Language, Power and Ideology in Norman Fairclough's  Critical Approach to Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) started in the early 1990s and hasbecome a well-established field in the social science in the twenty-firstcentury. CDA can be defined as a problem-oriented interdisciplinaryresearch program. In general, power, and especially institutionallyreproduced power, is central to CDA. The purpose of CDA is toanalyze opaque as well as transparent structural relationships ofdominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested inlanguage. CDA states that discourse is an instrument of power. Theway this instrument of power works is often hard to understand, andCDA aims to make it more visible and transparent. A critical discourseanalysis should not be a discourse analysis that reacts against poweralone. It should be an analysis of power effects, of the outcome ofpower, of what power does to people, groups, and societies, and ofhow this impact comes about. The deepest effect of power everywhereis inequality, as power differentiates and selects, includes andexcludes. CDA is an approach to the analysis of discourse whichviews language as a social practice and is interested in the ways thatideologies and power relations are expressed through language. Itwants to understand how language is used to create, maintain andchallenge power relationships and ideologies. Norman Fairclough isone of the most famous thinkers of CDA. He seeks to develop ways ofanalyzing language which address its involvement in the working ofcontemporary capitalist societies. He is working in a tradition ofcritical social research which is focused on better understanding ofhow and why contemporary capitalism prevents or limits, as well as incertain respects facilitating, human well-being and flourishing. Suchunderstanding may, in favorable circumstances, contribute toovercoming or at least mitigating these obstacles and limits.