Critical realism, critical discourse analysis, and the morphogenetic approach

This chapter presents a critical realist discourse analysis approach to examine how policy actors and mechanisms associated with structural factors from different levels (that is, local and international) interact in the movement of inclusive education policy from the global context to a certain local context. The discussion is initiated with an overview of the inclusive education policy-making terrain in Malaysia and is followed by an examination of the theoretical underpinnings of a critical realist discourse analysis. The theoretical framework will center on two key approaches: Reisigl and Wodak’s (2009) discourse-historical approach and Jessop’s (2005) strategic relational approach. The second section of the chapter presents some empirical insights that follow from the approach delineated in researching policy movement processes. It is hoped that the use of a critical realist discourse analysis approach will provide more nuanced explanations with respect to how, why and through what international and local mechanisms global education policies can be borrowed, developed and evolve.

Making sense of service users' accounts of their mental health problems requires a method able to deal with complexity. Yet the different underlying epistemological and ontological positions of the methods researchers use, based, for example, on biomedicine or social constructionism, produce highly partial analyses. Addressing this problem, this article offers a method of Critical Realist Discourse Analysis (CRDA) that employs a synthesized discourse analysis, informed by critical realism, to examine the discursive, material, embodied, and institutional factors that might inform how mental health service users make sense of their mental health problems and associated service use. The article describes the epistemological/ontological underpinnings of CRDA and its three-phase methodology, before showcasing the method using, as examples, two data sets from care leavers and mothers. With our CRDA, we demonstrate a method for analyzing the complexity of interacting factors informing service users' understanding of their mental health problems.

Critical Policy Discourse Analysis bridges the literature on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical policy analysis to provide a practical guide on how to combine these major approaches to critical social science. The volume gives a clear introduction to concepts and analytical procedures for critical policy discourse analysis. Utilising ten international case studies, the authors explain and critically reflect upon the methods and theories that they have used to successfully integrate CDA with critical policy studies across a diverse range of policy issues. Case studies are used to explore issues in economics, health, education, crisis management, the environment, language and energy policy. Analysing these through discursive methodological approaches in the traditions of CDA, social semiotics and discourse theory, this book connects this discursive methodology systematically to the field of critical policy studies. This is an essential read for researchers wishing to practically combine methods of CDA with critical policy studies. It provides key insights for politics scholars looking to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact and analysis of discourse.

Language and cinema make use of distinctive tools to interpret and reflect external reality. While signs in language consist of signifiers and signified(s), in cinema they are fiction, sound, image, and most importantly, discourses within the screenplay. A discourse is a unit of communication value that, for the most part, includes the social and production conditions of language beyond utterances. Examinations of discourse can be done from a linguistic perspective that engages grammar, sentence structures, and voice, or from a non-linguistic perspective. Critical discourse analysis approaches its object of study from a broad perspective. It aims to critically examine texts and speeches on subjects such as racism, sexism, colonialism, and other forms of social inequality. Critical feminist discourse analysis focuses on the complex structures of hidden power relations and the ideologies that support gender regulations in discourse, though it is separate from critical discourse analysis in various ways. In this study, the film Marriage Story, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, undergoes critical feminist discourse analysis. By constructing the character Nicole, the female protagonist who attempts to exist in a masculine public sphere and, in the process, becomes a liberated individual who makes a series of decisions in line with her desires and needs and self-expression, Baumbach criticizes the dominant ideology of his own cinematic making.

In this article, we explore and problematize the coming out discourses of Ricky Martin and Tiziano Ferro’s through a creative (critical) discourse analysis. We first contextualize the historicity of Ricky Martin and Tiziano Ferro’s artistic careers and argue that their coming out process is a privileged laboratory to understand the ways strategies and tactics of discourses are deployed. Second, through a Critical Discourse Analysis and collaborative writing inquiry approach, we present a creative fictional dialogue to showcase our analysis. This can be called creative (critical) discourse analysis. Third, we further reflect and theorize about these coming out discourses using Queer Theory, Governability, and the concept of Glory and the Media as privileged spaces for power. This will lead us to question the centered subject or a solid identity, the manifestations of coming out discourses, and the role of Glory and the Media in the socialization process.

In critical realism, language is understood as constructing our social realities. However, these constructions are theorized as being shaped by the possibilities and constraints inherent in the material world. For critical realists, material practices are given an ontological status that is independent of, but in relation with, discursive practices. The advantage in taking a critical realist, rather than relativist, approach is that analysis can include relationships between people's material conditions and discursive practices. Despite calls to develop a critical realist discourse analysis there has been little empirical critical realist work, possibly because few have addressed the critique that critical realists have no systematic method of distinguishing between discursive and non-discursive. In this article we outline a three-stage procedure that enables a systematic critical realist discourse analysis using women's talk of motherhood, childcare and female employment as an example.

In this reply to Speer's response to our paper we argue that in presenting our method for doing critical realist discourse analysis (CRDA) our paper provided a systematic method from which to do CRDA that was timely, rigorous and significantly different from conversation analysis (CA) in its examination of material practices. We note that our paper addressed a methodological, not epistemological, issue and make a call for a commitment within the discourse analytic community to a valuing of the breadth of methods and approaches in discursive work. We recognize the importance of CA, but also the various versions of discourse analysis that are used in psychology which draw on techniques used in CA, but are not tied to the CA epistemology. These approaches examine normative patterns of language as at least in part a reflection of social relations of power in a given social economic and political/historical context. We conclude by arguing that diversity in research methods is essential. From this perspective, then, CA has an important role to play within discursive psychology, but so do other forms of discursive work, including the CRDA method that we offered in our paper.

Ruth Wodak & Paul Chilton (eds.), A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity. Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society, and Culture, 13. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xi, 322. Hb $138.00. The title of this book implicitly raises a number of important questions about the relationships among discourse analysis (DA), critical discourse analysis (CDA), and interdisciplinarity: Is CDA one approach to analyzing text and talk, or is it (by implication of the ambiguous parenthetical reference in the book's title) somehow merging with (an increasingly more critical) DA? To what extent does or should (C)DA embrace interdisciplinary approaches to treating language in use? Finally (and perhaps most compelling of all), what is this new agenda, what is wrong with the old agenda, and why is a new agenda needed at this time? Overall, the book does a fair to good job of addressing these questions.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and participatory action research (PAR) reinforce each other as critical research approaches toward social transformation and social justice provided to humans, other species, and the ecosystem at large. Both disciplines are suitable to be embedded in a critical emancipatory research paradigm. Both CDA and PAR are problem-oriented, contextualized forms of social research. Both CDA and PAR are sensitive to the macro, meso, and micro dimensions of social life and the dynamics and relations between these levels. Both CDA and PAR envision social reality as a—respectively—discursive or social construct which, therefore, is—in part—a matter of choice. Both CDA and PAR include the potential of social or organizational change. CDA does so by displaying hidden ideological effects of texts and discourses so as to create awareness and may suggest alternatives; PAR by analyzing existing situations and investigating and implementing alternatives as part of its collective research efforts. Both include the notion of agency and the potential of change, whether in organizations, communities, or in society at large. Both consider the construction of knowledge as a social practice. Both CDA and PAR have iterative research methodologies. CDA reinforces PAR due to its robust theoretical basis, while PAR opens up new ways for CDA to enlarge its impact on the social world beyond academia through the participation of agents. Both CDA and PAR are forms of praxis in that they perform research in social and discursive practice in situated context. Both explicitly rely on theories of practice that include Aristotle, Paulo Freire, and Antonio Gramsci. They do so with the purpose of creating awareness, questioning routines and existing practices, and improving these in an emancipatory project to contribute to a better and a more socially just world. Integrating CDA and PAR and rooting these in a philosophy of praxis creates a solid, inclusive basis for problem-oriented research, considered of high relevance to questioning current hegemonic structures and opening up socially and ecologically just solutions to address the crucial problems of the early 21st century.

Accessible yet theoretically rich, this landmark text introduces key concepts and issues in critical discourse analysis and situates these within the field of educational research. The book invites readers to consider the theories and methods of three major traditions in critical discourse studies � discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis -- through the empirical work of leading scholars in the field.

This research aims to investigate the relationship between critical reading abilities and critical discourse analysis (CDA) competencies among future 21st century educators, emphasizing the critical necessity for these educators to possess such skills in today's demanding educational landscape. A sample of 70 prospective teachers was analyzed to determine the interconnection between their abilities in critical reading abilities and CDA, with an exploration into how one skill may influence the other. Additionally, the study examines the role of cognitive style—specifically, field-independent and field-dependent thinking—as a moderating factor in this relationship. Findings indicate a significant positive impact of CDA capabilities on critical reading abilities, suggesting that proficiency in analyzing discourse critically enhances one's ability to read with a critical eye. Furthermore, the study reveals no significant difference in CDA and critical reading abilities between participants categorized as field-independent thinkers versus those identified as field-dependent thinkers. These outcomes highlight the need for further research to explore additional factors that may affect the development of critical reading and discourse analysis skills. The study concludes with a call for educational strategies that integrate both critical reading and CDA competencies, considering the varied cognitive styles of learners.

Four Critical Essays on Argumentation

This study aims to analyse power, dominance, racial discrimination, and power exercise that is narratively established through a subtle network of metaphors in a fiction work, The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner exposes the socioeconomic conditions in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealing the differences between power manipulation and the domestic performance of powerful social groups. The work also explores how religious and status dichotomies circumvent the progress of minority groups and align their physical features with their receding power and financial features. An adopted model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) indicates power, economic, and racial dichotomies in the book while revealing the shades of metaphors through conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) in a post-colonial text. Dogmatic ideographs are perpetuated in every public sphere through language and established gradually through unprovoking tools of metaphors. The metaphors are uncovered through CMT, providing a helpful understanding of different conceptual domains. Rhetorically, CDA helped reveal the racial discrimination, human rights violations, and hatred against minorities embedded in the selected metaphors. This investigation is very significant in connection with the current scenario of cross-cultural studies, as it mainly depicts the prevailing social trends regarding two different settings. The study may benefit intelligentsia interested in post-colonial and decolonial discourse and diaspora literature. Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Metaphor, Power Expansion, Racial Discrimination Agbo, I. I., Kadiri, G. C., & Ijem, B. U. (2018). Critical metaphor analysis of political discourse in Nigeria. English Language Teaching, 11(5), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n5p95 Burke, K. (2017). A rhetoric of motives. 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Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 284–324). Cambridge University Press. Talib, N., & Fitzgerald, R. (2016). Micro–meso–macro movements: A multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts. Critical Discourse Studies, 13(5), 531–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2016.1182932 Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the press. 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In this article, I question the micro–macro separation in discourse analysis, the separation of personal and institutional discourses. I apply a mostly macroanalytic perspective (critical discourse analysis [CDA]) to inform a predominantly microanalytic perspective (analysis of conversational narratives) and vice versa. In the combination of these two analytic approaches to data analysis, I explore the connections between macro-level power inequities and micro-level interactional positionings, thereby establishing critical narrative analysis (CNA). I examine the focus of CDA on institutional discourses and problematize the definition of power discourses by looking closely at the intertextual recycling of institutional discourses in everyday narratives and at the adoption of everyday narratives in institutional discourses. Ultimately, I propose that CNA unites CDA and narrative analysis in a mutually beneficial partnership that addresses both theoretical and methodological dilemmas in discourse analysis.

This study applies a critical multimodal discourse analysis to three television commercials: 1) Neutrogena ‘Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup’, 2) Colgate ‘Advanced Total whitening toothpaste’ and 3) Danone ‘Activia probiotic yogurt’. In order to gain further insight into how advertising discourses can shape body image ideologies, this study sets out to investigate how television commercials construct a relationship between health and beauty. This research includes analysis of both the visual and the verbal modes, drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, and Inter-mode relations. The findings are discussed in terms o f the theories of healthism discourse and aestheticization of everyday life. In addition, Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, lifestyle, taste, capital, and field will be used to discuss how the health-beauty consolidation is recursively produced and reproduced by society and its members. The results of this study suggest that there is a colonization o f the advertising non-health related products under healthism discourse, and this type of advertising is cooccurring with ideologies of the body beautiful resulting in an unprecedented consolidation between the concepts o f health and beauty. These findings underscore the need for media literacy and hence the importance o f practicing and also teaching discourse analysis approaches such as SFL, CDA, and MDA that are designed to expose ideological underpinnings.