Critical

CDA is critical in so far as it is ‘rooted in a radical critique of social relations' (Billig 2003: 38).  It is not critical of other theoretical or methodological approaches to discourse analysis but of the social order (ibid.).  Critical discourse analysts themselves, then, openly adopt a particular ideological position.  The perspective of practitioners is those who suffer most from social injustice and their targets are the power elites perceived to enact, sustain, accept, ignore or justify social exclusion and inequality (van Dijk 1993: 252)    CDA is thus ‘discourse analysis with an attitude' (van Dijk 2001: 96).  It aims at detecting problematic, from the analyst's own normative-ethical background, social and political goals and functions of discursive practices (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 32).

It is also discourse analysis with an agenda.  Critical discourse analysts want to understand, expose and, crucially, resist social inequality as it is, often covertly, communicated in and constituted by language use (van Dijk 2001: 352; Wodak 2001: 2).  In other words, CDA explicitly seeks social change through a critical understanding of language (van Dijk 1993: 252).  Wodak outlines that CDA, in common with Critical Theory, aims not only to describe and explain but to ‘produce enlightenment and emancipation' and to ‘root out a particular kind of delusion' (2001: 10).  This kind of critique is referred to as 'sociodiagnostic' and is defined as the demystifying exposure of - manifest or latent - ideological and persuasive characteristics of discursive practices (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 32).

Theoretically, the notion of critique is inspired by a range of influences, including Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Foucault, Habermas, Horkheimer and Marx.   From a Marxist point of view, for example, CDA maintains that 'language is not powerful on its own - it gains power by the use powerful people make of it.  This explains why [CDA] often chooses the perspective of those who suffer, and critically analyses the language use of those in power, who are responsible for the existence of inequalities'.  (Wodak 2001: 10)