Power and resistance: New methods for analysis across genres in critical discourse analysis

Abstract

In this article, I set out new methods of analysis in critical discourse analysis. I develop ways to examine multiple genres over time, based in the discourse-historical approach, and ways to analyse the representation of social actors, based in social actor analysis. These methods provide a detailed way of using critical discourse analysis diachronically for multiple texts, analysing the textual, intertextual and contextual. I argue that because there is not a binary relationship between power at an elite level and resistance at a grassroots level, power and resistance rather being present everywhere, critical discourse analysis can and should examine simultaneously multiple societal ‘levels’. My methods help show to what extent more marginal speakers can make themselves heard. I explain how these methods were usefully applied to a study of the role that immigrant organisations have played in discussions about immigration control in the UK since the 1960s.