Dialectic

The relation between texts and discourses is dialectical, or mutually constitutive.  Texts about particular topics create discourses but at the same time discourses constrain texts.  Discourses ‘define what it is possible to say and not possible to say' (O'Halloran 2003: 12).  Texts therefore reflect, reproduce and reinforce discourses.  From the critical Marxist perspective of CDA, it is texts produced by elite social actors and institutions which are most widely disseminated and likely to create public discourses.

From the pragmatic perspective of langauge as action, texts are also held to exist in a dialectical relation with society.  According to Normal Fairclough, for example, language 'is socially shaped, but it is also socially shaping, or constitutive' (1995: 31). Texts are seen as constitutive of social identities and relations, mediated by systems of knowledge and belief (discourses).  Halliday also perceives a dialectical relation between language and society: 'language is controlled by the social structure, and the social structure is maintained and transmitted through language' (Halliday 1978: 89).