An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis (1)

There are three paradigms of discourse analysis; Positivist Discourse Analysis, Interpretive discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. In positivist paradigm, language refers to the bond between human and the object out of him. Related with discourse analysis, the language researchers do not need to see the meaning or subjective value that underlay a statement. Positivist discourse analysis maintains to fulfill a set of syntactic and semantic principle. Semantics validity and syntactic accuracy is the main focus of this paradigm (Hikam in Eriyanto, 1996: 4-7).

Then he explains further, the proponent of interpretive paradigm refuses separation of human as subject with the object. Language can be understood by observing the subject. Human as subject is convinced able to restrain a certain aims in a discourse. And the last is critical discourse analysis; it is not only doing the textual interrogation but also revealing the relationship of the interrogation product with the macro-contextual behind the text. It is more specifically as a study on how the power misused or how the domination and also the inequality put into the community.


Critical discourse analysis also explores how the media and language are used as the tool of representation of the reality by the dominant, so the reality is to be distorted. Media are not only focused on the communication but also on politics, social and culture. For example, media represents feminist’s struggle, how the women are marginalized and regardless in their society. According to Kress’s definition, critical discourse analysis reflects the language as a type of social practice among the speakers for representation and signification. Text is produced by socially situated speakers and writers (Fairclough: 1995).

The statement of Dijk mentions that discourse analysis, when used together with a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language, provides the critic with a tool for studying communication within “socio-cultural context” (Fairclough: 1995).