Türkiye’de Eleştirel Söylem Analizi Çalışmaları: İmkânlar, Esaslar ve Kısıtlılıklar

Abstract

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.