“A carefully measured piece”: A critical discourse analysis of Jack

Straw’s op-ed on the full veil

BANDAR AL-HEJIN
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

31/7/2007

ABSTRACT. This article presents a critical discourse analysis of Jack Straw’s 2006
editorial on the Islamic full veil, which triggered the now infamous “veil row” in the
British media. Analytical categories from the Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl
& Wodak, 2001; Wodak, 2001) are used to examine the linguistic strategies employed
in the text to construct the full veil is a “problem” while preserving the author’s
positive self image. These include adversative connectors, modality, nominalization,
implicatures, predication, and disclaimers. The analysis also draws on argumentation
theory, specifically pragma-dialectical theory (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992),
to examine the “acceptability” of Straw’s claims. The article concludes with a
discussion of the advantages and challenges of applying the above tools to this type of
text.

Introduction
The following article presents a critical discourse analysis of Jack Straw’s 2006
editorial on the full veil. Using analytical categories from the Discourse-Historical
Approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001; Wodak, 2001), this paper aims to examine the
linguistic strategies employed in the text to convince readers that the full veil is a
“problem”. These include adversative connectors, modality, nominalization,
implicatures, predication, and disclaimers. I will also draw on argumentation theory,
specifically pragma-dialectical theory, to examine the acceptability of Straw’s claims.

Theory and Analytical Tools

CDA theories are sometimes difficult to operationalize due to their grand nature.
Fairclough (1992), for example, proposed the highly influential theoretical model
representing discourse as having three dialectically related dimensions: text,
discursive and social practices. In practice, however, it is often difficult to investigate
how these three dimensions actually interact due to lack of access to both ‘producers’
and ‘consumers’ within discursive practices. Moreover, due to its interdisciplinarity,
CDA is more of an approach than a method, which may leave the analyst confused
between social (Fairclough, 1992, 1995a, 1995b, 2003), socio-cognitive (van Dijk,
1988, 1991, 2001) and discourse-historical (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001) theories, each of
which has developed its own box of analytical tools, not to mention different
definitions of what ‘discourse’ actually means.1 It seems that the choice of theoretical
framework ultimately depends on what the researcher is personally interested in and
whether the chosen tools produce meaningful results. In my case or, more
specifically, within the context of the representation of the Muslim veil in Straw’s
1
Discourse has come to mean different things even among discourse analysts. Following Fairclough
(1992, 1995, 2003), I use the term to refer to a particular way of using language to negotiate power in
social contexts. Discourse generates and draws on discourses (count noun). A discourse reflects a
certain opinion (e.g. I agree) on a given topic (e.g. restrictions on immigration) resulting from a certain
stance (e.g. conservative) within a social domain (e.g. politics).
article, a ‘historic’ approach seems to be the most sensible choice when one is
confronting apparent ignorance and misinformation about Islam.
The discourse-historical approach distinguishes itself from other CDA
approaches in three respects: “the emphasis on interdisciplinarity, the principle of
triangulation, and the ethnographic approach to sources of data” (Titscher et al., 2000:
158). The approach emphasizes the importance of examining the historical context
behind a given discourse and how that discourse may transform as it is
recontextualized in new genres and texts. It also identifies common discursive
‘strategies’ that are particularly useful for analyzing racist and prejudiced discourses
which are unfortunately characteristic of news reports about Muslim women.
Strategies are discursive practices aimed at achieving a specific goal which may or
may not be conscious (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001: 44). These are often used to construct
an US vs. THEM discourse and may include:

1. Referential/Nomination which constructs a group of people as being part of

the in-group or the ‘other’ (e.g. British vs. foreigners).
2. Antithetical pronomination (we/us/our/my/here vs. they/them/their/
his/her/there).
3. Predication which labels a group using linguistic devices that convey
positive/negative attributes (e.g. illegal immigrants)
4. Disclaimers (e.g. I have many Muslim friends, but…)
5. Argumentation, which claims to justify a given position.

Van Dijk (2000) provides a useful classification of disclaimers into:

a) Apparent denial (e.g. I’m not a racist, but…)
b) Apparent concession (e.g. Not all immigrants are criminals, but…)
c) Apparent empathy (e.g. They have a lot of difficulties in their country, but…)
d) Apparent ignorance (e.g. I don’t know, but…)
e) Apparent excuse (e.g. I am sorry, but…)
f) Reversal (e.g. It is us who are being discriminated against)
g) Transfer (e.g. I have no problem with them, but the citizens…)

The fifth strategy of argumentation is a good example of interdisciplinarity

within the discourse-historical approach because it links in with the field of
argumentation theory, which provides its own tools for deconstructing rhetoric. For
example, one can test the validity/fallacy of an argument by checking for:
acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency (in that order). The absence of any of these
standards renders an argument fallacious (Govier, 2001). Another way to deconstruct
an argument is to explore the unexpressed premise on which it is based. Pragma-
dialectical theory (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992) provides three argumentative
schemes for exposing unexpressed premises:
Symptomatic: X is a feature of Y
Comparative: X is the same as Y
Causal: X causes Y
The reasonableness of an argument is largely dependent on the acceptability of a
given argumentative scheme (an example of this will be given in the analysis).
Finally, the discourse-historical approach addresses four levels of context
surrounding the discourse: (1) the immediate language cotext; (2) the intertextual and
interdiscursive relationships between texts, genres and discourses; (3) the extra-
linguistic social situation; and (4) the wider historical context of the discursive event
as well as the topic itself. One of the perceived problems with CDA is that the

1
analyst’s interpretation of a text is based on an ideological commitment rather than an
analytical one (Schegloff, 1998). However, I think that exploring these four levels of
context adequately, though challenging, does provide the analyst with a much
stronger basis for the interpretive claims he/she makes.
It is not possible to demonstrate the discourse-historical approach in its
entirety within the limits of this assignment. Instead, I will demonstrate the
application of some of the above-mentioned strategies to the text. At certain
junctures, it will be necessary to step outside the text to for additional context,
especially with regards to Straw’s claims about Islam. Such contextualization will
also illustrate how the ‘historical’ part of this approach might complement textual
analysis.

Some Context
In October 2006, Labour MP, Leader of the House of Commons and now Justice
Secretary, Jack Straw, published an editorial in the Lancashire Telegraph which
argued that the full-face veil was a mark of separation that prevents Muslims from
fully integrating into British society (2006). He added that the veil obstructs
communication as one cannot see the interlocutor’s face. In an interview with BBC
Radio 4, Straw went as far as saying that he would prefer it if Muslim women did not
wear the full-face veil at all (Remove, 2007). Straw’s comments were met with
mixed reactions and started a seemingly endless “veil row” in the media. Any news
report relating to the veil thereafter became headline news.
It was somewhat surprising that a politician with Mr. Straw’s background
would publish such a piece. He was after all home secretary from 1997 to 2001 and
foreign secretary until 2005. More importantly, Mr Straw was Labour MP for
Blackburn, a city in which 25 to 30 percent of residents are Muslim (Remove, 2007).
He must have been aware that his article would cause controversy within his own
constituency and probably offend the sensibilities of the Muslim community in
general. Organizations such as the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Muslim
Public Affairs Committee, Council of Lancashire Mosques, and Protect-Hijab (run by
Muslim women) were outraged at Straw’s remarks (Straw's veil, 2006). Yet he chose
to go ahead and publish what he later described as “a carefully measured piece”.
Even Tony Blair described Straw’s article as “measured and considered” (Brown
Support, 2006). It is precisely Straw’s ‘measured’ language that seems to allow him
to get away with saying what he does and that language will form the focus of my
analysis.

Textual Analysis
Part of being ‘critical’ in CDA is self-reflection (Wodak, 2007: 209). Before
beginning the textual analysis, I will briefly declare my ‘agenda’ as it were. As a
practicing Muslim, I naturally have a vested interest in representing my religion and
its practices in a positive light and that includes the veil. Rather than passing
judgments on the veil, the argument underlying my work is that society should do its
best to respect and accommodate all forms of veiling as long as there are women who
do so as a matter of personal choice.
Turning to the text, Jack Straw begins as follows:

2
 1 “I want to unveil my views on an important issue”
2
3 “It’s really nice to meet you face to face, Mr Straw,” said this pleasant lady in a broad Lancashire
4 accent. She had come to my constituency advice bureau with a problem. I smiled back. “The chance
5 would be a fine thing,” I thought to myself but did not say out loud.
6
7 The lady was wearing the full veil. Her eyes were uncovered but the rest of her face was in cloth.
8
9 Her husband, a professional man I vaguely knew, was with her. She did most of the talking. I got down
10 the detail of the problem, told them that I thought I could sort it out, and we parted amicably.

Newspaper headlines typically employ double meanings. It seems Straw

could not resist the temptation of following in that genre using a ‘literally motivated’
metaphor (Koller, personal communication). The verb “unveil” is used
metaphorically as a precursor to the topic of the article which is the veil in its literal
sense. The most common collocates of the word “unveil” in the British National
Corpus fall into the semantic categories of new projects and memorials (e.g. The new
budget was unveiled on 25 May). Similarly here, Straw, as a public figure, is
attempting to introduce a discourse of ‘honesty about the veil’ into the public sphere
that is not new in itself but rather unusual among politicians of his stature.
In lines 3-5 everything seems positive (really nice, pleasant, smiled) as Straw
describes his meeting with a fully veiled Muslim woman and her husband. Then
comes a sarcastic twist: “The chance would be a fine thing” [lines 4-5]. Straw seems
amused at the irony in the lady’s statement that she is meeting him face to face when
part of her face is in fact concealed.
Line 7 makes the ‘problem’ of the veil explicit. Adversative connectors
usually set up contrasting clauses. Here the positive (her eyes were uncovered) is
contrasted with the negative (the rest of her face was in cloth). The negativity is
emphasized in his figurative predication of the veil as being a face “in cloth”. The
strategy of ‘positive self representation’ is employed in lines 9-10 as Straw constructs
himself as politician capable of solving people’s problems.

11 All this was about a year ago. It was not the first time I had conducted an interview with someone in a
12 full veil, but this particular encounter, though very polite and respectful on both sides, got me thinking.
13 In part, this was because of the apparent incongruity between the signals which indicate common bonds
14 — the entirely English accent, the couple’s education (wholly in the UK) — and the fact of the veil.
15 Above all, it was because I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone “face-to-face” who I could not
16 see.
17
18 So I decided that I wouldn’t just sit there the next time a lady turned up to see me in a full veil, and I
19 haven’t.

In this section Straw continues his attempt to construct the full veil as a
‘problem’. His encounter with the veiled woman in the previous section is referred to
as “All this” rather than just “This”, which seems to exaggerate a simple surgery
meeting into a big event. It appears Straw wants to say that the full veil is
incompatible with ‘British’ society, but he mitigates this opinion using:

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 • modality: apparent [line 13]
• nominalization: incongruity [line 13], the fact of the veil [line 14]
• indirectness: the signals that indicate common bonds [line 13]

Again Straw sets up a dichotomy between attributes that seem “entirely” and
“wholly” British on the one hand [line 14] and wearing the full veil on the other. The
phrase “the fact of the veil” also seems to invoke the sense of the something
unmentionable and unpleasant, which confirms a negative predication of the veil.
Straw’s second and strongest objection to the full veil, as indicated by the
phrase “Above all” [line 15], is that it impedes communication. Synecdoche, a type
of metonym in which the part stands for the whole, makes this second objection more
dramatic. Straw reduces a whole person to a face because “who” [line 15] refers not
only to a face but a whole “someone” that he claims he cannot see.
The phrase “wouldn’t just sit there” [line 18] recontextualizes a positive
discourse of ‘activism’ which is normally associated with having the courage to take
action when no one else does. The discourse serves to reinforce the positive self
presentation of Straw as well as the negativity of that which he must take action
against: the ‘problem’ of the full-veil.

20 Now, I always ensure that a female member of my staff is with me. I explain that this is a country built
21 on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil,
22 wearing it breaks no laws.
23
24 I go on to say that I think, however, that the conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the
25 covering from her face. Indeed, the value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that
26 you can — almost literally — see what the other person means, and not just hear what they say.

This section deals with the delicate matter of asking Muslim women to remove
their face veil. Straw must be aware that this part of his article will be the most
offensive to many Muslims. Accordingly he uses a disclaimer, a common discursive
strategy when people criticize the practices of other groups. These typically employ
one adversative connector but in this case there are two. The disclaimer begins with
“I explain that this is a country built on freedoms” [line 20] (an explanation that
seems more appropriate to foreigners or newly arrived immigrants than British born
Muslims). The disclaimer continues up to the first adversative connector “As for”
[line 21], which contrasts the more ‘agreeable’ headscarf with the ‘problematic’ “full
veil” [line 21]. Interestingly, the disclaimer shifts back to a ‘positive self’ with an
acknowledgement of the legality of the full veil in Britain [line 22]. The disclaimer
then continues with a series of devices including epistemic modality (I go on, to say,
that, I think, …that, would be) and conditional if to mitigate the effect (offence) of the
speech act Straw is about to perform. Finally, the second adversative connector,
however [line 24], introduces the indirect request to remove the veil. Note also the
use of the more pleasant word “covering” [line 25] when Straw is indirectly reporting
what he said to this Muslim woman as compared with his earlier use of “cloth” [line
7] when he was describing her to his readers.

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27 I thought it may be hard going when I made my request for face-to-face interviews in these
28 circumstances. However, I can’t recall a single occasion when a lady has refused to lift the veil; most
29 seem relieved.
30
31 Last Friday was a case in point. The veil came off almost as soon as I opened my mouth. I dealt with
32 the problems the lady brought to me. We then had an interesting debate about veil wearing. This
33 contained some surprises. It became clear that the husband played no part in her decision. She had read
34 books about the issue. She felt more comfortable wearing the veil when out. People bothered her less.

There is an acknowledgement here that what Straw is asking Muslim women

to do is difficult for them, but this possibility is immediately dismissed only to serve
as a rhetorical tool to support his claim that unveiling is important and beneficial. The
fact that all the women he asked to unveil their face obliged his request is taken as
evidence that he had done the right thing. No consideration is given to the unequal
power relation between the two parties and the implications it might have for obliging
such a request.
The implicatures behind the adjective “relieved” [line 29] and “The veil came
off almost as soon as I opened my mouth” [line 31] are highly offensive to many
Muslims. They suggest Muslim women do not wear the veil out of any true
convictions as they are (apparently) just waiting for an excuse to remove it. This
(mis)representation of veiling women can be traced back to early orientalist
discourses claiming veiled women in Arabia were just waiting to be ‘liberated’ by the
western man (Mabro, 1991; Said, 1978, 1997).
To be clear, Muslim women wear the veil for different reasons. Some wear it
as a matter of choice; others wear it because they have none. For those who do wear
it by choice, the intrinsic motivation may be religious, cultural, social, practical,
political, or a combination of these. For many women, however, the veil is primarily
an act of worship. A recurring problem in western discussions of the veil, also
evident in Straw’s article, is that they are conducted from secular perspectives that
background the religious reasoning behind the act itself (Roald, 2001: 9).
To his credit, Straw mentions the ‘surprising’ fact that this woman wore the
full veil by choice and not because her husband demanded it. However, the reasoning
behind her decision is reduced to a desire to avoid being harassed. Again, I would not
dispute the existence of this reasoning but its recontextualization here only serves to
support Straw’s implicit false claim that there are no religious reasons for wearing a
full veil in Islam, which he makes explicit in the following final paragraph.

35 OK, I said, but did she think that veil wearing was required by the Koran? I was no expert, but many
36 Muslim scholars said that the full veil was not obligatory at all. And women as well as men went head
37 uncovered the whole time when on their Hajj — pilgrimage — in Mecca. The husband chipped in to
38 say that this matter was “more cultural than religious”. I said I would reflect on what she said to me.
39 Would she, however, think hard about what I said — in particular my concern that wearing the full veil
40 was bound to make better relations between the two communities more difficult. It was such a visible
41 statement of separation and of difference. I thought a lot before raising this matter and still more before
42 writing this. But if not me, who? My concern could be misplaced. But I think there is an issue here.

Straw maintains his ‘positive self’ using another disclaimer: I was no expert,
but… [line 37]. This is to express ‘apparent ignorance’ of Islam (van Dijk, 2000), but
then he confidently proceeds to make three claims: (1) The Quran does not require

5
the veil; (2) Many Muslim scholars say the full veil is not obligatory; (3) Muslims
wear the veil for cultural reasons. At this point it is necessary to step outside the text
to provide more context.
A common misconception is that all Islamic practices are explained in the
Quran (what Muslims believe to be the word of God), but many primary practices
such as the five daily prayers and giving alms are described in the sunnah (what
Muslims believe to be the words and actions of prophet Muhammad). In that sense,
most Muslims believe not only that the two texts are complementary but necessary for
a complete understanding of their religion. Quranic verses must therefore be
understood within their historical, social, and linguistic contexts which makes the
sunnah crucial for interpretation.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the Quranic verses that address
the veil and the sunnah surrounding this issue. However, to confront the issue of
evidentiality in Straw’s claims, it seems necessary to summarize the general
consensus and differences among Muslims (myself included) on this issue. Most
early Muslim scholars agree that women are required to cover their entire body except
for the face and the hands (Abou-El-Fadl, 2001: 240). Their opinions differ as to
whether covering the face is a requirement due to differences in interpreting the
relevant verses (Al-Quran Al-Karim: 33/53, 33/59, 24/31). The next step is to turn to
the sunnah as a means of resolving linguistic ambiguities based on practice. The
consensus is that the Prophet’s wives and daughters did cover their faces, but whether
that should apply to all Muslim women remains to be a source of disagreement (e.g.
Al-Albani, 2000; Khoja, 2004). Contemporary feminist re-interpretations of the
religious texts argue that the veil served functions that were specific to the context of
the Prophet’s time and cannot be generalized to all Muslim societies (Ahmed, 1992;
Mernissi, 1991). Other scholars argue that the requirements of the veil depend on
custom, nature, and necessity (Abou-El-Fadl, 2001: 241), which may explain the
diverse ways Muslim women dress across the world. In any case, the issue of the veil
in Islam is certainly not as simple and one-sided as Straw is attempting to present it
here. The claim that veiling is merely a cultural2 practice [line 38] cannot be
generalized to all Muslims.
Straw’s reference to the dress code during Muslim pilgrimage [line 36] is a
good example for illustrating the application of argumentation theory in discourse
analysis, specifically Govier’s aforementioned criteria for sound argumentation. In
terms of acceptability, the premise (women and men should not cover their head or
face during Hajj) is correct. However, the argument fails to meet the second criterion
of relevance. There are a host of prohibitions during Hajj which only apply during
pilgrimage (e.g. cutting nails or hair, hunting, and sexual intercourse). In other words,
the dress code during pilgrimage is actually irrelevant to the way Muslims are
expected to dress in general.
Alternatively this argument can be deconstructed based on the pragma-
dialectic argumentation scheme of comparability as follows (adapted from Atkin &
Richardson, 2007: 17):

Opinion: X is true of Y (covering the face is not required for Muslim women)
Argument: because X is true of Z (Women do not cover their face during Hajj)
Unexpressed premise: and Y is comparable to Z (Hajj [pilgrimage] is the same as everyday life)

2
Like Straw, I am using the term cultural to refer to socially constructed practices rather than religious
ones (even though the two are not always mutually exclusive).

6
The acceptability of the unexpressed premise is clearly questionable as there are
significant differences between Y and Z. One might even question the acceptability
of the argument (X is true of Z) because there are in fact narrations from the sunnah
reporting the approval of women covering their faces during pilgrimage when they
were in the company of strange men (Khoja, 2004: 47). To the majority of non-
Muslim readers the pilgrimage example unfortunately functions as a strong argument
against the full veil. To the more informed, it illustrates Straw’s limited knowledge of
this complex issue (it also seems rather condescending that Straw feels he can
interpret this woman’s religion better than she can).
Returning to our text, in line 41 Straw once again constructs the veil as a
‘problem’ describing it as, “such a visible statement of separation and of difference”.
‘Multiculturalism’ was a slogan the New Labour government proudly associated with
Britain since it came to power in 1997. It partially refers to accepting or at least
respecting cultural differences. When it comes to veiled women, however, difference
is rejected and multiculturalism is backgrounded. This may be due to a larger shift in
the language of politicians following the 7/7 bombings. The discourse of
“multiculturalism” has been replaced with “integration”. In a political context, the
concept of integration is as controversial as it is ambiguous. In this case it seems to
provide an ideological justification for constructing difference as a ‘problem’ that
must be confronted.
Straw ends his piece with two disclaimers. The first is what van Dijk (2000)
refers to as ‘apparent empathy’. Straw tells his readers that he had given this matter a
great deal of thought before writing it. The adversative connector is then followed by
the rhetorical question, “But if not me, who?” [line 42] which links with Straw’s
aforementioned (positive self) discourse of “activism” and self-sacrifice [line 18].
The second disclaimer, ‘apparent ignorance’ (“My concern could be misplaced”) is
expressed only to reassert that the veil is “an issue”- a problem Mr. Straw has
courageously addressed by asking Muslim women visiting his constituency to unveil
their faces. The following section concludes this paper with a discussion of the
efficacy of the discourse-historical approach for this type of data.

Discussion
It is usually advisable to include more than one text in the analysis of a discourse in
order to make the data more representative of existing (and absent) discourses.
However, as Baker (2006: 19) points out, “A corpus which contains a single
(unrepresentative) speech by the leader of a country or religious group, newspaper
editor or CEO may carry more weight discursively than hundreds of similar texts
which were produced by ‘ordinary people’”. Occasionally an ‘agenda setting’ text
comes along, having a significant impact on the rest of society due to the high profile
of its author. Straw’s editorial appears to be such a text, which made it worth a
detailed analysis of its own. In terms of its impact, I have already mentioned that
headline news continued to reference Straw’s article for several weeks after it was
published. In another study, I was able to document how elements of Straw’s article
were repeatedly recontextualized a month later in an online discussion forum
discussing the possibility of banning the full veil in public places in the UK (HYS
Veil Ban, 2006).
Tracing such recontextualization across different media forms is an important
part of the discourse-historical approach, but this may be difficult to do without a
research team working on different genres. One might want to ask whether the
discourse-historical approach is a feasible methodological choice for PhD students

7
working alone. The case study of the ‘Waldheim Affair’ in Austria for example was
the result of an interdisciplinary research project conducted by six researchers form
three different fields (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001: 99). PhD students working alone may
find the interdisciplinary nature of the discourse-historical approach rather difficult to
apply even in three years! In my case, it would be necessary to address topics as wide
as Orientalism, the history of Muslims in Britain, theological arguments for/against
the full veil in Islam, Muslims in the media among others, not to mention the textual
analysis itself. Nevertheless, that seems to be the type of context the discourse-
historical approach demands for making valid and critical interpretations of relevant
texts.
The discourse-historical approach has traditionally been concerned with racist
discourses such as anti-Semitism in the Austrian context. My analysis adapts the
approach to the context of discourses about Muslim women and their religious
practices in Britain. Although the prejudice against Muslims is often connected with
racism, it appears to be more complex than that. Texts can draw on a number of
discourses or “ways of seeing the world” (Sunderland, 2004: 6). As indicated, Straw
draws on an ‘integrationist’ discourse but it can be argued that integration has
xenophobic undertones. Prejudice against Muslims also stems from extreme
secularism and a refusal to recognize the role religion plays in other cultures. It
would therefore seem inaccurate to categorize the discourses in Straw’s text as being
merely ‘racist’, ‘xenophobic’ or ‘Islamophobic’.
A more fundamental problem in applying Wodak’s framework is the concept
of ‘discourse’ itself. Unlike topics or genres, discourses seem far more difficult to
identify because this process entails a judgment by the analyst about an ideology
behind the text. For example, Reisigl and Wodak (2001: 39) refer to a discourse of
“Austria First Petition” and “National Identity”. Such ideological perspectives are
more easily identified in political texts than in news reports (my PhD data) where
language is more ‘neutral’. If anything, this confirms the importance of historical
context for identifying a discourse, despite the added difficulty.
I was able to illustrate some of the linguistic categories of analysis associated
with the discourse-historical approach such as adversative connectors, modality,
nominalization, implicatures, predication, and disclaimers. These discursive
strategies are typical of discourses relating to minority groups such as Muslims in the
UK. My short analysis has shown these tools can be very effective in exposing
negative implications in the text. Not surprisingly, the strategies were especially
prevalent in that part of the text where Straw was ‘building up’ to the performance of
his controversial speech act (Thomas, 1995: 200). The face-threatening (no pun
intended) potential of his request that the woman remove her veil required a great deal
of hedging to maintain a positive self-presentation.
The incorporation of argumentation theory within the discourse-historical
approach is an effective means of uncovering fallacious arguments in the text. Its
success, however, is largely dependent on historical information outside the text. For
example, it would not have been possible to problematize Straw’s Hajj example
without knowledge of Islamic theology. This again illustrates the necessity of
interdisciplinarity. Another difficulty in applying argumentation theory is that the
basic structure of the argument is never explicit. Stripping parts of a text down to
their basic premises and conclusions involves removing a lot of textual ‘garbage’.
This has to be done very carefully to avoid biasing an unwarranted reading by
throwing out ‘the baby with the bathwater’.

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 Bias is of course a major concern that can never be completely resolved. Van
Dijk states, “CDA is biased- and proud of it” (2001: 96), but his use of the term ‘bias’
has more to do with being critical than forcing a particular reading upon a text
(interpreter bias). It is this latter sense of bias that concerns me as a Muslim
interpreting/analyzing western media texts about Muslims. One way to address this
concern may be to check with (non-Muslim) colleagues to ensure I am not imposing
meaning onto a text that is not there. Another way may be to conduct reception
studies that examine how the text is ‘consumed’ (Fairclough, 1992: 79). An example
of this might be the analysis of readers’ comments or online debates which provide an
insight into readers’ differing perceptions of a given text.
In conclusion, it can be said that the discourse-historical approach is
demanding but for good reasons. Criticisms of bias in CDA can only be countered
with rigorous work outside the text to validate one’s claims about what is going on
inside it. Analyzing sufficient context is a challenge of expertise as well as time and
resources, especially the ‘broader socio-political and historical contexts’ (Reisigl &
Wodak, 2001: 41). How much context is enough context? In the midst of this
contextual research there may be a danger of neglecting the ‘linguistic’ part of the
analysis, but the proponents of this and other CDA approaches are careful to stress the
significance of linguistic systematicity across texts that reflect a given discourse
(Fairclough, 2003; Wodak & Meyer, 2001). Documenting this systematicity seems
crucial for maintaining more objectivity in CDA.

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