Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

• Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an offshoot of Critical Discourse Studies and Critical Linguistics, focusing on how language contributes to and is affected by social phenomena, ideologies, and power relations in society.
• Critical Linguistics emphasizes that language is not just a carrier of messages but a phenomenon that can influence thoughts, ideas, and views in a socio-political and cultural context.
• CDA is an interdisciplinary approach used in various fields like health studies, ethnography, anthropology, sociology, and geography to understand how language can reflect hidden elements of racism and social power dynamics.
• CDA developed prominently in the 1990s, specifically examining the socially critical or discriminatory uses of language to uncover hidden power relations and ideologies that impact people's lives.
• It primarily studies how social power, abuse, dominance, inequality, and racism are produced, reproduced, and resisted through discourse within society.
• CDA analyzes how social practices, events, and texts are interconnected and stem from different ideologies and power relations, revealing hidden realities that influence individuals or communities.
• The aim of CDA is to uncover hidden values, oppositions, perspectives, strategies of discriminatory inclusion/exclusion in language use, and to highlight the use of discourse in relation to socio-cultural issues like race, gender, politics, identity, and power relations.

Explore the interdisciplinary approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) that focuses on how language reflects and influences social phenomena, ideologies, and power dynamics in society. Learn about the significance of CDA in fields like health studies, anthropology, sociology, and more.