My Expert in CDA
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis & Political Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis
Since the late 1980s, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has become a well-established field in the social sciences. However, in contrast with some branches of linguistics, CDA is not a discrete academic discipline in the traditional sense, with a fixed set of research methods. The manifold roots of CDA lie in a myriad of disciplines including rhetoric, anthropology, philosophy and cognitive science, to name a few. This four-volume set brings together seminal articles on the subject from varied sources, creating an invaluable roadmap for scholars seeking to consolidate their knowledge of CDA, and of its continued development. Sculpted and edited by a leading voice in the field, this work covers the interdisciplinary roots, the most important approaches and methodologies of CDA, as well as applications in other disciplines in an updated and comprehensive way.
Political Discourse Analysis
We have seen that political discourse analysis first of all should be able to define its proper object of study: What exactly is 'political discourse'? The easiest, and not altogether misguided, answer is that political discourse is identified by its actors or authors, viz., politicians. Indeed, the vast bulk of studies of political discourse is about the text and talk of professional politicians or political institutions, such as presidenta and prime ministers and other members of government, parliament or political parties, both at the local, national and
international levels.
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture
contributions that investigate political, social and cultural processes from a linguistic/discourse-analytic point of view. The aim is to publish monographs and edited volumes which combine language-based approaches with disciplines concerned essentially with human interaction — disciplines such as political science, international relations, social psychology, social anthropology, sociology, economics, and gender studies.
METAPHOR
Metaphors, according to Aristotle, have "qualities of the exotic and the fascinating; but at the same time we recognize that strangers do not have the same rights as our fellow citizens."
- A simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A.
- Allegory: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject.
- Catachresis: A mixed metaphor used by design and accident (a rhetorical fault).
- Parable: An extended metaphor narrated as an anecdote illustrating and teaching such as in Aesop's fables, or Jesus' teaching method as told in the Bible.
- Pun: Similar to a metaphor, a pun alludes to another term. However the main difference is that a pun is a frivolous allusion between two different things whereas a metaphor is a purposeful allusion between two different things.
- A cognitive metaphor is the association of object to an experience outside the object's environment
- A conceptual metaphor is an underlying association that is systematic in both language and thought
- A root metaphor is the underlying worldview that shapes an individual's understanding of a situation
- A nonlinguistic metaphor is an association between two nonlinguistic realms of experience
- A visual metaphor uses an image to create the link between different ideas
Simple metaphors
Examples
- Cool down! [Cool = temperature]
- He was mad. [mad = anger]
- I'll chew on it. [chew = think]
- It was raining cats and dogs. [cats and dogs = rain]
- Max was an angel. [angel = lovely person]
Complex metaphors
Examples
- That lends weight to the argument.
- They stood alone, frozen statues on the plain.
- The ball happily danced into the net.
Compound metaphors
Examples
- Thick, primal, blind fog descended before his eyes.
- The car screeched in hated anguish, its flesh laid bare in the raucous collision.
Live and dead metaphors
Examples
- "He won". Literal truth.
- "He beat me". Obviously a dead metaphor.
- "He thrashed me". This one is slightly alive.
- The river runs. Dead, and many variations on this theme.
- Electricity is a fluid. Nearly dead.
- All our efforts are running into the sand. Live.
AMBIGUITY
What is the picture? a saxophone player or a woman?It is an ambiguous picture.
Ambiguity is a type of uncertainty of meaning in which several interpretations are plausible. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. (The ambi- part of the name reflects an idea of "two" as in two meanings.) The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately apparent), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity. Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example, the same piece of information may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another.
There are three types of ambiguity:1. Semantic Ambiguity (Usually an Idiom)
The notions of `meaning' and `sense' just discussed are the starting point for the semantic account of the notion of ambiguity and its relation with vagueness developed by Pinkal ((1985), translated as (Pinkal , 1995)). Pinkal introduces the notion of indefiniteness to subsume both ambiguity and vagueness.
De nition 2.1 A sentence is semantically indefinite if and only if in certain situations, despite su cient knowledge of the relevant facts, neither \true" nor \false" can be clearly assigned as its truth value
De nition 2.2 Expression in context c can be precisified to s if and only if (i) s is a sense that can assume according to its meaning; and (ii) s is more precise than the sense of inc.
for example:
Even after the syntax and the meanings of the individual words have been resolved, there are two ways of reading the sentence. "Lucy owns a parrot that is larger than a cat", "a parrot" is extenstensionally quantified, "a cat" is either universally quantified or means "typical cats." Other examples: "The dog is chasing the cat." vs. "The dog has been domesticated for 10,000 years." In the first sentence, "The dog" means to a particular dog; in the second, it means the species "dog".
"John and Mary are married." (To each other? or separately?) Compare "John and Mary got engaged last month. Now, John and Mary are married." vs. "Which of the men at this party are single? John and Jim are married; the rest are all available."
"John kissed his wife, and so did Sam". (Sam kissed John's wife or his own?)Compare "Amy's car", "Amy's husband", "Amy's greatest fear", "Michaelangelo's David" etc.
2. Structural or Syntactic ambiguity (When a headline may have more than one alternative structure and ambivalent structure)
Although the number of logical form permutations that one can obtain for a particular sentence by, e.g., considering all the permutations of its operators may be rather large, constraints of a syntactic and/or semantic nature drastically reduce this number. for example:This ambiguous sentence represented two alternative ambivalent structures:
- After 18 years they didn’t meet, and finally they meet in the check in counter. or
- After 18 years in the check in counter, they just reunited.
3. Lexical Ambiguity (A word or phrase that has more than one meaning while it stands in a sentence).
Lexical ambiguity is the one case of ambiguity for which a `generate and test' strategy may well be compatible with the psychological results, therefore the one for which the need for underspeci ed representations is less clear. for example:
This sentence use homonym and homophone to create a complex sentence structure. It is very ambiguous in the class of word. Rose can be a noun (the name of person and a name of flower). Meanwhile rose can be a verb (the past form of rise (grow or stood).
The analyzing of the sentence is:
Rose (a girl name) rose (the past form of rise “stood”) to put a rose (The name of flower) rose (grown) on her rows of roses (Rose Flowers)
EUPHEMISM
- Between Jobs. Meaning: unemployed. Example: He’s not doing anything. He’s between jobs.
- Passed away. Meaning: died. Example: He’s an orphan - His parents passed away in a car accident.
- Perspire. Meaning: sweat. Example: He was perspiring in the heat.
- Thick-boned. Meaning: fat. Example: I’m not fat - I’m just thick-boned.
- Chemical dependency. Meaning: drug addiction. Example: He’s been free of chemical dependency for 5 years now.
- Bend the truth. Meaning: lie. Example: Don’t bend the truth! I saw you at the mall last night! You weren’t studying!
- Pre-owned. Meaning: second hand. Example: For sale pre-owned branded shoes! Good condition and come with a box.
- Let you go. Meaning: sack/fire you. Example: I’m so sorry but I have decided to let you go. I wish you well.
- Character lines. Meaning: wrinkles. Example: He looks much older now. He’s got character lines on his face.
- Bun in the oven. Meaning: pregnant. Example: You shouldn’t be lifting heavy boxes. You’ve got a bun in the oven.