Critical Discourse Analysis of Race and Racism

Letseka and Pitsoe (2013) state that the idea of 'discourse' is multidimensional, compre-hensively seen and has a few definitions. An abundance of academic works takes note of that in the investigation of language, 'discourse' regularly alludes to the speech examples and use of language, dialects, and satisfactory proclamations inside a society. Sociologists and scholars will, in general, employ the expression 'discourse' to depict the discussions and the significance behind them by a gathering of individuals who share similar ideas. The idea of ‘discourse’ starts from Latin 'discursus', signifying 'rushing to and from', and for the most part attributes 'written or spoken communication'. Succinctly, 'dis-course is conversation or information'. “Discourse is socially constitutive and constitut-ed” (Reisigl and Wodak 2001).

The entirety of the following paragraph issues an overview of Fairclough (1992) approach to the concepts of ‘discourse’ and ‘text’. Fairclough (1992: 3-4) considers ‘dis-course’ to be a problematic notion, owing to a multitude of definitions one may find in a variety of theories and disciplines. Although as he reveals in linguistics ‘discourse’ might at times denote spoken word as opposed to written ‘texts’, Fairclough recognizes the most common usage of ‘discourse’ in linguistics to be “extended sample of either spoken or written language”. Furthermore, he also identifies the interaction between “speaker and addressee or between writer and reader” to be a vital part of ‘discourse’ understood in this particular sense, by drawing attention to the context of the situation of a given use of lan-guage. Here, ‘text’ for him would be perceived as only one of the dimensions of ‘dis-course’, namely: “the written or spoken ‘product’ of the process of text production.” At last, ‘discourse’ is likewise utilized for numerous kinds of language in diverse forms of social settings. He instances a few examples: “‘newspaper discourse’, ‘advertising dis-course’, ‘classroom discourse’, ‘the discourse of medical consultations’.”

For Fairclough there seems to be “a mutually constituting relationship between discourses and the social systems in which they function” (Howarth 2000: 4), as cited in Poole (2010) who himself adds that Fairclough’s realisation of ‘discourse’ is “both a rep-resentation of, and an influence upon, social practice”. This very issue is further exempli-fied in the following passage from Fairclough and Wodak:

“CDA sees discourse – language use in speech and writing – as a form of ‘social practice’. Describing discourse as social practice implies a dialectical relationship between a particu-lar discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s) which frame it. A dialectical relationship is a two-way relationship: the discursive event is shaped by situations, institutions and social structures, but it also shapes them. To put the same points in a different way, discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially shaped: it constitutes situations, objective knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people” (1997: 259)

Wodak (2008), also decides to differentiate between the notions of ‘discourse’ and ‘text’. She deems to it be an act of following the “most important traditions in text linguis-tics and Discourse Studies”. She introduces the definition established by Lemke:

When I speak about discourse in general, I will usually mean the social activity of mak-ing meanings with language and other symbolic systems in some particular kind of situa-tion or setting…On each occasion when the particular meaning characteristic of these dis-courses is being made, a specific text is produced. Discourses, as social actions more or less governed by social habits, produce texts that will in some ways be alike in their meanings…When we want to focus on the specifics of an event or occasion, we speak of the text; when we want to look at patterns, commonality, relationships that embrace dif-ferent texts and occasions, we can speak of discourses. (1995: 7)

She proceeds to explain that ‘discourse’ is characterized on an alternate and more abstract level in comparison to ‘text’. ‘Discourse’ suggests patterns and shared traits of infor-mation and structures whilst ‘text’ is a particular and one of a kind acknowledgment of ‘discourse’.

The importance of context

It is hardly possible to contemplate ‘discourse’ and ‘text’ without an endeavour to examine the idea of ‘context’. Discourse does not occur in a vacuum, it is inserted in a particular setting. Consequently, a discourse cannot be comprehended without thinking about its specific circumstance (Hülsse 1999). He stresses that this point is crucial in pragmatics and has originally been made by Wittgenstein. Thereafter, he cites Wodak (1996): “utterances are meaningful only in their situational, cultural, ideological and his-torical context”. Next, he concludes that is the reason why, for CDA, analysis of the con-text plays a crucial role. Moreover, Hülsse adds that other discourses both of past and present are also imperative to the context and owing to that intertextuality is a key notion for CDA. There, he follows the work of Titscher (1998: 45, 181).

This paragraph is based within the work of Song (2010) who points to the follow-ing definition of ‘context’: “Context is the physical environment in which a word is used.” (Yule 2000: 128). Then, she decides to divide ‘context’ into three different categories: linguistic, situational, and cultural. Linguistic context alludes to the setting inside the dis-course, that is, the connection between “the words, phrases, sentences and even para-graphs”. Song exemplifies it by mentioning a sentence: “He is a bachelor.” It is an impos-sible task to understand the meaning of the word “bachelor” here without knowing the context surrounding it because it could mean “a single man” or “a person with a university degree”. Situational context alludes to the environment, time and spot, and so on in which the discourse happens, and furthermore the connection between the interlocutors. This theory is customarily drawn nearer through the idea of register, which elucidates the inter-relationship of language with context by taking care of it under three fundamental head-ings: 'field, tenor, and mode.' Field of discourse touches on the progressing action. Song continues by giving an opinion that we may state that 'field is the linguistic reflection of the purposive job of language user in the situation in which a text has occurred'. Tenor alludes to the sort of 'social relationship enacted in or by the discourse.' The idea of ten-or, thus, features the manner in which linguistic decisions are influenced not simply by the theme or subject of communication yet additionally by the sort of social relationship inside which communication is existing. Mode is the 'linguistic reflection' between the enjoyer of the language and the type of media they use. Every member in the language occasion must know or make presumptions about his or her status in connection to the next, and by and large, the status will likewise be an imperative factor in the assurance of who should start the discussion. In this way, language cannot abstain from being impacted by every one of these elements such as social job, economic wellbeing, sex and age, and so forth. 'Language is a social phenomenon', and it is firmly 'tied up with the social structure and value system of society'. Song continues to state that by societal position, we mean the relative social standing of the members. Social jobs are culture-explicit functions, sys-tematized in general public and perceived by its individuals.

Critical Discourse Analysis

The vast majority of this section is concerned with a description of what Critical Dis-course Analysis (CDA) is about by following the work of Wodak (2009). She explains that the terms Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are often used interchangeably but nowadays use of the term CDA appears to be more prevalent and that it has incorporated the theory previously known as CL. She enumerates the fields of study that constituted to the inception of CDA as follows: “Rhetoric, Text linguistics, Anthropology, Philosophy, Socio-Psychology, Cognitive Science, Literary Studies and Sociolinguistics, as well (...) Applied Linguistics and Pragmatics”. She also notes that there are scholars who opt for the term Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). Then she high-lights the commonalities between the numerous disciplines which comprise (Critical) Dis-course Studies:

• they all examine the type of language that is “naturally occurring”
• all of them are occupied with looking at discourse as a whole, at a bigger scale than “word and sentences”
• they perform a linguistic study of ”actions and interactions” instead of being only con-cerned with “sentence grammar”
• they investigate on not only verbal but also “non-verbal (semiotic, multimodal, visual) aspects of interaction”
• within all of them, there is a focus “on dynamic (socio)-cognitive or interactional moves and strategies”
• they explore “contexts of language use” and the functions of these “(social, cultural, situative and cognitive)”
• these disciplines scrutinize wide array of “phenomena of text grammar and language use: coherence, anaphora, topics, macrostructures, speech acts, interactions, turn-taking, signs, politeness, argumentation, rhetoric, mental models, and many other as-pects of text and discourse

What differentiates Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) from Discourse Analysis (DA), so what allows CDA to actually be considered ‘critical’? Bennett (2015) points to its problem-oriented nature and the fact that CDA tries to “change or at the very least chal-lenge the social status quo”. He states that although there are various problems with which critical discourse analysts deal, they are alike in the fact that all of these problems are somehow connected with social inequalities. “[t]he use of certain language and (…) the control over the means of discourse production and distribution” is what causes these social inequalities to be established and maintained. He also draws attention to the func-tion which language used by people possesses and that there is no objectivity to the dis-course, therefore “language choices are believed to be ideological”. The responsibility of the CDA researcher is to identify these choices as well as their effects, and the motivation behind them. Bennett also decides to cite Jäger (2001): “The aim is therefore to critique dominant discourses and reveal the contradictions and non-expressions”.

Wodak (2009) informs that a small symposium in Amsterdam in January 1991 was a place where a group of scholars met and had a chance to discuss theories and meth-ods of CDA and, in turn, form what she calls the “CDA Group”. The group of scholars who met at the time in question included: Teun Van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen and Ruth Wodak herself. The meeting allowed the mentioned academics to share with each other their stances on approaching discourse analysis. They had “distinct and different approaches”. Some of them have drastically changed since that date, whilst the relevance of the others remains intact in this day and age. She continues by agreeing that all of the CDA approaches are problem-oriented, therefore there is a need for interdisciplinarity and eclecticism. Wodak adds that the other characteristics of CDA paradigm include the common keenness to “de-mystify ideologies through the systematic and retroductable investigation of semiotic data (written, spoken or visual)”.

CDA understands power as a means of control. Powerful people have a platform for developing abuse. Thus, those in power should be continuously questioned. Analys-ing power is also imperative for comprehending “the dynamics and specifics of control (of action) in modern societies, but power remains mostly invisible” (Wodak 2009: 10). As per Foucault, to comprehend power, analysts had to recognize and break down the implementation of power, where it was carried out and its effects so as to grasp the man-ner in which individuals likewise turned into the effects of power. It was just after the uncovering of how power works that it could be revealed 'how and why power was eco-nomically or politically useful' (Bennett 2015).

The two other, besides power, constantly coming up notions in regards to CDA include ideology and knowledge. They are intertwined and inseparable. Bennett (2015) asserts that a straightforward clarification of the relationship between them would be that power is to a limited extent established through discourse or, one could also say, by means of the control and dispersal of knowledge. Also, 'knowledge is not objective but is ideological in that (...) an ideology presents a perspective on the world.” Finally, for this ideology to be ascendant, power has to be employed.

Systemic Functional Linguistics

Bennett (2015) remarks that from a premise in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), critical discourse analysts contend that language is a set of choices, for example, that eve-rything that is said or not said is done as such for a reason and regularly this reason is power. He also cites “Hallidayan functional linguistics regards language as a societal phe-nomenon” (Halliday 1994).

SFL is an approach devised by Michael Halliday for which use of language is functional and its function is to make meanings. These meanings are influenced by con-text. Language is also seen as a semiotic process. SFL, as opposed to CDA, is concerned with the use of language at its most basic sentence level. The use of a given word instead of the other and what difference does it make for a sentence. What separates the linguistic choices that were made and those that could have been made? It also employs analysing grammar. “In a grammatical system (…) each choice gets realised not as particular words (…), but in the order and arrangement of the grammatical roles the words are playing. That is, these choices are realized by structures” (Eggins 2005: 18).

Because CDA is occupied with looking at discourse as a whole, at a grander scale than sentence level, discourse analysts happen to sometimes criticise SFL for analysing merely sentence level.

‘Race’, Racism and Discourse

This section is in greater proportion an overview of Reisigl and Wodak (2001) about this topic. As in Bennett (2015: 43), who also follows Reisigl and Wodak (2001) here, the idea of race, as a (pseudo)biological method for separating individuals along essentially phenotypical grounds, ended up far-reaching in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Preceding this 'scientification' of the idea, it was to a great extent used to clarify “aristo-cratic descent and membership of the nobility”. In the past, individuals were subjected to racial persecution due to being deemed as biologically inferior. After it became a common knowledge that this statement is untruthful, that there are no scientific grounds to it what-soever, and the concept of biological race was delegitimized in politics, a new “differen-tialist” (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) form of racism emerged. “Racism based on culture, lifestyles, habits, and traditions and the threat which too much mixing will bring to the dominant society” (Bennett 2015). This form of bigotry is dependent on the ownership or non-ownership of specific characteristics (physical, cultural, linguistic, traditional) which are adversely assessed.

According to Reisigl and Wodak (2001: 1), the beginning stage of a “discourse-analytical approach” to addressing the intricate phenomenon of racism is understanding that 'racism, as a social practice, and as an ideology, manifests itself discursively.' Racist conclusions and convictions are created and repeated by means of discourse; then again, by means of discourse biased exclusionary rehearses are also arranged, proclaimed, and legitimised. Bennett (2015) argues that ‘race’, “as a discursively method of social catego-risation and separation, is at base functional; that it serves a purpose for those in power”. He adds that racism is an ideology and goes back to Reisigl and Wodak (2001) who aver that racism is a “discriminatory social (including discursive) practice that could be backed by hegemonic social groups”. On the basis of all these considerations, it can surely be stated that instances of racism happen for a reason, to wit, they serve the interests of dom-inant groups. Someone clearly has an advantage in acting in such a way. According to Memmi (1992: 103), race is a “generalised and absolute evaluation of real and fictitious differences that is advantageous for the ‘accuser’ and detrimental to his or her ‘victim’”. For him, racism happens to be “both a discourse and an action”. Since it is discourse that arranges the action, however this action “legitimates itself through discourse” (2000: 142).

Going back to Reisigl and Wodak brings to the fore the broad-ranging complexity of racism.

No monocausal and monodimensional approach is adequate to grasp the complexity of racism. Racialisation is crisscrossed by ethnic, national, gender, class and other social constructions and divisions, thus making highly shortsighted a separating view on ‘race’ or ‘racialisation’ as an isolated determinantof social relations. Multidimensional analysis is required in order to obtain adequate historical reconstructions, actual diagnoses and an-ticipatory prognoses, all of which are necessary to develop promising anti-racist strate-gies. Among many other things, a multidimensional analysis of racism must take into account adjacent and overlapping phenomena such as antisemitism, nationalism and eth-nicism. ( 2001: 18)