Actor, Action, Argumentation: Towards an Amalgamation of CDA Methodological Categories in Representations of Social Actors.

This is the abstract of my paper presentation at the Second Lancaster University Linguistics Department Postgraduate Conference on June 5th 2007.


The present article focuses on the methodology of the research project: “Representation of Immigrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees in British Newspapers Between 1996 to 2006” which was carried out at Lancaster University in 2006-7. The CDA part of the project was an investigation into how these groups of people are represented and what linguistic processes and categories are usually implemented in their representation in the news papers in Britain.

Major CDA studies on social out-groups e.g. immigrants and foreigners, within Wodak’s Discourse-Historical and Van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive approaches have developed useful methodologies and proposed several analytical categories through which the representations of these groups in discourse are accounted for. At the same time these guidelines have inspired many more studies on different social actors in various contexts. Consequently several listings of relevant analytical categories have been developed and applied. However, a review of the proposed methodological categories shows that the sheer variety of the proposed methodologies in different studies –though essentially similar- may cause confusion among researchers. At the same time the link between the macro-structures (ideologies) and the analytical categories and their ways of interactions seem to have received insufficient attention.

The present article mainly draws on mainstream CDA analytical categories including; referential, predicational, and argumentative strategies (topoi) (Wodak 2001, Reisigl and Wodak 2001), Discourse topics, Positive self-presentation and Negative-other presentation (Van Dijk 1991, 1995, Wodak and Van Dijk 2006) and representations of social actors (Van Leeuwen 1996).

However, the article proposes an amalgamation of the above categories and shows how the micro level analytical categories are linked to the macro structure at work. Specifically, a three-level analytical framework is suggested for CDA studies investigating various social actors in discourse. This framework divides the analysis into three main categories of Actor, Action and Argumentation and looks at what is (not) there in terms of these three levels on the one hand, and analyses how these three levels are operationalised and realised through a set of linguistics processes/ aspects which “perspectivise” the realisation of these three levels on the other hand.


Key words:
Critical Discourse Analysis, CDA methodologies, Representations of Social Actors.

References:
Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. (2001) Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Anti-Semitism. London and New York: Rutledge.

Van Dijk, T. (1991) Racism and the Press; Critical Studies in Racism and Migration. London and New York: Rutledge.

Van Dijk, T.A. (1995) “Ideological Discourse Analysis”, New Courant in Ventola, E., Solin, A. (Eds) Special issue Interdisciplinary approaches to Discourse Analysis, (pp. 135-161)

Van Leeuwen, T. (1996) “The representations of social actors”, In Caldas Coulthard, C.R. & Coulthard, M. (Eds) Texts and Practices. (pp. 32-70) London and New York: Rutledge.

Wodak, R. (2001) “The discourse-historical approach”, In Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (Eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 83-94) London, Sage.

Wodak, R. & Van Dijk, T.A. (2006) Racism at the Top. Drava, Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Austria.