This page was created by Collin Hardwick.
Fairclough, Language & Power
Discipline/Field: Cultural Studies, Education, Linguistics
Year: 1989
Main Arguments & Concepts
In this book, Fairclough outlines the method of practicing critical discourse analysis (CDA). The book is almost textbook-like; Fairclough offers really specific advice on conducting the analysis. Critical discourse analysis is the process of systematically studying the use of language in order to demystify structures of power. As Fairclough puts it, his goal is to “help increase consciousness of how language contributes to the domination of some people by others, because consciousness is the first step towards emancipation” (193). While in some ways this book is a straightforward guiding to applying the methodology, Fairclough includes discussion of the nature of discourse and how language relates to power.Method
Fairclough provides a three-part framework for putting CDA into practice: description, interpretation, and explanation. Within this process, the researcher creates a “description of the text, interpretation of the relationship between text and interaction, and explanation of the relation between interaction and social context” (91). Fairclough also offers some ‘best practice’ type recommendations, like insisting on a disclosure of researcher beliefs (4).
The Nature of Discourse
Fairclough defines a text as a “product rather than a process -- a product of the process of text production” (24). As a product, a text is distinct from discourse, which Fairclough sees as the “whole process of social interaction of which a text is just a part” (24). Discourse, according to Fairclough, is “language as a form of social practice” (Language and Power 41). Further, the study of discourse “ought to stress both the determination of discourse by social structures, and the effects of discourses upon society through its reproduction of social structures” (Language and Power 41-42). Discourse is intertwined with power, Fairclough continues: “On the one hand, power is exercised and enacted in discourse, and on the other hand that there are relations of power behind discourse” (73)
Quotes
“In seeing language as discourse and as social practice, one is committing oneself not just to analysing texts, nor just to analysing processes of production and interpretation, but to analysing the relationship between texts, processes, and their social conditions, both the immediate conditions of the situational context and the more remote conditions of institutional and social structures” (26).“Even while we focus upon language and discourse, let us remind ourselves that social emancipation is primarily about tangible matters such as unemployment, housing, equality of access to education, the distribution of wealth, and the removing of the economic system from the ravages and whims of private interest and profit” (234).
