Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines (CADAAD)

Predominantly associated with Norman Fairclough, sociocultural CDA maintains that discourse is social practice, that is, discourse and the social order are held to be in a dialectical relation with each other. Fairclough (1995a: 131) states that:

viewing language as social practice implies, first, that it is a mode of action (Austin 1962; Levinson 1983) and, secondly, that it is always a socially and historically situated mode of action, in a dialectical relationship with other facets of 'the social' (its 'social context') - it is socially shaped, but it is also socially shaping, or constitutive.

Fairclough illustrates this conception with a three-dimensional model in which "the connection between text and social practice is seen as being mediated by discourse practice" (Fairclough 1995a: 133).

For Fairclough, then, "each discursive event has three dimensions or facets" (Fairclough 1995a: 133), which are interconnected but analytically separable:

1. It is a spoken or written language text;

2. It is an instance of discourse practice involving the production and interpretation of text;

3. And it is a piece of social practice.

Correspondingly, there is a three-tiered method of discourse analysis, where for Fairclough (1995a: 97):

the method of discourse analysis includes linguistic description of the language text, interpretation of the relationship between the (productive and interpretative) discursive processes and the text, and explanation of the relationship between the discursive processes and the social processes.