Critical Discourse Analysis of Diaspora Writings: A New Paradigm

Abstract

This study attempted a literary discourse analysis of Unnikrishnan’s debut book Temporary People (Unnikrishnan,2017) a diasporic text that presents socio-cultural patterns of immigrants in the Gulf region, with language emerging as a strong discourse tool. The aim of this study was to attempt an inter-sectional study of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Diaspora and suggest a new paradigm shift in the research studies of both genres. The thematic content analysis approach was used to investigate the text by adopting Fairclough’s (2003) three-dimension CDA framework viz., textual analysis (description), process analysis (interpretation), and social analysis (explanation). The study investigated how the author described, interpreted and explored the lives of immigrants; how the language semiotics was used to design narrative patterns and social practices; and how the author used the language to achieve the functionality of the text, and unite two ideologies or genres. The findings of this study will provide pedagogical indicators and insight to language teachers to apply the CDA technique in the teaching of a literary text, particularly fiction. A great contribution of this study will be adding a new diasporic dimension to the CDA studies which are so far confined only to political and socio-cultural contexts. It will also expand the horizon of the research domain of CDA and motivate researchers in both literature and language domains to explore new research avenues.