Diseño del control por planos deslizantes para el sistema RWPI

CDA does not constitute a single unified theory or methodological approach; it is best understood as a school of thought (Weiss & Wodak, 2003, p. 12; Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p. 5) with roots in rhetoric, text linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, socio-

89

psychology, cognitive science, literary studies and sociolinguistics, as well as applied linguistics and pragmatics (Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p. 1-2). Given the varied disciplinary origins and backgrounds of practitioners of CDA, CDA emphasizes interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to investigating a wide range of social phenomena. Indeed, the definition of discourse the analyst utilizes impacts the type of CDA that proceeds. For example, a discourse is not limited to that which appears in text form, it can constitute other communicative events such as the dialogue that occurs in a classroom or

workplace; it can be a system of thought that shapes social or cultural practices; it can be conceived of as a genre such as scholarly writing or journalistic writing; it can be a visual discourse such as the display of artefacts in a museum that shapes patrons’ behavior; it can be conceived of as the unspoken establishment of rules particular to a specific setting such as the layout of a library which influences the behaviors of participants and

interactions between a patron and librarian for instance. Furthermore, discourse is not limited to form, i.e. syntactic, grammatical, semantic, semiotic structures, or mental processes, but is extended to include the “complex structures and hierarchies of interaction and social practice and their functions in context, society and culture” (van Dijk, 1997a, p. 6).

Often, different types of discourse overlap and contain numerous other discourses, so for example, a speech by the President of the United States, can be analyzed as both political and media discourse, as it is a part of both the world of politics, and the world of media (assuming the speech is documented, reported or broadcast in some way).

Furthermore, the content of the speech contains a host of other discourses depending on the topic of the speech. For example, a Presidential speech about the Iraq War may

90

contain within it a historical discourse, a war discourse, a moral discourse, a security discourse, or a legal discourse, as well as less obvious examples such as an American exceptionalism discourse, or just-war discourse. In addition, the form the speech takes influences the type of discourse, for instance, if the speech is broadcast on television, there is an audio-visual discourse dimension as well as a spoken-textual component; if the speech is only reported in the printed press, the form it takes again influences the type of discourse (the speech can be understood as a written-textual discourse, that is re- produced by the writer/editor, that may also be altered with the reporter’s own evaluative statements added). The texts to be analyzed in this dissertation are news articles from major newspapers that reported the ending of the Iraq War, specifically selected from 2003 and 2011 when the United States President announced the ending of the war, as it is through these representations that meaning is ascribed to issues and events. And as one of the pioneering theorists of CDA van Dijk states, the media “are manufacturers of public knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, morals and ideologies…[and] their symbolic power is a form of ideological power” (2008c, p. 32).

Compiling a history of the vast intellectual heritage of CDA would be an ambitious undertaking and is beyond the task set here; however, the influence of social and linguistics theories is often cited by critical scholars as fundamental to the theoretical foundations of CDA. The former addresses the contribution of European social theorists that have informed what could be described under the umbrella term of critical studies. For example, critical social theory has been heavily influenced by the various traditions of Marxism, the Frankfurt School of philosophers, the French post-structuralist tradition of thinkers such as Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault and others, as well

91

as broadly by British social theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Stuart Hall, and Raymond Williams. In addition, the work of Antonio Gramsci on theories of cultural hegemony are often cited as heavily influential too. The second oft-cited influence amongst critical scholars is the impact of critical linguistics, specifically the works of Fowler et al. (1979); Kress and Hodge (1979); Fairclough (1989) and various works by Halliday which are considered seminal. However, the works on critical approaches to language have a tradition that started in the 1920s and 1930s, with the works of

Voloshinov and Bakhtin. Although the term critical linguistics came later on, Voloshinov (1928/1973) viewed language (the sign) as an ideological product inseparable from society (material reality). In critical linguistics or critical language studies, language is thought of as a social practice and a socially conditioned process that is shaped by the various elements of society (Fairclough, 1989, p. 22; Fowler et al., 1979). It is not analyzed as an objective and transparent medium independent of the workings of ideology.

One aspect of these various philosophical influences that remains constant in critical studies is a critique of positivism and rejection of the notion of objective truths in social scientific inquiry. This perspective is captured by the following statement by the historian Hayden White, who emphasizes the role of human agency, ideology and interpretation in historical and scientific inquiry:

there is no value-neutral mode of emplotment, explanation, or even

description of any field of events, whether imaginary or real…the very use of language itself implies or entails a specific posture before the world which is ethical, ideological, or more generally political: not only all

92

interpretation, but also all language is politically contaminated. (White, 1978, p. 129).

However, what sets CDA apart from other approaches such as rhetorical analysis, content analysis, or other types of discourse analysis without the prefix critical, or indeed most of the typical approaches to social scientific inquiry, is its commitment to social justice by intervening “on the side of dominated and oppressed groups and against dominating groups, and that it openly declares the emancipatory interests that motivate it”

(Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 259). In other words, CDA scholars seek to address and combat discursive injustices in texts (van Dijk, 2009a, p. 63), including the inequities of discourse access and control (van Dijk, 2008c, p. 14). The way analysts do this is through de-naturalizing the language of illegitimate domination by those in power, highlighting amongst other things, the workings of ideology in texts through misrepresentation, omission of information, and social manipulation. Keeping to this approach, this study seeks to go beyond merely highlighting the workings of bias in media coverage, as CDA is concerned with the subtle ways in which ideology and power operate through

discourse. Indeed, it is the subtleness that makes it difficult to detect illegitimate power abuse and unjust representation in which certain beliefs, values, and rationales are naturalized as attitudes (Fairclough, 1992b, p. 51) and can materialize in the form of policies for instance. In this sense, rather than contributing to a specific discipline, paradigm, school or discursive theory, CDA researchers are motivated by social issues (van Dijk, 1993, p. 252), and addressing and overcoming social wrongs (Fairclough, 2009, p. 163).

93