CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS REVISITED: A REVIEW OF METHODS AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The review article explored Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an interdisciplinary approach where the interdependence of linguistics, power, and ideology is explored in social, political, and cultural dimensions. By observing its evolution since the early theories through modern applications, the paper discussed the advancement in CDA through the works of various researchers like Fairclough, van Dijk and Wodak and how it has spread to various disciplines such as media, education, politics and digital communication. This study provided a particular emphasis on the emergence of the multimodal and corpus-based approaches, techno-cultural discourse analysis, which accentuate the flexibility of CDA when handling the evolving communicative practices. The review also interacted on critiques of CDA, especially with the issues of methodological consistency, neutrality and subjectivity of researcher. Repeatedly, these criticisms had themselves laid theoretical elaboration and development to greatly enlarge the analytical capability of CDA. This review, by synthesizing its accomplishments, concerns, and uses, highlights the current use and applicability of the CDA as a concept in theory and as practical instrument in unlocking latent ideologies, questioning power structures, and making its mark on methodologically important approaches to the study of the humanities and social sciences in general.