Analysing how language in texts and talk reproduces or challenges inequality, linking wording to social structures.
- +Fits Critical Realist Epistemology, Feminist Epistemology, Constructivist Epistemology
- –Tension with Positivist Epistemology
Key thinkers: Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk
The longer story
Critical discourse analysis examines how power operates through language. Fairclough's three-dimensional model looks at text, discursive practice, and social practice together. Who produces this text? For whom? What ideological work does it do? CDA is explicitly political—it aims to expose how language maintains dominance. Useful for analysing media, policy documents, institutional communication—anywhere power speaks. The criticism is that you find what you're looking for. The defence is that neutrality is impossible anyway.