Critical Discourse Analysis by Diako Hamzehzadeh Afkham CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction Critical discourse analysis (CDA), a recent school of discourse analysis, is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which views "language as a form of social practice" (Fairclough, 1989, p. 20) and focuses on the ways social and political domination is reproduced by text and talk. That is, language is both socially constitutive as well as "socially shaped" (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997, p. 258). Critical linguistics has been an approach to the analysis of discourse for the last thirty years, and as one of its central objectives, it considers the linguistic choices a text producer makes as a potential medium through which the ideological import of a particular discourse situation can be reproduced. Fairclough and Wodak (1997) usefully translate this into the "working
Transcript
Critical Discourse Analysis
by Diako Hamzehzadeh Afkham
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
Critical discourse analysis (CDA), a recent school of discourse
analysis, is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which
views "language as a form of social practice" (Fairclough, 1989, p. 20) and
focuses on the ways social and political domination is reproduced by text
and talk. That is, language is both socially constitutive as well as "socially
shaped" (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997, p. 258).
Critical linguistics has been an approach to the analysis of discourse
for the last thirty years, and as one of its central objectives, it considers the
linguistic choices a text producer makes as a potential medium through
which the ideological import of a particular discourse situation can be
reproduced. Fairclough and Wodak (1997) usefully translate this into the
"working assumption" that "any part of any language text, spoken or
written, is simultaneously constituting representations, relations, and
identities" (p. 275). That is, discourse represents particular world views,
particular social relations between people, and particular social identities
according to the purpose, context and addressees of the text.
CDA attempts to unpack the hidden ideologies of discourse that have
become so naturalized over time and are perceived as acceptable and
natural features of discourse. In terms of method, CDA can generally be
described as hyper-linguistic or supra-linguistic, in that practitioners who
use CDA consider the larger discourse context or the meaning that lies
beyond the grammatical structure. This includes consideration of the
political, and even the economic, context of language usage and production.
In addition, the approach draws from social theory — and
contributions from Marx, Gramsci, Althusser, Habermas, Foucault and
Bourdieu — in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in
discourse. Amongst the most influential scholars is the French post-
structuralist philosopher, Foucault (Fairclough 1989). Another influential
school of thought that has been an important source for CDA is the Marxist-
influenced Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, in particular that of
Adorno and Horkheimer, later followed by Habermas (Fairclough 1989;
Fowler et al. 1979; Wodak 2001). Quoting Habermas (1977, p. 259),
Wodak (2001, p. 2) asserts that:
Most critical discourse analysts would endorse Habermas's claim that 'language is also a medium of domination and social force. It serves to legitimize relations of organized power. In so far as the legitimations of power relations … are not articulated … language is also ideological'.
Fairclough notes "that language connects with the social through
being the primary domain of ideology, and through being both a site of, and
a stake in, struggles for power" (1989, p. 15).
Critical discourse analysis is founded on the idea that there is
unequal access to linguistic and social resources, resources that are
controlled institutionally. The pattern of access to discourse and
communicative events is an essential element for CDA. In other words,
CDA aims at investigating critically social inequality "as it is expressed,
signaled, constituted, legitimized and so on by language use" (Wodak,
2001, p. 2).
The language employed in EFL textbooks is not an exception to this
rule. Textbooks as other types of discourse can be ideologically loaded
although they may seem innocent at first sight. Tadeu da Silva (1999, p.1)
maintains that a curriculum "is always [an] authorized representation",
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implicitly, legitimating and disseminating a certain ideology. Kress (1996,
p.16) contends that:
The curriculum and its associated pedagogy, puts forward a set of cultural, linguistic and social resources which students have available as recourses for their own transformation, in relation to which (among others) students constantly construct, reconstruct and transform their subjectivity .
On the influence of language on society, Lakoff (1973) argued that
society is reflected in the language, with the values and assumptions held by
society being mirrored in the language. His studies were concerned with the
manner in which women were depicted in written and spoken English and
what values were being unconsciously passed on because of this. The
norms of conduct, ideology, etc. are usually disseminated without the
learner even being aware of being exposed to such norms. That is, (s)he is
exposed to a "hidden curriculum", to use Skelton (1997) terms. The liberal
perspective, according to Skelton (1997),
… considers the hidden curriculum to be those taken for granted assumptions and practices of school life which although being created by various 'actors' within the school … take on an appearance of accepted normality through their daily production and reproduction. (p.179)
Evans and Davis (2000) assert that though researchers and publishers
have agreed upon using positive characteristics of different genders in their
textbooks, the achievements have not been so significant. Studies of the
portrayal of women in EFL/ESL textbooks (Ansary and Babii 2003;
Hartman and Judd 1978) have shown that the stereotypical role of women
as mothers and homemakers is still being perpetuated in many current
language textbooks. Otlowski (2003) in this regard, criticizes EFL/ESL
textbooks for contributing to the misinterpretation of women and minority
groups and considers it as unacceptable in this day and age to perpetuate the
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image of women as homemakers when women make up such an integral
part of the workforce in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
Experts in the field of CDA (Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 1998,
2001; van Leeuwen, 1996, to name a few) assert that language employed in
books, media, or even in an ordinary conversation does not simply convey
the information that it overtly indicates. Rather, it can be used to shape the
addressee’s feelings, thoughts and modes of behavior. Such potentials are
sound enough to make language a suitable medium for uncovering hidden
ideologies intended to construct social norms and values. According to
Kress (1996, p.16)
A curriculum is a design for a future social subject and via that envisioned subject a design for a future society. That is, the curriculum puts forward knowledges, skills, meanings, value in the present which will be telling in the lives of those who experience the curriculum, ten or twenty years later. Forms of pedagogy experienced by children now in school suggest to them forms of social relation which they are encouraged to adopt, adapt, modify and treat as models.
If the influential role of textbooks on learners' mentality is accepted,
then the way textbooks portray the various people in the target society and
the way those people are shown to communicate will directly affect EFL
students' worldview.
Considering the possible effects of textbooks on constructing
learners’ views and ideologies, this study aims at investigating the possible
inclusion and exclusion of such ideologies. That is to say, this study is to
identify the principal ways through which social actors are represented in
the texts under study and reveal the possible hidden discursive structures.
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1.3. Objectives of the study
This study is an endeavor to clarify the way male and female social
actors are represented in the Interchange Third Edition (2005). The study
draws on the work of van Leeuwen (1996) to formulate a framework which
utilizes a socio-semantic inventory, in a systematic way. The study will be
carried out to:
1. Identify the particular ways in which social actors have
been represented in the textbooks under study.
2. Determine the magnitude of the application of social
actors and ideologies involved.
3. Identify the particular ideologies at work.
Interchange Third Edition series would serve as the data for the
study since these textbooks are widely used as EFL/ESL sources and they
are accessible productions to which students are mostly exposed. Moreover,
the texts seem amenable to critical analysis based on the features introduced
in van Leeuwen (1996) socio-semantic framework.
1.4. Research Questions
To further clarify the points under investigation the following three
research questions are formulated:
1. Are social actors represented differently in the textbooks under
study and, if so, how is this achieved linguistically?
2. Provided that social actors are represented differently, what
ideological assumptions can account for the difference?
3. Are particular words or expressions used to represent the
ideologies at work?
1.5. Significance of the Study
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Critical linguistics has been widely influential and successful in
documenting the connection of linguistic and social practices. Language is
not merely a means of communicating information. Rather, it is an
important means of establishing and maintaining social relationship with
other members of the speech community. It has the potential to provide a
detailed theoretical account of the operation of ideology in all aspects of
texts (see e.g., Fairclough, 1989, 1995; Hodge & Kress, 1996).
One such aspect is ideological uses of language in textbooks. Of
course, language (usage) is essentially a neutral vehicle of communication
which can be used to convey a range of attitudes and values. However,
language (use) plays a major role in strengthening certain attitudes and
values which, it seems, is less widely understood and acknowledged.
According to Foucault (1980), socialization systems, especially the
educational system, constitute a link between knowledge and ideology.
Ideology is aided by education for purposes of survival, continuity and
immortalization of certain values.
Textbooks contain the ideological consensus which allows them to
become accepted and desirable in the education system. Because these texts
are written and edited by educated, scientific people, one can assume that
the authors insist on the reliability of the information presented in the
books. However, one can assume that their writing is also affected by the
acceptance of the ideological conventions under whose influence they
acted. The authors of the textbooks are not always aware of the ideological
influence which directed their writing, and this influence may be
unconscious.
CDA attempts to reveal hidden ideologies in discourse which play a
crucial role in shaping people’s ideologies as well as changing social
realities. In this regard, van Dijk (1985, p. 7) states:
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Discourse plays a crucial role in their ideological formation, in their communicative reproduction, in the social and political decision procedures and in the institutional management and representation of such issues … as soon as we know more about the discursive representation and management of such problems and conflicts, we have the design for the key that disrupt, disclose and challenge the mechanism involved.
Armstrong (1998) views the basic function of a curriculum as the
dissemination, as well as the imposition, of power relation in a community.
Hence, being aware of such hidden notions in the texts will obviously
provide learners with options to choose.
Considering the potential ideologies textbooks can impose on L2 learners
and the spreading use of the Interchange series in language institutes, a
critical analysis of these books to denaturalize or uncover certain taken-for-
granted assumptions underlying the texts can be of paramount importance.
According to Fowler (1996, p.6) the results of such studies may hopefully
"equip readers for demystificatory reading of ideology-laden texts". This
could arm the reader with the ability to become a critical reader and to
develop the language awareness, serving as a "prerequisite for effective,
and a democratic entitlement", as indicated by Fairclough (1995, p. 222).
The findings of this study clearly will be helpful to English teachers as well
as L2 learners, in that, the application of critical discourse analysis to
instructional material can give them additional skills in identifying
discursive strategies expressing social values and ideological underpinnings
of the text and provide them with a deeper knowledge and understanding of
the social and ideological aspects of the society in which the language is
used.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
CDA has dealt with many social and linguistic issues in research
such as language and ideology, linguistic imperialism, the relationship
between gender, power and identity. According to Meyer (2001, p.15),
"CDA scholars play an advocatory role for groups who suffer form social
discrimination". It is argued here that CDA can be useful in openly and
explicitly examining the relationship between politics and research.
Some of the tenets of critical discourse analysis can already be found
in the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School before the Second World War
(Rasmussen, 1996). Its current focus on language and discourse was
initiated with the critical linguistics that emerged (mostly in the UK and
Australia) at the end of the 1970s (Fowler et al. 1979; Mey, 1985).
Fairclough & Wodak (1997, p. 271-280) summarize the main tenets of
CDA as follows:
1. CDA addresses social problems.
2. Power relations are discursive.
3. Discourse constitutes society and culture.
4. Discourse does ideological work.
5. Discourse is historical.
6. The link between text and society is mediated.
7. Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory.
8. Discourse is a form of social action.
Wodak (1989) defines the field, which she calls critical linguistics,
as an interdisciplinary approach to language study with a critical point of
view for the purpose of studying language behavior in natural speech
situations of social relevance. Wodak also stresses the importance of
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diverse theoretical and methodological concepts and suggests that these can
also be used for analyzing issues of social relevance, while attempting to
expose inequality and injustice. Wodak encourages the use of multiple
methods in language research while emphasizing the importance of
recognizing the historical and social aspects.
As Kress (1990) points out, CDA has an overtly political agenda,
which serves to set CDA off from other kinds of discourse analysis and text
linguistics, as well as pragmatics and sociolinguistics. While most forms of
discourse analysis aim to provide a better understanding of socio-cultural
aspects of texts, CDA aims to provide accounts of the production, internal
structure, and overall organization of texts. One crucial difference is that
CDA aims to provide a critical dimension in its theoretical and descriptive
accounts of texts.
Fairclough contends that language contributes to the domination of
some people by others, and that a more critical analysis of the ideological
workings of language is "the first step towards emancipation" (1989, p. 1).
2.2. Critical Theory
Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and
in the history of the social sciences. Critical Theory in the narrow sense
designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists
in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School.
According to these theorists, a critical theory may be distinguished from a
traditional theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is
critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, “to liberate human
beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, p.
244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the
circumstances that enslave human beings, many critical theories in the
broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with
the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the
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domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the
narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and
normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and
increasing freedom in all their forms.
2.3. Development of CDA
Critical linguistics was first introduced in Language and Control by
Fowler, Hodge, Kress, and Trew (Crystal, 1987). It was a reaction to fill the
explanatory shortages of then current analyses. This approach was to go
deeper into the interpretation of discourse and try to realize and establish
the relations of discourse and the social entities outside the discourse.
Kress (1990) gives an account of the theoretical foundations and
sources of critical linguistics (CL). He indicates that the term CL was "quite
self-consciously adapted" (p. 88), as a label by a group of scholars working
at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s.
By the 1990s, the label CDA came to be used more consistently with
this particular approach to linguistic analysis. Kress (1990, p. 94) shows
how CDA by that time was “emerging as a distinct theory of language, a
radically different kind of linguistics”. He lists criteria that characterize
work in the critical discourse analysis paradigm, illustrating how these
distinguish such work from other politically engaged discourse analysis.
Of course, the start of this CDA network is also marked by the
launch of van Dijk’s journal Discourse and society (1990) as well as
through several books, like Language and Power by Fairclough (1989),
Language, Power and Ideology by Wodak (1989) or van Dijk’s first book
on racism, Prejudice in Discourse (1984). According to Wodak (2001), the
Amsterdam meeting marked an institutional beginning.
Since then, much has changed the agenda as well as the scholars
involved. New journals have been launched, multiple overviews have been
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written, and nowadays CDA is an "established paradigm in linguistics".
(Wodak, 2001, p. 4)
2.3.1. Ideology
The term ideology may be considered as one of the less settled
categories in the field of linguistic studies. Concise Oxford Dictionary
(1994, p.477) defines ideology as "a system of ideas and ideals forming the
basis of an economic or political theory; the set of beliefs characteristic of a
social group or individual."
However, its everyday usage is largely negative, and "typically refers
to the rigid, misguided or partisan ideas of others: we have the truth, and
they have ideologies" (van Dijk 2004, Ideology, para.1). This negative
meaning goes back to Marx-Engels, for whom ideologies were a form of
false consciousnesses. Originally, ideology did not have this negative
meaning. More than two hundred years ago, the French philosopher Destutt
de Tracy introduced the term in order to denote a new discipline that would
study ideas: idéologie. Also in the contemporary political science, the
notion is used in a more neutral, descriptive sense, e.g., to refer to political
belief systems (Freeden, 1996).
One of the many dimensions highlighted in the classical approaches
to ideology was its dominant nature, in the sense that ideologies play a role
in the legitimization of power abuse by dominant groups. One of the most
efficient forms of ideological dominance is when the dominated groups also
accept dominant ideologies as natural or commonsense. Gramsci called
such forms of ideological dominance hegemony (Gramsci, 1971). Bourdieu
does not use the notion of ideology very much (mainly because he thinks it
is too vague and has often been abused to discredit others who do not agree
with us (see Bourdieu & Eagleton, 1994), but rather speaks of symbolic
power or symbolic violence. It should be stressed, though, that his uses of
these terms are different from the (various) uses of the notion of ideology.
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His main interest lies in the social conditions of discursive and symbolic
power, such as the authority and legitimacy of those who produce
discourse.
Van Dijk (2004, Ideology, para. 4) defines ideology as "the
foundation of the social representations shared by a social group". He
contends these group ideas may be valued "positively", "negatively" or not
be valued at all depending on one’s perspective, group membership or
ethics. That is, ideologies are not exclusively identified with dominant
groups in the sense that dominated groups may also have ideologies,
namely ideologies of "resistance" and "opposition". More generally
ideologies are associated with social groups, classes, casts or communities
which thus represent their fundamental interests. He further points out
Ideologies are the ‘axiomatic’ basis of the social representations of a group and – through specific social attitudes and then through personal mental models -- control the individual discourses and other social practices of group members. (Ideology, para. 5)
In contrast with many Marxist or other critics who interpret the
role of the media in modern societies deterministically, van Dijk
(2004) does not suggest that ideologies are essentially false forms of
consciousness, as in the case of many traditional theories of ideology.
The possible discrepancy between group ideology and group
interests implies that power relations in society can also be reproduced
and legitimated at the ideological level, meaning that, to control other
people, it is most effective to try to control their group attitudes and
especially their even more fundamental, attitude-producing,
ideologies. In such circumstances, audiences will behave out of their
own free will in accordance with the interests of the powerful. Van
Dijk, in line with other proponents of CDA including Wodak and
Kress, implies that the exercise of power in modern, democratic
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societies is no longer primarily coercive, but persuasive, that is,
ideological.
Language, according to Fairclough (1995, p. 73), is “a material form
of ideology, … invested by ideology”. Ideology is not a concept that
belongs to the realm of ideas but it has a material existence in language.
This is also recognized by Fairclough (1992, p. 87) who defines ideologies
as:
significations/constructions of reality which are built into various dimensions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices and which contribute to the production, reproduction or transformation of relations of domination.
Ideologies become most effective when they become naturalized or
are perceived as common sense. Therefore, language, being ideologically
invested (although to varying degrees), helps maintain or transform power
relations within a specific socio-economic context.
Van Dijk (1995, p. 22) holds that ideologies are implicitly expressed
in text and talk and "discourses function to persuasively help construct new
and confirm already present ideologies".
Seliger defines ideology as "an action-oriented set of beliefs" (1976,
p.107), in the same way Hodge and Kress (1996, p.6) define it as "a
systematic body of ideas, organized from a particular point of view ".
2.3.2. Power
Much of the recent sociological debate on power revolves around the
issue of the constraining and/or enabling nature of power. Thus, power can
be seen as various forms of constraint on human action, but also as that
which makes action possible, although in a limited scope. Much of this
debate is related to the works of the French philosopher Foucault, who,
following the Italian political philosopher Machiavelli, sees power as "a
complex strategic situation in a given society" (Wikipedia). Being deeply
structural, his concept involves both constraint and enablement.
One of the crucial tasks of CDA is to account for the relationships
between discourse and social power. More specifically, such an analysis
should describe and explain how power abuse is enacted, reproduced or
legitimised by the text and talk of the dominant groups or institutions.
Power may be exercised in covert or/and overt ways. The proponents
of CDA (Fairclough, 1995; Hodge and Kress, 1996, and van Dijk 2001)
maintain that discourse is the site where power relations are constructed,
practiced and reconstructed. They tend to believe that this power relation
therefore is not natural, but is a socially constructed notion, and that
language is the most important tool in accomplishing the power relationship
existing among members of a community and, as Fowler (1985, p. 61)
asserts, "the use of language continuously constitutes the statuses and roles
upon which people base their claims to exercise power, and the statuses and
roles which seem to require subservience."
Van Dijk (1996, p.84) defines power as "a property of relations
between social groups, institutions or organizations". According to him
dominance is "understood as a form of social power abuse, that is, as a
legally or morally illegitimate exercise of control over others in one's own
interest, often resulting in social inequality".
The concept of ideology is most generally associated with power
relations; Power is not a unitary force or phenomenon, nor an exclusively
political phenomenon. Power and power relations are woven throughout all
our practices and ideas. Power is exercised in every relationship, group, and
social practice. According to Thompson (cited in Fairclough, 1992),
ideology is meaning in the service of power.
According to Fairclough (1992), critical discourse analysis is the sort
of analysis that is targeted to unveil linkages of causality and determination
between discursive practices and events and wider social and cultural
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processes and structures, and to investigate how such practices are shaped
ideologically by relations of power and struggles over power and the
maintenance of hegemony.
In discourse, the speakers/writers usually have a myriad of options
by their language, depending upon their purpose, to express the same notion
differently. Concerning the ways such relations may be exercised, Kress
(1985, p. 28) says:
… in discourse of power and authority, social agency will be assigned in particular ways, and this will be expressed through particular transitivity forms; or specific modal forms will systematically express relations of power. In this way a given discourse, say sexist discourse, will display certain quite characteristic linguistic features, expressive of causality or agency, power, gender as well as linguistic features serving to focalize or topicalize specific aspects of discourse.
Kress's words imply that discourse is a social phenomenon, reflecting,
and/or constructing the social structure of the society. Accordingly,
linguists tend to look at and study language critically to uncover the
discursive sources of the class and gender inequality, among others.
2.4. CDA and its Main Trends
2.4.1. van Dijk's Approach
The basic conceptual and theoretical concepts worked out and used
by van Dijk (2002) in his CDA studies are as follows: macro vs.
micro level analysis, power as control, access and discourse
control, context control, the control of text and talk and mind
control. The micro level comprises language, discourse, verbal
interaction and so on while the macro level has to do with power
relation such as inequality and dominance.
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The multidisciplinary approach van Dijk introduces not only
emphasizes the social and political nature of ideologies, but also their socio-
cognitive nature (van Dijk 1995). It is articulated within a conceptual
triangle that connects society, discourse and social cognition in the
framework of a critical discourse analysis. In this approach, ideologies are
the basic frameworks for organizing the social cognitions shared by
members of social groups, organizations or institutions. In this respect,
ideologies are both cognitive and social. ideologies essentially function as
the interface between the cognitive representations and processes
underlying discourse and action, on the one hand, and the societal position
and interests of social groups, on the other hand. He states that,
This conception of ideology also allows us to establish the crucial link between macro-level analyses of groups, social formations and social structure, and micro-level studies of situated, individual interaction and discourse. (p. 18)
This approach does imply that a theory of ideology without an
explicit cognitive component is incomplete in that dealing with ideologies
without talking about the nature and functions of socially shared ideas is
theoretically unsatisfactory. According to van Dijk (2004) ideological social
practices are by definition based on ideologies defined as shared mental
representations of some kind, in a way that might be compared with the
way language use is based on a shared grammar or discourse and
conversation rules. It is in this sense that ideologies as socially shared
cognitive resources are fundamental for social practices, interaction and
intra- and inter group relations.
Van Dijk's (2002) focus is also on content from an interdisciplinary
point of view. Discourse analysis, when used together with a
multidisciplinary approach to the study of language, provides the critic with
a tool for studying communication within socio-cultural contexts.
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Specifically, van Dijk states that the focus on textual or conversational
structures derives its framework from the cognitive, social, historical,
cultural, or political contexts. Van Dijk's approach, however, differs from a
purely linguistic approach in that it is not limited to the study of the surface
structures and meanings of isolated, abstract sentences.
Ideology also plays a crucial role in van Dijk's (1995) analytical
method. To Van Dijk, ideologies are viewed as interpretation frameworks
which organize sets of attitudes about other elements of modern society.
Ideologies, therefore, provide the cognitive foundation for the attitudes of
various groups in societies, as well as the furtherance of their own goals and
interests.
Van Djik (2004) offers a schema of relations between ideology,
society, cognition and discourse. He contends that within social structures,
social interaction takes place. This social interaction is presented in the
form of text/discourse, which is then cognized according to a cognitive
system/memory. This system/memory consists of short-term memory, in
which strategic process, or decoding and interpretation takes place. Long-
term memory, however, serves as a holder of socio-cultural knowledge,
which consists of knowledge of language, discourse, communication,
persons, groups and events existing in the form of scripts. Social (group)
attitudes also reside within long-term memory and provide further decoding
guides. Each of these group attitudes can represent an array of ideologies
which combine to create one's own personal ideology which conforms to
one's identity, goals, social position, values and resources.
Another essential element of van Dijk's thesis, especially as it applies
to an intercultural approach to media analysis, is the systematic analysis of
implicitness. Journalists and media users are in possession of mental models
about the world. Consequently, the text is usually only "the tip of the
iceberg of all information" speakers have about an event or situation they
are talking about (van Dijk 2002, p. 212). The rest is assumed to be
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supplied by the knowledge scripts and models of the media users, and
therefore usually left unsaid. Hence van Dijk (2002) concludes that the
analysis of the implicit is very useful in the study of underlying ideologies.
2.4.2. Fairclough's Approach
Fairclough’s (1989) analysis has moved from focusing on the
whatness of the text description toward the howness and whyness of the text
interpretation and explanation, i.e. why a speaker/writer selects certain
forms or models. There are certain underlying assumptions behind these
selections and these assumptions are never innocent, rather they are
ideologically loaded.
Fairclough (1995) considers CDA as an approach that tends to
investigate the relationships between discursive practices and the social
structures in which they are employed. CDA holds that the relationship is
not usually open to the reader/listener. Hence, it seeks to uncover the causal
and determinative relation existing between the two. Furthermore, it is to
explore the ways such practices are constructed by the ideology which is, in
turn, shaped by the power relations practiced in the community. Language,
according to Fairclough (1995), plays a crucial role in both revealing social
processes and interactions in practice and constructing them. Fairclough
(1989, p.22) views language as "a form of social practice." That is to say, he
maintains that language as "a socially conditioned process" cannot be
abstracted from the society to which it belongs. By viewing language as a
social process, Fairclough (1989) holds that language does not function just
as a passive reflection of the society and the social interaction or processes
that occur there, but it is an indispensable part of the social process. Then,
discourse - a chunk of language beyond a sentence, shaped in the society is
a site for both producing and interpreting the text. The social condition for
producing/interpreting the text is, in turn, related to three levels of social
organization (Fairclough, 1989): (a) the social context in which the text is
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used (b) the social institution and (c) the society at large. These three levels
play a significant role in producing/interpreting the text. The linguistic
theory Fairclough based his framework on is referred to as Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL). The theory takes a functional approach
towards analyzing a text. It aims at examining sentences in their context and
finding the intended meaning expressed by the text. Despite his awareness
of the point that textual features of discourse manifest themselves in
linguistic properties, Fairclough takes an interpretive approach in analyzing
a text instead of a descriptive one which is practiced widely by linguistic
analysis.
2.4.3. Hodge and Kress's Approach
Hodge and Kress (1996) consider language as an entity containing
certain categories and processes. There are certain models, constituting the
categories, used to manifest the relationship existing between texts and
events. These models construct fundamental schemata which are crucial in
classifying the world entities. They introduce the syntagmatic models which
comprise actional and relational models. The former comprises
transactional and non-transactional models. Both of them are concerned
with a sort of action, but in transactional model there are at least two
entities, an agent and the affected ones. The action goes from the agent to
affect the other entity, the affected. In the non-transactive model, however,
there is just one entity. Then, it might not be possible to see whether the
entity, that is present in the text, is affected or is the doer of the action.
Actionals, in general, attempt to constitute "a version of reality" (Hodge &
Kress, 1996, p.164). In the second model, the relational one, the
relationship, mediated by the process, is either that of equative or
attributive: the former relates two entities together, whereas the latter
provides a relationship between an entity and a quality. The relational
contributes in (re)classifying the events and passing judgment on different
19
entities. Based on these syntagms, it is possible to classify the world and the
events occurring in it. What is important to Hodge and Kress, along with
other proponents of CDA, is that selecting transactional over non-
transactional, or relationals or actionals is not a matter of mere choice as
such. A selection happens systematically based on an underlying ideology.
In this sense, the syntagmatic model is claimed to be a semantic model that
tries to reveal the intended meaning which is usually expressed opaquely.
The basic models proposed by Hodge and Kress to characterize such
classifications in English are schematized below.
Physical-process transactives
Transactive
Mental-process transactives
Actionals
Physical-process non-transactives
Non-transactive
Syntagmatic Mental-process non-transactives
models
Qualitative
Attributive
Relationals Possessive
Equative
2.4.4. van Leeuwen's Approach
Van Leeuwen (1996), while being in line with other proponents of
CDA with regard to the impact of society on the order of discourse, on the
one hand, and the effects of the discourse in the construction,
transformation, or maintenance of the social power and society, on the other
hand, has taken a somewhat different approach in analyzing the text. He has
utilized a socio-semantic approach in which "social actors can be
represented". To put it in van Leeuwen's (1996, p.34) words:
20
… the categories I shall propose … should, …, be seen as pan-semiotic: a given culture … has not only its own, specific array of ways of representing the social world but also its own specific ways of mapping the different semiotics on to this array, of prescribing, …,what can be realized verbally as well as visually, what only verbally, what only visually…
The full framework has been introduced and explained in chapter
three.
2.5. CDA & Gender Studies
Discourse analysis assumes from the outset that language is invested,
meaning that language is not a neutral tool for transmitting a message but
rather, that all "communicative events" (van Dijk, 1993, p. 250), constitute
"a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect
of the world)" (Phillips and Jorgensen, 2002, p. 1) both on the part of the
producer (the writer, the speaker) and on the part of the consumer (the
reader, the audience). As such, discourse analysis references both a theory
of language use - language use as not neutral but invested - and a method
for analyzing language in use.
Thus, on the premise that discourse is invested, critical discourse
analysis operates to actualize the agendas of both speakers and listeners.
This recognition has led to the notion of critical discourse analysis whose
aim is to produce an analysis or "explanatory critique" (Fairclough, 2000,
pp. 235-6) of how and for what purpose language use is invested through
the deployment of specific textual features (lexical, grammatical, semantic),
in order to facilitate understanding of its effects.
It, therefore, explores "the links between language use and socio-
cultural practice" (Phillips and Jorgensen, 2002, p. 69), and thus the values
and attitudes articulated and the way these are expressed. As such, and
given its assumption of the investedness of language, it is ideally suitable
21
for gender studies since the socio-cultural investigation of gender involves
the analysis of the investments expressed through discursive formations.
From a feminist perspective which assumes that gender is a central
organizing principle of both knowledge and experience and that this
principle expresses vested interests of diverse kinds, critical discourse
analysis which shares that assumption of investedness is an ideal research
tool since it reveals the articulation and operation of that investment
(Cameron & Kulick, 2003; Cameron, 2006). Critical discourse analysis as a
research method, thus, centers on understanding the ideological
machinations of discourse and aims to produce a critique of how discourse
operates to affect certain agendas. In this respect, critical discourse analysis
as a method has much in common with gender studies in that their
objectives, too, involve uncovering ideological agendas which emerge from
the discourses produced in formal and informal exchanges.
As Foucault (1984), one of the cultural theorists associated with the
theorization of the nature and the operations of discourse has argued,
different discourses produce different kinds of truth claims or effects and
have specific relations to authority and power. Discourse, in Foucault’s
writings, emerged not as a neutral mode of signifying but as a means for
structuring social relations, knowledge, and power.
Feminist theorists are generally concerned with analyzing power
relations and the way women as individuals and as members of groups
negotiate relations of power. Mills (1997, p.78) contends that
Recent feminist work has moved from viewing women as simply an oppressed group, as victims of male domination and has tried to formulate ways of analyzing power as it manifests itself and as it is resisted in the relations of everyday life.
22
Discourse theory sees power as enacted within the relationships and
thus as something which can be "contested at every moment and in every
interaction" (Mills, 1997, p.88). In this regard, Smith (1990, p. 163) states:
To explore femininity as discourse means a shift away from viewing it as a normative order reproduced through socialization, to which women are somehow subordinated. Rather femininity is addressed as a complex of actual relations vested in texts.
2.6. CDA, Curriculum and Ideology
In the Marxist tradition ideology is a term developed to talk about
how cultures are structured in ways that enable the group holding power to
have the maximum control with the minimum of conflict. This is not a
matter of groups deliberately planning to oppress people or alter their
consciousness (although this can happen), but rather a matter of how the
dominant institutions in society work through values, conceptions of the
world, and symbol systems, in order to legitimize the current order.
Briefly, this legitimization is managed through the widespread
teaching (the social adoption) of ideas about the way things are, how the
world really works and should work. These ideas (often embedded in
symbols and cultural practices) orient people's thinking in such a way that
they accept the current way of doing things, the current sense of what is
natural, and the current understanding of their roles in society. This
socialization process, the shaping of cognitive and affective interpretations
of social world, is called, by Gramsci (1971), hegemony. According to
Althusser (1994), it is carried out by the state ideological apparatuses -- by
the churches, the schools, the family, and through cultural forms (such as
literature, and advertising).
As one of its major objectives, CDA generally seeks a socially just
curriculum. The proponents of this approach (Frein, 1998; Hodge and
Kress, 1996; Kress, 1996) approve of the crucial effects of the curriculum
23
on the learner. They share the conception that the curriculum is to construct
the future social subject.
Van Dijk (2001) states that textbooks are ideologies embedded in the
curriculum. He claims that enforcing hegemony and dominance over the
community is achieved by controlling discourse.
As Althusser (cited in Fairclough 1991, p.26) argues, "ideology
works by disguising its ideological nature"; therefore, learners being
exposed to ideologies presented in textbooks would most likely accept them
with no resistance.
As to the impact of education, in general, and educational texts, in
particular, on the formation of the identity and attitudes of the learners
toward the world and its issues, Martin and van Gunten (2002, p. 44)
emphasize the importance of schooling in shaping the identities of both
teachers and students. In other words, they maintain that educational
settings are places where "identities and social relations are negotiated,
contested, and defended" (p. 44). Britzman, as reported by McCoy 1997,
p.344), similarly holds that "most students have been educated in contexts
that do not address how a social difference is fashioned by relations of
power and how relations of power govern the self". The identity/attitude
formation in the process of schooling is mostly mediated through language,
either in an oral or a written form. Among the means used in an educational
organization, textbooks seem to play a crucial role in the formation of the
learners self conception.
As the above review indicates, CDA has provided researchers with
effective analytical tools to analyze various texts profoundly. CDA, if
employed appropriately, has been used to show how language can
construct, disseminate and maintain a prefabricated ideology.
24
2.7. Related Studies
Otlowski (2003) analyzed an English language textbook used
throughout Japan. Expressway A, was examined for (a) gender bias - the
depiction of women in stereotypical roles, and (b) ethnic group portrayal -
the visibility and depiction of ethnic groups in the text. The conversations
and illustrations in each chapter were examined. The results showed that
Expressway A, while better than many earlier EFL texts, still depicts
women in roles that no longer accurately represent their role in society. The
text also gives a very sanitized view of the ethnic make-up of the societies
and, in one case, shows a large degree of cultural insensitivity.
Hobson (2003) analyzed excerpts from the Scouts’ and Guides’
handbooks of 1919, using the socio-semantic frameworks of van Leeuwen
(1996). The excerpts were studied in order to consider the representation
and construction of gender identities within the texts written by Robert
Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouts and Guides movements, and to
specifically determine whether girls and boys were represented differently
in the texts. Therefore, the construction of idealized femininity and
masculinity and the representation of appropriate means of performing such
identities were of most concern in this study. Following the analysis, it was
concluded that boys and girls were indeed represented differently and that
masculinity and femininity as social and ideological constructs, at the
beginning of the twentieth century, were enmeshed in notions of
imperialism, as well as militarism and maternalism, respectively.
Sunderland (2000) used as her data the parent craft literature offered
to new parents, and discussed the discoursal representation of fathers and
mothers in these texts. Grounding her work in the tradition of CDA, she
considered what “view of the world” (p. 256), over and above other
potential views of the world, is presented through the grammatical and
lexical choices made by the authors of these texts (what van Leeuwen and
Wodak describe as the choices of recontextualization (1999)). Sunderland
25
found it helpful to draw on elements of van Leeuwen’s (1996) framework
in her analysis of social actors, focusing especially on the notion of
exclusion. She was able to identify occasions where the father was
suppressed or backgrounded in the textual construction of parenthood,
which allowed her in turn to recognize the dominant discourse in operation
in this literature: part-time father/mother as the main parent. Sunderland
reported that other discourses were constructed in addition, which
represented mothers and fathers differently but ultimately as mutual
constructs.
Palmer (1998) also utilized van Leeuwen’s frameworks in her
analysis of the children’s fiction book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In this paper, Palmer discussed the representation of capitalist production
and consumption, which was a novel undertaking considering van
Leeuwen’s frameworks have most often been applied to non-fictional media
texts for the purpose of uncovering racist or sexist attitudes. Through the
use of van Leeuwen’s work, however, Palmer was able to reveal a
perpetuation of a capitalist/worker divide and the unequal power
relationship between workers and capitalists as an ideological undercurrent
behind the text.
van Leeuwen’s (1996) framework of textual analysis draws
considerably on Halliday’s (1985) work on transitivity, and specifically the
division of activities into process types. The analysis of process types has a
history within critical linguistics; for example, Trew in (1979) (cited in
Fairclough, 1992) was able to demonstrate how particular process choices
invoke political or ideological interpretations. Trew analyzed the media
representation of the deaths of South African demonstrators, and found that
the political orientations of the newspapers in which the deaths were
reported determined whether or not the responsibility for the deaths was
overtly attributed. Similarly, Talbot (1995: cited in Talbot, 1998) draws on
the transitivity system in her analysis of an adventure story involving male
26
and female characters. In this analysis, Talbot found that the male
protagonist was predominantly in control especially over and above the
female characters, and because he was largely represented as the
grammatical subject of many transitive verbs, he was predominantly
portrayed as the character that had an affect on the social world. The other
characters, on the other hand, were the grammatical subjects of intransitive
verbs and so did not share the characteristic of making things happen with
the male protagonist. Close textual analysis, therefore, has had much to
reveal about particular social representations of people or characters.
2.7.1. Studies carried out in Iran
Iranian researchers have carried out relevant studies to manifest the
close link between discourse and ideological manipulations.
In this regard, Khosravi Nik (2000) studied the Iranian newspapers
to demonstrate how political ideologies were produced and spread in texts
in a covert way. To do so, he utilized four linguistic features, namely,
nominalization, active/passive, transactive/non-transactive and naming. He
showed how the texts were manipulated to serve certain predetermined
objectives.
Ghane (2001), in an attempt to illustrate the role of language in
disseminating certain ideology, compared some English and Persian plays
and film scripts. He showed the interaction existing between the language
and thought between males and females.
Yarmohammadi and Seif (2004) studied the representation of social
actors in Israel and Palestine struggle by applying Van Leeuwen’s
framework. The results showed that there was a bilateral link between
discursive structures and ideologies.
Another CDA study was carried out by Amalsaleh (2004). It
investigated the representation of social actors (in terms of social class,
gender…) in the EFL textbooks in Iran. The findings of the study revealed
27
that all the books, irrespective of their goals and audience, mostly appeared
to follow an almost similar trend. All, for instance, demonstrated a
differential representation of social actors, showing males and females
differently. It appeared to suggest that such a representation worked toward
portraying the female social actors as belonging to home context or having
limited job opportunities in the society.
Rahimi (2005) studied euphemization and derogation in English and
Persian texts. He showed that a number of discursive structures, and most
prominently euphemization and derogation, have been exploited to
materialize the main ideological function of Negative Other Presentation vs.
Positive Self-Presentation. The biased representations detected in the study
were used to delegitimize the others’ ideologies and legitimize our own
viewpoints reflected in the social memory of the group.
Norouzi (2006) studied the representation of women characteristics
in narrative texts, within the framework of critical discourse analysis a case
study on the novel Dancers. The result showed that women are not
considered active, well-knowledged and decision makers. Rather they are
depicted as obedient and naive.
In the same line of research, Samaie (2006) analyzed Gardner's
theory of attitudes and motivation in the framework of CDA. The results
showed that discourses on the topic assume a great deal of ideological
slanting in the sense that they typically involve the superiority of the second
language community and the things associated with it but the inferiority of
the first language community and the things associated with it.
Heidari Tabrizi and Razmjoo (2006) studied the representation of
social actors in Persian discourse with respect to the socio-semantic
Features. A text taken from Iran newspaper was analyzed applying van
Leeuwen’s (1996) framework to depict the socio-semantic features in the
text. The analysis indicated that socio-semantic features such as exclusion
(suppression and backgrounding) and inclusion (passivation and activation,
28
determination and indetermination) were utilized largely in the Persian texts
and these features provide the readers with a clearer picture of the text in
comparison with linguistic representations.
29
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction
This chapter will be presented in the following way. First the data for
the study as well as the criteria for selecting the data will be discussed.
Then, the method adopted for the analysis will be introduced.
3.2. Data for the Study
The present study is an attempt to analyze Interchange Third Edition series
a revised edition of New Interchange in the rubric of CDA. The series is
one of the most successful ESL textbooks around the world and is very
popular in Iran. In this regard, Dastpak (2007) conducted a study to
investigate teachers' attitudes toward New Interchange series in Iran EFL
context. As indicated by the results of the study most teachers, in general,
believed that the series is appropriate for their language teaching aims. He
concluded that New Interchange series appears to be an effective device for
language teachers to obtain their aims as well as the language institutes’
aims.
In the introduction section of the previous edition, it is claimed that
“throughout New Interchange L2 learners are presented with authentic
communication, natural and useful language.” (Richards, 2001, p. iv). The
textbooks seem to have been prepared and published free from any
officially or institutionally prefabricated inclinations. Referring to the
impact of CDA and critical theory on instructional materials, the author,
Richards states that:
30
Teachers are now encouraged to examine and confront the underlying ideologies of texts and textbooks. Textbooks, no longer seen as indispensable tools, are viewed as controlling instruments, hindering the creativity of the teacher, maintained in place through the pressure of publishers, and may result in the deskilling of teachers through their recycling of old, but tried and tested teaching techniques. They are transmitters of a dominant and dominating ideology ... Content of books is carefully scrutinized to ensure that they represent diversity…
3.3. Data Analysis
The concept of critical discourse analysis and the analytical
framework of van Leeuwen (1996) are employed to elucidate both the
differences in gender representation in the texts (if any) and to answer
research questions more generally.
3.3.1. Analytical framework
Van Leeuwen's (1996) framework, representing various social
actors, has been advantaged to be used as a basis for the analysis of
Interchange Third Edition series. The following are definitions,
elaborations and exemplifications of the framework in van Leeuwen's
(1996, pp.32-69) own words.
I.Exclusion
Representations include or exclude social actors to suit their interests
and purposes in relation to the readers for whom they are intended. Some of
the exclusions may be 'innocent', details which readers are assumed to
know already, or which are deemed irrelevant to them; others tie in close to
the propaganda strategy of creating fear, and of setting up immigrants as
enemies of 'our' interests. Some exclusions have no traces in the
representation, excluding both the social actors and their activities. Such
radical exclusion can play a role in a critical comparison of different
representations of the same social practice, but not in an analysis of a single
text, for the simple reason that it leaves no traces behind .
31
Suppression: It is a kind of exclusion where there is no reference to
the social actor(s) in question anywhere in the text. It is realized through
passive agent deletion, beneficiary deletion, and nominalization process or
through non-finite clauses with -ing and -ed participles. Suppression can
also be realized through non-finite clauses which function as a grammatical
participant. As is seen in the following statement: "To maintain this policy
is hard ".
Nominalizations and process nouns similarly allow the exclusion of
social actors. As an example consider support and stopping in "The level of
support for stopping immigration altogether was at a postwar high ".
Backgrounding: This term refers to the exclusion which is less
radical; the excluded social actors may not be mentioned in relation to a
given activity, but are mentioned elsewhere in the text and we can infer
with reasonable […] certainty who they are. They are not so much excluded
as deemphasized, pushed into the background .
Backgrounding can result from simple ellipses in non-finite clauses
with -ing and -ed participles, in infinitival clauses with to and in paratactic
clauses. In all these cases the excluded social actor is included elsewhere in
the same clause or clause complex. It can be realized in the same way as
suppression, but with respect to social actors who are included elsewhere
in the text .
II. Inclusion
Activation: It occurs when social actors are represented as the
active, dynamic forces in an activity as in: "Children seek out aspects of...".
Passivation is used when the social actors are represented as 'undergoing'
the activity, or as being 'at the receiving end of it', This may be realized by
grammatical participant roles, by transitivity structures in which activated
social actors are coded as 'actor' in material processes, 'behaver' in
behavioral processes, 'sensor' in mental processes, 'sayer' in verbal
32
processes or 'assigner' in relational processes ( ... )
Subjected social actors: Passivated social actor can be subjected or
beneficialised. Subjected social actors are treated as objects in the
representation, for instance as objects of exchange .
Beneficialized social actors form a third party which, positively or
negatively, benefits from the action. For instance, in the following
statement 'African street vendors' are passivated: "80 young white thugs
attacked African street vendors." Or in the following sentence 'the young
man' is passivated: "The young man was badly shot yesterday." The
following statement presents an example of beneficialized social actors:
"Australia was bringing in about 70,000 migrants a year." Here the about
70,000 migrants are subjected to the activity of 'bringing in' while in the
next sentence 'cities like Vancouver' are beneficialized in relation to
bringing: "22,000 Hong Kong arrived last year, bringing bulging wallets to
cities like Vancouver ".
Genericization and Specification: The choice between generic and
specific reference is another important factor in the representation of social
actors; they can be represented as classes or as specific, identifiable
individuals .... Genericization may be realized by the plural without article
(see the following example) :
"Non-European immigrants make up 6.5 per cent of the population".
And it may be realized by the singular with a definite article or
indefinite article :
"Allow the child to cling to " ....
"Maybe a child senses that from her mother ".
The mass nouns as well as the present tense can indicate the
presence of genericization. The presence of numerative has been
interpreted as realizing specific reference .
Individualization: Social actors can be referred to as individuals:
"The ministry for sport and Recreation; Mr. Brown, said " ....
33
Assimilation: Social actors can be referred to as groups which are
realized by plurality, by a mass noun or a noun denoting a group of people,
as ... 'this nation' and 'the community'. Aggregation refers to a kind of
assimilation which qualifies groups of participants, treating them as
statistics ... and is often used to regulate practice and to manufacture
consensus opinion, even though it presents itself as merely recording
facts .... It is realized by the presence of definite or indefinite quantifiers as
is seen in the following statement: "Forty per cent of Australians were born
overseas".
Collectivization is another type of assimilation which does not
treat groups of participants as statistics. The phrase 'this nation' is a mass
noun which is interpreted as an instance of assimilation in the following
sentence: "Is he entitled to believe that this nation, ..., is somehow
impervious to racist sentiment "?
Association refers to groups formed by social actors and/or groups
of social actors (either generically or specifically referred to) which are
never labeled in the text (although the actors or groups who make up the
association may of course be named and/or categorized). In other words,
such groups are made in pursue of achieving certain objectives. Hence,
these groups never make up stable or institutionalized groups and that's why
they may be formed or unformed (dissociation) as the condition demands .
Indetermination occurs when social actors are represented as
unspecified, 'anonymous' individuals or groups. Indetermination
anonymizes social actors. For instance, the word 'someone' in the following
is an instance of indeterminate social actor: "Someone had put flowers on
the teacher's desk ".
Indetermination can also be realized by generalized exophoric
reference as in: "They won't let you go to school until you are five years
old ".
Differentiation explicitly differentiates an individual social actor...
34
from a similar actor, creating the difference between the 'self and the
'other', as in ".... Others are downtown people from places like " ....
Determination refers to situations where the social actor's identity
is specified. Determination comprises different types which will come
below .
Nomination and Categorization: Social actors can be represented
either in terms of their unique identity, by being nominated, or in terms of
identities and functions they share with others (categorization), and it is,
again, always of interest to investigate which social actors are, in a given
discourse, categorized and which nominated .... '" Nomination is typically
realized by proper noun, which can be formalization (surname only, with or
without honorifics), semi-formalization (given name and surname ...), or
informalization (given name only). In addition to proper nouns, other items
may be used for the purpose of nomination. Such nominations may make it
difficult to make a distinction between nomination and categorization as in:
"Turkish Sultan give me back my diamond button ".
Functionalization and identification: Functionalization occurs
when social actors are referred to in terms of an activity, in terms of
something they do, for instance an occupation or role .... It is typically
realized in one of the following ways: first, by a noun, formed from a verb
through suffixes such as -er, -ant, -ent, and -ian. Identification occurs when
social actors are defined, not in terms of what they do, but in terms of what
they, more or less permanently, or unavoidably, are. Van Leeuwen(1996)
distinguishes three types: classification, relational identification and
physical identification.
Classification refers to conditions when the social actors are
represented in terms of the major categories by means of which different
classes of people are differentiated. The categories include: age, gender,
provenance, class, ethnicity, etc .
Relational identification represents social actors in terms of their
35
personal, kinship or work relation to each other, and is realized by a closed
set of nouns denoting such relations as 'friend', 'aunt', 'colleague .'
Physical identification refers to terms representing social actors in
terms of physical characteristics which uniquely identify them in a given
context as in: "A little girl with a long, fair pigtail came .
Impersonalized social actors: social actors can also be
impersonalized, represented by other means; for instance, by abstract nouns
whose meaning does not include the semantic feature "human" .... There
are two types of impersonalization: abstraction and objectivation .
Abstraction occurs when social actors are represented by means of
a quality assigned to them by the representation .... They are being
assigned the quality of being problematic, and the quality (such as 'poor',
'black', 'unskilled' ... ) is then used to denote them .
Objectivation occurs when social actors are represented by means
of reference to a place or thing closely associated either with their person
or with the activity they are represented as being engaged in. In other
words, objectivation is realized by metonymical reference. A number of
types of objectivation are particularly common: spatialization, utterance
autonomization, instrumentalization and somatization .
Spatialization is a form of objectivation in which social actors are
represented by means of reference to a place with which they are, in the
given context, closely associated, as it is seen in: "Australia was bringing
in about 70,000 migrants a year ".
Utterance autonomization is a form of objectivation in which
social actors are represented by means of reference to their utterances.
Example :
"This concern, the report noted, was reflected "....
Instrumentalization is a form of objectivation in which social
actors are represented by means of reference to the instrument with which
36
they carry out the activity which they are represented as being engaged in .
Example: "A 120 mm mortar shell slammed into Sarajevo's
marketplace ".
Somatization is a form of objectivation in which social actors are
represented by means of reference to a part of their body. For example:
"She put her hand on Mary Kate's shoulder".
More generally, impersonalization can have one or more of the
following effects: it can background the identity and/or role of social actors;
it can lend impersonal authority or force to an activity or quality of a social
actor; it can add positive or negative connotation to an activity or utterance
of a social actor.
Overdetermination occurs when social actors are represented as
participating, at the same time, in more than one social practice. There are
four major categories of overdetermination: inversion, symbolization,
connotation, and distillation.
Inversion is a form of overdetermination in which social actors are
connected to two practices, which are, in a sense, each other's opposites.
There are two types of inversion: anachronism, and deviation .
Anachronism is often used to say things that cannot be said
straightforwardly; for instance, to offer social and political criticism in
circumstances where this is prescribed by official or commercial
censorship, or to naturalize ideological discourses .
Deviation is a form of inversion in which social actors are
involved in certain activities, which are represented by means of reference
to social actors who would not normally be eligible to engage in these
activities. Deviation almost always serves the purpose of legitimation; the
failure of deviant social actor confirms the norms.
Symbolization occurs when a 'fictional' social actor or a group of
social actors stands for actors or groups in non-fictional social practices.
37
The fictional actor often belongs to a mythical, distant past .
Connotation occurs when a unique determination (a nomination or
physical identification) stands for a classification or functionalization .
Distillation realizes over determination through a combination of
generalization and abstraction; then, it is a form of over determination
which connects social actors to several social practices by abstracting the
same feature from the social actors involved in these several practices.
Figure 3.1 summarizes, in the form of a system network, the ways in
which social actors can be represented in discourse.
38
As one type of discourse (here an ESL textbook) does not include all
the categories and modes of representation, for practical purposes, the
following elements will be considered to function as the criterion for the
Heidari Tabrizi, H. & Razmju, S.A. (2005). Shivehaye tasvir sazi-e kargozaran-e
ejtemaie dar gofteman-e farsi: tahlil-e tojihi-e gofteman ba enayat be
mo'alefehay-e jame'e shenakhti-ma'naie. (The Representation of Social
Actors in Persian Discourse: Critical Discourse Analysis with Respect to
the Sociosemantic Features.) nashry-e daneshkade adabyat va 'olume
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