Positive Discourse Analysis?

Positive discourse analysis: power, solidarity and change. James Martin, Revista
Canaria de Estudios Ingleses. 49 2004.


I recently read James Martin’s article after I was hearing about “Positive Discourse Analysis” here and there. As far as I am concerned the article seems to have attracted an undeserving amount of attention for reasons other than its being a seminal rigorous one. As far I can see the article is a call for attention to be paid to “positive” changes in discourses about social problems- with an assumption that the subject matter of Critical Discourse Analysis is necessarily “negative”.

Putting aside the article’s useful notion of a discursive “design” and the idea of designing a discoursal plan for solving notorious social problems, the article does not offer that much of constructive insights-if not being destructive.

The first thing to emphasize again is that as Wodak, Chilton and many others have repeatedly stated, CDA is not theoretically and necessarily about “negative” aspects of discourses and the concept of critical should not be taken literally as a mere criticism. However, CDA is heavily informed by social theory and is socially committed thus, it naturally targets “problems” e.g. gender inequality, discrimination, racism, political hegemonies, minority rights etc. As such it is required to throw light on the so called ‘negative’ aspects of the discursive and social practices.

Another- rather obvious- point is that when doing CDA and accounting for the qualities of discourses concerning a social problem there is always a room to talk about ‘positive’ aspects and improvements in discourses or strategies as well. This is not something that a researcher would need to refrain from in a CDA approach. Yet, when investigating a problem the tendency is towards focusing on the problem rather than trying to capture the “improvements” of the situation historically. That is, one important element for CDA research is that ‘the problem exists’ hence; the focus is kept on deconstructing the problem rather than showing how a problem is less of a problem now compared to the past.

On the same note, what we need to keep in mind is that the struggles for betterment of circumstances can never be considered an accomplished mission theoretically speaking and there is always a better level that can be achieved and new aspects to be investigated. Therefore, there is always dark or less researched/changed aspects in discourses about –let’s say, gender inequalities- that may/should/could be investigated.

Perhaps more importantly is to ask the question if 'we are allowed to celebrate’ or whether ‘we can be “happy”’ that through the struggles for civil rights and equalities we have achieved so much that now we need to sit back and enjoy.

Let’s make it more clear with a tangible case in Jim Martin’s article and the Australian context, particularly the part where his tone shakes with emotions when seeing how well the ‘feel-sorry’ commemoration catches on among all people. There is no arguing that such a change is a good development for a “white” generation to come to terms with its previous generations’ atrocities against Australian aborigines and feel apologetic about it. However, when feel-sorry discourse is converted to let’s-celebrate 'how-good-we-are party it looks nothing but condescending and implicitly perpetuating unequal power relations. The theoretical question here is if we can we rejoiced to see that since the time when “whites” used to abduct the children of aborigines and separate them from their mothers and families for good, the society has changed so much that we not only disapprove such actions but we have become so good to FEEL SORRY for those mothers. I am sorry if this is a bit blunt but to me it just seems too self absorbed and hypocritical to self assign credit merely because discourses about those atrocities now incorporate sorrow.

Taking the approach to another context, is it not implying that we should celebrate the positive changes in discourse of -for instance- “racial relations” because black people are no longer being lynched or we feel happy because we have become so ‘good’ to feel sorry for victims of Holocaust or that women do not need to take to streets to demand suffrage?

Doesn’t this mean that by focusing on the “positive” aspects –which is obviously a reaction to CDA- we are calling for a sit-back-n-enjoy break in the struggles of social change? Doesn’t such an approach assume that the social problems e.g. ‘racism’ or gender inequalities are somehow solved and we need to “cool it down”? If things are “positive” why bother to research? And how such an approach becomes ‘insightful’ and what is it that this approach will be helping?


The idea of analysing ‘change’ throughout different historical moments of a discourse is –at times- not only constructive but necessary. Naturally, such a diachronic investigation could indicate different stages of development and “positive” changes. Nevertheless, locating the “positive” changes is not the final goal per se in CDA's historical tracing. It could just be part of the investigation and findings while the focus is on the contemporary problem no matter how trivial it may look compared to its old history. “Positive Discourse Analysis” seems to advocate an approach to capture and explain the “positive” changes as the main research agenda and that is a problem.

I think the notion of PDA and the attention it has attracted-apart from some culture contextual factors e.g. perhaps in China- is more of a ‘discipline parallelism’ which juxtaposes PDA next to CDA. It is simply hard to believe that PDA in such capacity of theory and space can actually bring about a real ‘mood swing’ as some like to assume.