Argument, Deliberation, Dialectic and the Nature of the Political: A CDA Perspective

The war unleashed by Russia in 2022 is widely presented in online versions of English-language newspapers; Ukraine is constantly in the epicentre of the world news. This study highlights political and ideological contexts of the war in Ukraine, the sociopolitical and cognitive aspects of news according to an interdisciplinary approach considering the language as a social practice. The article highlights the polarization in the presentation of the events and the main actors entitled in the discursive strategies, representing the dichotomy In- versus Out-group. The study is aimed at the investigation of the ideological structures and their manifesting linguistic devices in political discourse based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of discursive strategies for constructing the images of Ukraine and Russia in the British and American press. The integrated Critical Discourse Analysis was applied to the research of the news to study the media discourse and the language, where CDA focuses on social practice, social power and ideology. Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) is used to research the ideology of war images presented in the language of news reports. The relevance of this study determined by the aim is to show the main discursive strategies of polaeization in political media discourse. The research methods of the article combine three vectors of the analysis by Fairclough with explanatory tools (by van Dijk), and the elements of stylistic analysis and Critical Metaphor Analysis. The illustrative material was collected by information search and continuous sample from the open access newspapers and magazines issued in the US and Great Britain (The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and others). Conclusion. This research argues that polarisation is being demonstrated in the media discourse on the war in Ukraine in 2022. The taxonomy of the identified discursive strategies of polarization deployed in the media political discourse includes labelling, evidentiality, number game, hyperbolism, victimization, personalization and analogy, that can either be used singly or intervened. The discursive strategy of evidentiality is applied to authorities, officials, witnesses that are accepted as trustworthy sources of data; the number game strategy combined with victimization are verbalized by metaphoric simile, metonymy, enumerating and magnifying the numbers with the modifying adverbs; the strategy of hyperbole conveys the positive impression of the in-group and negative acts magnification of the out-group verbalized by metaphor, metonymy, metaphtonymy; the personalization strategy is deployed with the purpose of foregrounding the positive actions of the in-group that implies negative out-group actions; the strategy of analogy is applied in the comparison of the war in Ukraine and the struggle of the Ukrainians for their independence with other historical events. Linguistic means used to realize the discursive strategies of polarization include the conceptual metaphor, metonymy, simile, idioms, metaphtonymy, intertextual allusion and personification.

Language and Gender in Political Discourse (Mass Media Interviews)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the forms that the discourse of politics and policies of education assumes in Spain and the European Union, in correlation to the tendencies in the United States (Pini, 2003) and the recommendations of international agencies. This is a qualitative study that includes a description and documental analysis. The perspective is critical discourse analysis (ACD), complemented with political discourse analysis, critical theory, sociological theory and some postmodern authors. The corpus includes the current main law and official relevant documents related to national education policies which involve education.

The present study tackled the effect of ideology on the translators’ work, which may intensify when they have a different religion or culture. It was located within the framework of political discourse in the field of Translation Studies. It aimed at analyzing both political discourse and its translation from a critical discourse analysis perspective. The study at hand analyzed both political discourse and its translation, taking into account Fairclough’s perspective of discourse analysis as a linguistic analysis and texts from contexts in which discourse is produced. Moreover, the study analyzed political discourse from Van Dijk’s perspective of critical discourse analysis to find implied meaning either in discourse or in its translation and the translator’s intervention in the translation process. It highlighted the power existing in the political discourse by stating that it is loaded with ideology and by proving that translation is considered to be a production of a new discourse and a social, political, and cultural act. The study adopted a qualitative approach based on the use of the Critical Discourse Analysis approach adopted by Fairclough (1989) and the notion of interpretation. Working within the framework of this approach, the study revealed that many translation strategies were used to achieve functional equivalence. By using some strategies such as deletion, explicitation, addition, and literal translation, the study concluded that translations did not fulfil the semantic and contextual criteria of the “fidelity rule” and the “coherence rule’. The study also showed that the use of techniques and selection of excerpts to be translated played an important role in monitoring the target culture audience in the sense that translators affect the translation process by producing their own ideology.

The main subject of this study is a detailed literature review analysis of critical discourse researches made in the Turkish language. As a unique discipline, critical discourse analysis has played an important research tool role in social sciences. Critical discourse analysis, which emerged in the late 1980s, can be considered a relatively new research method in our country. This discipline has developed around the schools of three different academics. One of the leading figures in this field is Teun A. van Dijk (b. 1943). Van Dijk, the founder of the Socio-cognitive Approach, is one of the important names cited in the analysis of political and media discourses. Another name is Norman Fairclough (b.1941). Fairclough's 3-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis method also constitutes an important space in discourse studies. Another significant figure in the field of critical discourse analysis is Ruth Wodak (b. 1950). Wodak, the founder of the Discourse Historical approach, first developed this method to analyze the biased anti-Semitic language and imagery in Waldheim's electoral programs in the Austrian presidential election that was held in 1986. Since then, the methodology developed by Wodak has been useful for discourse analysis of cases with an important historical dimension. This study aims to explain the approaches of the discourse experts mentioned above and to compile critical discourse analysis and corpus analysis studies conducted in political and media texts in Turkish academia. As a result of this study, which was carried out within the scope of the qualitative research method, important insights into the basic features, possibilities, and limitations of critical discourse analysis research in Turkish academia have been obtained. Some of the insights obtained can be summarized as follows: It has been determined that the critical discourse analysis studies available in the Council of Higher Education online database include a total number of 54 master’s and doctoral theses published since 2003. Among these theses, the number of the theses prepared in Turkish is 23. As a result of the Google Scholar search, it has been found that the number of Turkish studies conducted since 2003 is more than 90. The most cited research among these studies is the article “Discourse Analysis” published in 2008. The main limitation of most of the critical discourse analysis studies made in the Turkish language is about the usage of the translations of the works authored by the above-mentioned experts who developed this discipline, and this usage limits the number of resources concerning the method because not every major work has been translated into Turkish. In the light of the findings, the ways to improve the discipline in Turkish academia shows the importance of this study.

Political discourse analysis is aimed at highlighting the emancipatory agendas of political actors who dialectically produce their discourses for the specific purpose of grasping “pro-ideologies” of masses without giving much room to their real interests. To a great extent the manipulation of language serves as a sturdy tool for political benefits and consequently it provides a strong base for the exploitations of the ideological assumptions of people on a large scale. A critical discourse analysis of Imran Khan’s point of view on Islamophobia suggested that a good speaker always overwhelms the masses and changes the way of thinking of the public. The researchers have accentuated that Imran Khan has affected the mindset of the people regarding Islamophobia. Also an analysis has been done by the researchers of discourses examples in the Imran Khan’s Speech. The researchers have explored various indicators of van Dijk in the Speech of Imran Khan.
 This paper aims to discuss the realization of the resistance of islamophobic ideology in Imran Khan Speech by means of language use in a political discourse, which is mainly grounded in Teun van Dijk‟s assumptions in critical discourse analysis. For this aim, the discursive strategies of the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during a press conference in the United Nation General Assembly held on 25th September 2019.The Speech will be examined within the context of his ideological, cultural and language background.
 . Keywords
 Political Discourse, Power, Ideology, Critical Discourse Analysis.

During the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, political discourse was dominated by the language of war as the world’s political leaders saturated their speech with the terminology of war. This article examines some properties of the speech delivered by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the parliament on March 22, 2020. The general framework of the study is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which investigates how language is used in ideological and social contexts and how it relates to power. The material of the research requires to apply a more specialised tool, namely Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) that examines the relation between language and political agendas and ideology. The study considers the political and ideological contexts of the speech through the entire political process and decision making at the national level as well as the sociopolitical and cognitive aspects of the speech in the parliamentary setting. In particular, attention is paid to the war rhetoric that induces the public to conceptualise the virus as an enemy and thus to present the crisis as a threat to the nation. The article explores language means employed by the speaker to actuali s e rhetorical strategies aimed at justifying his government’s measures taken to manage the crisis. To do this, the research looks into historical, cultural and psychological contexts of the speech as well as its political implicatures. Keywords: political speech; war rhetoric; political discourse; critical discourse analysis; mental models

This essay overviews the body of research known as political discourse analysis (PDA). I begin by situating this work within the linguistic and political turns that took place in the latter part of the 20th century within the human and social sciences. I then discuss different conceptions of what comprises the political and the appropriate objects of study for PDA. Adopting an inclusive conception of politics and discourse, I consider the relationship between PDA and critical discourse analysis (CDA). I close with a review of studies of political discourse in terms of their theoretical and analytic frameworks and the socio‐political issues they address.

The present chapter proposes to build bridges between political discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. We intend to bring to light methodological benefits arising from the synergy of (political) discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, pointing to fruitful contribution from French text statistics. Taking the discourses of Nicolas Sarkozy as an example, we show how political discourse analysis can benefit from a reflection on corpora (their constitution, their role in the research process); on linguistic analysis and processing methods (particularly the computer-assisted methods of text statistics); and finally on the interpretative paths at a time of establishment of a numerical hermeneutics.

In Australia, Closing the Gap is a highly profiled federal government policy aimed at closing the gap of disadvantage between Australia’s First Peoples and non-Indigenous Australians. This policy comprises of a yearly report providing statistical data addressing the progress of the initiative. As a significant parliamentary contribution towards the ideology of reconciliation in Australia, political leaders present a national address that responds to the statistical data of the report. This thesis presents a com-bined discourse analysis of the speeches presented in 2017, by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten. Being a political discourse analy-sis, it focuses on the language features used by Australian political leaders to support their political ideology. Michele Koven (2002) presented a model that explained how political leaders align (or misalign) themselves with other social actors. This research will adapt that model to identify how these leaders position themselves ideologically through their Closing the Gap speeches. Then by using critical discourse analysis, it will also present a typology of discursive strategies used in such political discourses, when negotiating an ideological alignment with Australia’s First Peoples. These two approaches will be further justified with two more supporting analyses. This compara-tive analysis contributes to a clearer understanding of how political language is used in Australia. Additionally, it contributes to the surprisingly minimal literature related to Australian political discourse analysis surrounding Indigenous issues, reconciliation and the Closing the Gap policy itself. By analysing such political speeches, reflection, engagement and empowerment then have the capacity to influence institutionalised notions of racism, poverty and class-consciousness with the view to rectifying them.

Politics and political discourse are closely related to people’s daily life, and this study aims to propose a new approach to political discourse analysis by combining English and Chinese corpora. By exploring the composition of formal language and the grammar generation process, this paper proposes an improved N-gram algorithm to address the shortcomings of the N-gram model in dealing with low-frequency words with low accuracy and uses the strategy of introducing alternative words to alleviate the problem of sparse data. Then, a critical metaphor analysis of political discourse in the English-Chinese corpus is conducted based on the improved statistical language model, and the convergence of political discourse is studied in terms of space and time. By analyzing the political discourse of American presidents, the spatial centrality factors of “we” and “our nation” were accurately extracted, and their correlations were 0.83, 0.73, 0.68, 0.51, 0.76, and 0.41 in order. The correlations of the unqualified facsimile noun phrases in the temporal convergence of political discourse reached 0.28, 0.25, 0.72, 0.68, and 0.54, respectively, and the accuracy of the improved N-gram model improved by about 28.1% compared with the traditional method, making using statistical linguistic models for political discourse analysis feasible and applicable.

An overview of political discourse analysis (PDA) research is provided in this essay. We start by placing this work in the context of the linguistic and political shifts that occurred in the last half of the twentieth century in the social and human sciences. We next go over many opinions about what constitutes the political and relevant subjects of study for PDA. We examine the connection between PDA and critical discourse analysis (CDA), adopting an inclusive understanding of politics and discourse. We conclude by reviewing political discourse studies in terms of the theoretical and analytical frameworks they use, as well as the sociopolitical topics they tackle.

The research relies on the assumption that language is a potent social tool, and drawing from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, it examines how Donald Trump's political rhetoric leverages discursive strategies to build authority, mold ideology, and shape public opinion within particular socio-cultural and political circumstances. Speech of former President Donald Trump at the House GOP Issues Conference on January 27, 2025, this research utilizes Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model. The methodology used is the qualitative approach with descriptive type. This study examines how, through examining the speech in terms of Fairclough's three dimensions, Trump's language choices construct a populist identity, win over his base and delegitimize his adversaries. The paper analyzes some of the rhetorical strategies that are techniques used in Trump's speeches to produce power and solidify political allegiance, leading to ideological means of persuasion. It contributes to the a still emergent field of political discourse analysis which demonstrates that language is more than a communication medium, at least to some extent it is a means of power and ideological domination. It indicates that most of Trump's rhetoric followed patterns of populist rhetoric with emotional, simplistic language when framing complex issues in binary oppositions. Subsequent studies may compare and contrast Donald Trump's discursive tactics with others from populist leaders like Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, or Boris Johnson to look for cross-cultural tendencies in populist discourse.

The present paper focuses on the introduction of a new integrative problem-oriented analytical tool, the Power, Ideology and Manipulation Identification (PIMI) instrument, which was created for the analysis of political discourse, through adapting the most recent theories and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. The study defines the meaning of power, ideology and manipulation, and attempts to trace their characteristic features in political discourse. These three concepts are of notable importance in the latest Critical Discourse Analysis literature, though the relations between them have not yet been entirely clarified. The present paper discusses the three concepts in parallel, whilst also introducing the new instrument, which has been built on the basis of two existing critical discourse analytical models (Chilton & Schäffner, 1997; van Dijk, 2006). Through presenting the results of the pilot analysis of a relevant piece of political discourse conducted using the new analytical instrument, the study also draws conclusions regarding the interconnected relationship between the three concepts examined. The data gained during the analysis indicate that inequality and polarization are significant elements in the case of each construct, and the results of the analysis also show that despite several overlaps, each concept has its own characteristic profile.

The term gender is relatively new in such disciplines as Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Sociolinguistics, let alone with Literary Linguistics. As opposed to sex which refers to biological characteristics, gender is culture based. Nowadays, it is actively recommended to include aspects of gender in whatever project we undertake. The present article is an attempt at probing the language used by male and female characters in Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel to see how gender issues are grounded in the play to let it play its didactic role. The aim is to pinpoint the way female and male are represented through a lexicogramatical analysis with a special focus on its transitivity system as suggested by Halliday (1994) to enter Wole Soyinka’s characters’ inner and outer world as they use language to enable them ‘to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of what goes on around them and inside them’ (1994:106). That Soyinka considers or does not consider women or just recounts the situation of women in Yoruba traditional societies is what is at stake in this study. The results of the investigation in the light of transitivity and Critical Discourse Analysis shows that Soyinka, consciously or unconsciously has represented male characters as strong, powerful and metaphorically as a lion, a symbol of irresistible power. They are also portrayed as initiator, doer of something, and commander in chief, the king while their female counterparts (Sidi, Sadikou) are represented as goals and/or beneficiaries of men’s actions and associated with processes of sensing and of emotion.