Critical Discourse Analysis and Educational Research

Abstract

In late 1970s a group of linguists and literary theorists at the University of East Angelia played a pivotal role in developing critical linguistics (Fowler et. al., 1979; Kress & Hodges, 1979). CL was based on Halliday's Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The Critical Linguists began to use CL as research tool (Fowler et. al., 1979; Fowler, 1991).CDA stemmed out from CL. Van Djik, Wodak, Leeuwen and Norman Fairclough are significant protagonists of CDA approach. Review of literature reveals that different models of CDA have come forth such as Van Djik (Socio-Cognitive Model), Wodak (Discourse Sociolinguistic), Leeuwen (Social Semiotics Model) and Fairclough(Critical Discourse Analysis). CDA is used to analyze the written and spoken texts to explore the discursive sources of power, dominance inequality and bias. It systematically explore the opaque relationships. The historical descriptive research methodology was used for this study. This paper aimed to review the literature related to CDA and its development and to find the answer of the question whether could we use CDA in educational research? The study revealed that CDA is an emerging approach and methodology that has successfully attracted the attention of researchers interested in carrying out research on the relationship between superstructures and social issues. The CDA is critiqued due to four reasons first, Political and Social ideologies are projected onto the data rather than being reveled through the data, second, there is an unequal balance between social theory and linguistic method ,third any discourse analyses are extracted from social contexts and fourth, this methodology is not systematic (Roger, et al., 2003; Widdowson, 1998). Educational researchers are using this approach for instance, (Bloom & Certer, 2001; Lemke, 1992; Peyntong-Young, 2001), studies of policy (Collins, 2001; Corson, 2000, Woodside-Jiron,2000),and interactions in classrooms and schools (Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993; Kumarvadivelu,1999; Roger,2003). CDA approach can be used in the field of educational research particularly to reveal the relationships between the ideology and power (a basic factor for national educational policy) as well as teaching and learning process.