 1992. In D.
Paletz (Ed.), Political Communication and Action. (pp. 9-36).
Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995.
Catalan translation: "El
poder e els mitjans de comunicacio", Periodistica 6 (1993), 11-38.
Spanish translation in Teun
A. van Dijk, Prensa, racismo y poder. Mexico: Universidad
Ibero-Americana, 1995.
Portuguese translation "O
poder e a Mídia Jornalística. Palavra [Rio de
Janeiro] 4 (1997), 167-187.
Principles
of critical discourse analysis. In Teun A. van Dijk (Ed.), Studies in
Critical Discourse Analysis. Special issue of Discourse &
Society ,
4(2), 1993, 249-283.
Aims of Critical Discourse
Analysis. Japanese Discourse , 1 (1), 17-28, 1995.
Prensa, racismo y poder .
México: Universidad IberoAmericana,
1995. (Translation in Spanish of the papers "Power and the News Media"
and "Elites, Racism and the Press").
Critical Discourse Analysis.
In D. Tannen, D. Schiffrin & H.
Hamilton (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. (pp. 352-371). Oxford:
Blackwell, 2001.
Spanish version
in Anthropos (Barcelona), 186 (Septiembre-Octubre, 1999), 23-36.
War Rhetoric of a Little
Ally. Political implicatures of Aznar's
Legitimization of the War in Iraq. Paper CDA Symposium Copenhagen, May,
2003. Journal of Language and Politics, 4(1), pp. 65-92,
2005.
Special issue "The Soft Power of War. Legitimacy and community in Iraq
war discourses." edited by Lilie Chouliaraki.
Spanish version of an earlier
version, "La retórica
bélica de un aliado menor. Implicaturas políticas
y
legitimación de la guerra en Iraq opor parte de
José
María Aznar", Oralia 7(2004),
195-225.
Discurso y
dominación. Universidad Nacional de Colombia,
Facultad de Ciencias Humanas. GranDes Conferencias, N0. 40. Febrero de
2004. 28 pp.