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. Structured thematically, the four volumes cover a wide range of aspects and considerations: Volume One: Histories, Concepts and Interdisciplinarity Volume Two: Theoretical Approaches and Methodologies Volume Three: 'Doing CDA' - Case Studies Volume Four: Applications and Perspectives - New Trends in CDA

https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/18225/1/94pdf.pdf

Critical Discourse Analysis

This chapter examines some of the relationships between discourse and social power. After a brief theoretical analysis of these relationships, we review some of the recent work in this new area of research. Although we draw upon studies of power in several disciplines, our major perspective is found in the ways power is enacted, expressed, described, concealed, or legitimated by text and talk in the social context. We pay special attention to the role of ideology, but unlike most studies in sociology and political science, we formulate this ideological link in terms of a theory of social cognition. This formulation enables us to build the indispensable theoretical bridge between societal power of classes, groups, or institutions at the macro level of analysis and the enactment of power in interaction and discourse at the social micro level. Thus our review of other work in this field focuses on the impact of specific power structures on various discourse genres and their characteristic structures.

http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Structures%20of%20discourse%20and%20structures%20of%20power.pdf

Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power

The Contentious Prison: From Rehabilitation to Incapacitation in New South Wales and Pennsylvania, 1965-1990.

Ethnographic methods were used to study alternative dispute resolution as practiced by two mediation projects. Observations of actual mediation sessions, interviews with key informants, and archival data were used. The authors found that the projects could be distinguished according to (a) uses of coercion and consensus in effecting a resolution, (b) the type of posturing that took place between mediator and disputants, and (c) the type of discourse employed. The authors argue that differences between the two projects emanated from whether the project was planned and executed by a state agency or whether it was community-based.

Todd Gitlin

Papers

Official discourse: On discourse analysis, government publications, ideology and the state