THE CREATION OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Critical discourse analysis provides an interdisciplinary analytic approach and a flexible metalanguage for the sociological analysis of texts and discourses. The emergence of critical discourse analysis has at least three interrelated implications for educational studies and the sociology of education. First, it marks out a retheorisation of educational practice. Educational theory and practice historically has relied on foundational metaphors of the unfolding child, the industrial machine, the individual rationalist mind, and, most recently, the digital computer. The metaphor offered by poststructuralism is that of the text as an interpretable phenomena that is constitutive of all educational and intellectual endeavour. Critical discourse analysis provides a means for educational sociology to examine new phenomena, including: (a) New workplaces, communities and civic spheres, (b) New texts, genres and discourses, and (c) New social identities.