Political Analysis Versus Critical Discourse Analysis in the

Treatment of Ideology: Some Implications for the Study of

Communication

Peter E. Jones & Chik Collins

Text

 Tony Blair, in his Foreword to the document Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction:
The Assessment of the British Government of September 2002,made the following
assertions:

What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam
has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his
efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he has been able to extend the range of his
ballistic missile programme…I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that
he has made progress on WMD and that he has to be stopped…And the document
discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45
minutes of an order to use them.
INTRODUCTION

 Political communication is not, and does not involve, a “discourse analysis”

grounded in what Harris (1996) referred to as “segregational linguistics.”
 Concentrates mainly on the theoretical shortcomings of CDA, tracing these to their
roots in the orthodox linguistic conception of language and communication on
which CDA is based.
 CDA cannot account for this contribution which does not involve the instantiation
or use of an abstract system or systems of verbal forms but rather the creation of
unique communicative resources as an integral dimension of the practices.
 Political document, for example, is a matter of politics and a matter for political
analysis and judgment.
 To get at its political or ideological significance we must apply our politically
attuned eyes and ears to a concrete analysis of the specific political conjuncture to
which the document belongs and contributes in some way; “linguistic” analysis
cannot help us with this.
 In other words, to understand and critically respond to communicative practices
and products, in whatever domain, we need to know the relevant business inside
out.
 We call on the lawyer and not the discourse analyst to find the catch in the fine
print of a contract, or on the engineer, rather than the linguist, to find the flaws in a
blueprint.
 This principle has been ignored or set aside in CDA in favor of a view in which
detailed historical, theoretical, and practical knowledge of the relevant spheres is
deemed unnecessary to understanding political and ideological aspects of
discourse.
What is the objection toward CDA???

 contribution that people make or may make, when they communicate, to a

particular action, can only be grasped through an exploration of the
communicative conduct in its actual place within the unfolding action and
only in terms which are specific and proper to that action at the relevant
conjuncture
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1995, 2000,
2001a, 2001b
 Fairclough (1992) argued that discourse analysis can serve as “a method for studying
social change”

 Fairclough (1989) argued that there have been “important shifts in the function of
language in social life”

 Discourse has become “perhaps the primary medium of social control and power”

 “the relationship between discourse and social structures is dialectical”

 “[a]s well as being determined by social structures, discourse has effects on social
structures and contributes to the achievement of social continuity or social change”
Objections toward CDA
 Jones’s (2004a) verdict was that the arguments were based either on misconceptions
about the workings of particular economic and political processes within capitalist
states or on a one-sided or oversimplified general conception of the relations between
social being and social consciousness.
 “the CDA approach to language involves a mystification of the role of discourse in
society. CDA itself, therefore, constitutes an ideological formation” (Jones, 2004)
 such procedures provide novel and distinctive insights that are essential to our
appreciation of the political and ideological workings.
 CDA, in other words, was just a novel way of expressing particular political
opinions.
 The distinctive contribution of this kind of discourse analysis is not to be found in
any genuine discoveries or insights it makes or offers about political
communication, but rather, in allowing particular political interpretations and
conclusions to be presented as if grounded in established knowledge and
procedures in linguistics, and as “a method in social scientific research, than as
reflecting and expressing particular political predilections and allegiances
(Fairclough, 2000)
REVIEW
 The authors state “…in CDA in favor of a view in which detailed historical,
theoretical, and practical knowledge of the relevant spheres is deemed unnecessary to
understanding political and ideological aspects of discourse…”, while the truth is
using CDA means to describe, interpret, and explain. In interpretation and
explanation, certain social practice, including political practices, must be discussed in
context (detailed historical context and its practical context).
 CDA views context as very important things. It is actually context-bound thory, but
the authors state that CDA does not account practical and historical knowledge of the
relevant sphere.
 The authors object by stating Jones (2004) opinion that CDA only provides novel
interpretation, which can be accepted, however, the interpretation which are provided
by CDA also provide certain pattern of how social structure and discourse
dialectically influence one another, even if this relationship can not be found in one
single text only.