Research on Language and Social Interaction, 32(1&2), 185193 Copyright 1999, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Critical Discourse Analysis at the End of the 20th Century

Ruth Wodak Department of Linguistics University of Vienna

We live in a fast-moving world where many important characteristics of societies are changing everyday. Space and time have become unstable through technologization and globalization (Harvey, 1996). One could think of the world as becoming smaller, with national boundaries having dissolved or being in the process of dissolving. People have to learn how to cope with supranational identities and totally different political and economic organizations. In this changing world, many new social problems arise that demand understanding. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) offers a program for research on such socially relevant phenomena. In this short article, I define the most prominent aspects of CDA and discuss how such a research program enables us to cope with the changes in our societies. I also identify some social problems deserving investigation, illustrating one project underway in the recently formed Research Center in Vienna, Austria, on Discourse, Politics, and Identity.

Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Ruth Wodak, Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Berggasse II/l/3, A-1090 Wien, Austria. E-mail: Ruth@ ling.univie.ac.at

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

186

Ruth Wodak

CDA

CDA1 is not a homogeneous theory with a set of clear and defined tools; rather, it is a research program with many facets and numerous different theoretical and methodological approaches (see Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Wodak 1996a, 1996b). The term critical has been misunderstood widely (see Widdowson, 1998). Critical does not mean detecting only the negative sides of social interaction and processes and painting a black and white picture of societies. Quite to the contrary: Critical means distinguishing complexity and denying easy, dichotomous explanations. It means making contradictions transparent. Moreover, critical implies that a researcher is self-reflective while doing research about social problems. Researchers choose objects of investigation, define them, and evaluate them. They do not separate their own values and beliefs from the research they are doing; recognizing, as Jrgen Habermas (1967) convincingly showed many years ago, that researchers own interests and knowledge unavoidably shape their research. Taking such a position implies that researchers must be constantly aware of how they are analyzing and interpreting. They also need to keep a distance from their topic; otherwise, their research turns into political action (which is, of course, not in itself a bad thing) or becomes an attempt to prove what the researcher already believes. The data need to be allowed to speak for themselves. Thus, CDA requires a constant balancing between theory and empirical phenomena. Analyses should neither be purely inductive nor deductive, but abductive, in which analysts are explicit about what they are actually doing. This means that members of a culture (including researchers) will work to understand their own culture and, rather than pronouncing truths, propose interpretations and solutions to perceived problems. Such an approach in Linguistics and Communication Studies also entails a certain notion of language: language as social, as meaningful, and as always embedded in a social context and history. Language is not an isolated phenomenon; language is deeply social, intertwined with social processes and interaction (Wodak, 1996a). This view of language leads us back to Wittgensteins (1967) language game. If language is seen as action in a social context, then certain consequences follow. First, interaction always involves power and ideologies. No interaction exists in which power relations do not prevail and in which values and norms do not have a relevant role. Second, discourse, used

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

Critical Discourse Analysis

187

here synonymously with interaction (see Weiss & Wodak, 1998), is always historical, connected synchronically and diachronically with other communicative events that are happening at the same time or that have happened before. This phenomenon, known as intertextuality, implies certain research strategies and methodologies (see discourse-historical methodology later). Another important characteristic of discourse is recontextualization, the reference and dynamic reformulation of arguments and topoi from one context to another (Bernstein, 1990; Iedema, 1997). Third, and related, each communicative event allows numerous interpretations, linked to the positions of the readers, listeners, or viewers respective contexts and levels of information. Interpretations that the researchers put forward also are laden with certain beliefs and knowledge. A right interpretation does not exist and a hermeneutic approach is necessary. Interpretations can be more or less plausible or adequate, but they cannot be true. Moreover, CDA does not stop once it has analyzed a problem. Rather, it attempts to intervene into social processes by proposing verbally and in writing possible changes that could be implemented by practitioners. The commitment of CDA to developing solutions requires it to be in constant dialogue with practitioners from different professions and fields. I could go on into more detail about other important aspects of CDA (mediation, language description, etc.), but I would like to emphasize that these criteria are by far the most important. A last aspect must be mentioned here: Doing research in a problem-oriented way, trying to understand and explain social interaction, also implies an interdisciplinary approach and framework. Social problems are too complex to be analyzed just linguistically or historically. Teamwork and multidisciplinary theories and methods are necessary in critical research.

THE DISCOURSE-HISTORICAL APPROACH

To study and grasp the complexity of social problems, we have developed the discourse-historical methodology in the first project concerned with anti-Semitic discourse during the Waldheim Affair in Austria in 1986 (Wodak, 1997a; Wodak et al., 1990; Wodak & Matouschek, 1993; Wodak & Reisigl, in press-a). The main aim of the

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

188

Ruth Wodak

discourse-historical approach is to integrate texts of as many different genres as possible, as well as the historical dimension of the subject under investigation. The discourse-historical approach relates the content of the data with the strategies employed and their linguistic realizations. Strategies refer to plans of actions that may vary in their degree of elaboration, may be located at different levels of mental organization, and may range from automatic to highly conscious. Linguistic realizations can be studied in varying ways. I believe that a functional systemic approach might be very usefully combined with the strategic analysis (see Straehle, Weiss, Wodak, Muntigl, & Sedlak, 1999; Van Leeuwen & Wodak, in press; Wodak & Iedema, 1999). In analyzing historical and political topics and texts, the historical dimension of discursive acts is addressed in two ways in our discoursehistorical methodology. First, the discourse-historical approach attempts to integrate historical background and the original sources in which discursive events are embedded. Second, the approach explores the ways in which particular types and genres of discourse are subject to diachronic change (Matouschek, Wodak, & Januschek, 1995; Wodak et al., 1990; Wodak, Menz, Mitten, & Stern, 1994). To explore the interconnectedness of discursive practices and extralinguistic social structures, we employ the principle of triangulation (Cicourel, 1974), that is, various interdisciplinary, methodological, and source-specific approaches are combined to investigate a particular discourse phenomenon. In exploring the phenomenon of immigration and family reunion (Van Leeuwen & Wodak, in press), for example, an interdisciplinary approach combined historical, sociopolitical, and linguistic perspectives.

SOCIAL CHALLENGES AT THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Among the many relevant possible issues, I am currently investigating three social problems that are growing in importance in Europe, as well as worldwide: unemployment, security policies, and racism. There are overlaps among these issues as, for example, arguments about unemployment are widely used in racist discourse (interdiscursivity). Due to space

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

Critical Discourse Analysis

189

limitations, I illustrate our critical research program for only one of the previously mentioned areas,2 the project on unemployment in the European Union (EU). At the University of Viennas Research Center, Discourse, Politics, and Identity,3 we are at the start of a 5-year project analyzing the decision-making processes of international organizations with regard to employment polices and practices. Because of its political significance in contemporary Europe, we are focusing on the EU as a research site. We believe developing insight into this complex decision-making apparatus is critical to democracy. In addition, unemployment demands attention as one of Europes most pressing concerns (18.5 million people in the 15 EU member states are unemployed). This research continues the centers tradition of focusing on national identities (Wodak et al., 1998) on the one hand, and on organizational discourse on the other (Wodak, 1996a; Wodak & Iedema, 1999). Although employment and labor market policy remain the responsibility of the individual member states, at least to a large extent, the EU has become concerned with the issue. The European Council meeting in Luxemburg, November 1997, a summit of heads of state and ministers, was dedicated to this topic (Muntigl, 1997; Sedlak, 1997; Straehle et al., 1999; Weiss, in press). In a period of initial fieldwork in Brussels and Strasbourg, we collected texts of different genres (interviews, tape recordings of meetings, parliamentary debates, draft resolutions, etc.). Then we began our analysis, focusing on the November 1997 European Council meeting where, for the first time, the EU was taking a more active role in controlling the member states. As a result of the meeting, every member state had to provide a national action plan on unemployment by the end of 1998. In the past, social and employment policies were guided by the principle of subsidiarity, such that fairly vague resolutions were decided on on the supranational level, with interpretation left to the member states. This is changing as it becomes clear that unemployment is not merely a national problem but instead is a global problem that will need to be solved on a supranational level. If unemployment is as pressing as I have argued, the legitimacy of the EU as a political union will rest in part on its ability to tackle this question. Not addressing it calls the entire process of European integration into question. Our research started out with four broad guiding questions: 1. What are the characteristics of the discourses on unemployment within the realm of EU employment policy making, and what,

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

190

Ruth Wodak

implicitly, do these characteristics reveal about communication and discourse processes, as well as structures in international organization? 2. What does the fact that EU organizations are multicultural and multilinguistic mean for decision making, and, in particular, for the forms of justification and legitimization? How are decisions and basic arguments communicated and transformed (recontextualized) in the various fields of action? What differences can be observed in the various contexts (official meetings, debates, interviews, written texts)? What does the multicultural setting imply for language use? How do delegates from 15 different countries with different languages, cultures, and ideologies arrive at consensus? 3. The problem of arriving at a new European identity (the EUs explicit aim) is deeply embedded in a field of tensions and contradictions: northern countries versus southern countries, large versus small countries, rich versus poor countries, global organization versus national member states, and so forth. Given the multinational and multicultural frame, how and to what extent are new identities actually created? What are the dominating tensions in the discourse on unemployment? 4. How does the discourse of unemployment relate to economic theories and economic discourses? What role do economic concepts like neo-liberalism and Keynesianism play with regard to the arguments, strategies, and legitimization techniques used in talking about unemployment? The first pilot studies show that the complexity of decision making is systematically reduced by manifest and latent power structures inside the EU (Weiss & Wodak, 1998). A theoretical and analytical framework that is itself complex enough to understand the decision-making labyrinth, such as a Systemic Hermeneutics, based on the approach by Niklas Luhmann, is needed. In meetings, for example, an impression often prevails that nothing is decided on and that there is no visible dynamic. This first impression masks the power structures and the fact that even not taking a decision at a certain time means taking a decision: the decision not to take a decision. The role of the so-called Eurocrats in the Commission is important and the actions of member states often serve as an official enactment of decisions taken elsewhere. Moreover, the analysis

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

Critical Discourse Analysis

191

of drafts and the resulting resolutions allow insight into processes of consensus making and the role of economic theories and political ideologies. Fights and struggles over words have wide implications, for they are fights over a wide range of important social meanings. Such fights are typical of organizations (Iedema, 1999; Menz, 1999). To conclude, I assume that critical research at the end of the 20th century should be concerned with social issues that are at the core of the imminent changes taking place in current societies. Through CDA, we are able to make social interaction transparent and understandable to the (European) citizens who have little or no access to the elites involved in decision making. Such research, in my view, serves basic democratic principles. The project that is outlined earlier follows the research program of CDA. In addition, we hope that some results will be useful to practitioners in politics and language planning.

NOTES
1 In contrast to some beliefs, CDA does not restrict itself to the analysis of media and political texts. CDA covers a wide range of problems, like organizational discourse or gender as well (Iedema & Wodak, 1999; Kotthoff & Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 1997b), everyday conversation can also be analyzed critically. One of the important challenges to CDA is to put their results to practice: An example would be suggesting guidelines for nonsexist language behavior (Kargl, Wetschanow, & Wodak, 1997). CDA does not stop at the diagnosing stage but goes on to suggest therapies (Wodak, 1989, 1996a). 2 For consideration of the other two issues, readers are referred to Benke and Wodak (in press); Kargl, Liebhart, and Sondermann (1997); Wodak and Van Dijk (1997); and Wodak and Reisigl (in press-a, in press-b). 3 The research center Discourse, Politics, and Identity was founded in 1996 with the Wittgenstein Prize awarded to Ruth Wodak. The coresearchers in the 5-year project on unemployment are Peter Muntigl, Carolyn Straehle, and Gilbert Weiss.

REFERENCES
Benke, G., & Wodak, R. (in press). Discourses on Austrian Presidents. In R. Wodak & C. Ludwig (Eds.), Challenges in a changing world. Vienna: Passagen Verlag. Bernstein, B. (1990). The structure of pedagogic discourse. Class, codes and control. London: Routledge.

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

192

Ruth Wodak

Cicourel, A. (1974). Methode und Messung in der Soziologie [Methods and measurement in sociology]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 258284). London: Sage. Habermas, J. (1967). Erkenntnis und Interesse [Knowledge and interest]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, nature and the geography of difference. Oxford, England: Blackwell. Iedema, R. (1997). Interactional dynamics and social change: Planning as morphogenesis. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Sydney, Australia. Iedema, R. (1999). Formalising organizational meaning. Discourse & Society, 10, 4966. Iedema, R., & Wodak, R. (1999). Introduction: Organizational discourse and practices. Discourse & Society, 10, 520. Kargl, M., Liebhart, K., & Sondermann, K. (1997). Wir Neu. Diskurse zur sterreichischen Neutralitit [We new. Discourses on Austrian neutrality]. Unpublished manuscript. Kargl, M., Wetschanow, K., & Wodak, R. (1997). Kreative Formulieren: Anleitungen zu geschlechtergerechtem. Sprachgebrauch [Creative formulating: Guidelines for non-sexist language behaviors]. Vienna: Schriftenreihe der Bundesministerin fr Frauen. Kotthoff, H., & Wodak, R. (Eds.). (1997). Communicating gender. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Matouschek, B., Wodak, R., & Januschek, F. (1995). Notwendige Manahmen gegen Fremde? [Necessary measures against foreigners?] Vienna: Passagen Verlag. Menz, F. (1999). Who am I gonna do this with? Self-organisation, ambiguity and decision-making in a business enterprise. Discourse & Society, 10, 101128. Muntigl, P. (1997, July). Acting politically in speeches about unemployment. Paper presented at the Analyzing Political Discourse Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, England. Sedlak, M. (1997, July). The Question of Agency in European Political Texts. An Analysis of the European Councils Presidency Conclusions. Paper presented at the Analyzing Political Discourse Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, England. Straehle, C., Weiss, G., Wodak, R., Muntigl, P., & Sedlak, M. (1999). Struggle as metaphor in EU discourses on unemployment. Discourse & Society, 10, 67100. Van Leeuwen, T., & Wodak, R. (in press). Legitimizing immigration control: A discourse-historical analysis. Discourse Studies. Weiss, G. (in press). Some remarks on decision making in committees of the European Union. In R. Wodak & C. Ludwig (Eds.), Challenges in a changing world. Vienna: Passagen Verlag. Weiss, G., & Wodak, R. (1998, September). Organisation and communication: On the relevance of Niklas Luhmans systems theory for a discourse-hermeneutic approach to organizations. Occasional paper. International conference on Discourse and Social Research, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen.

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved

Critical Discourse Analysis

193

Widdowson, H. (1998). The theory and practice of critical discourse analysis. Review article. Applied Linguistics, 19, 136152. Wittgenstein, L. (1967). Philosophische Untersuchungen [Philosophical investigations]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R. (1989). Introduction. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Language, power and ideology (pp. iivii). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wodak, R. (1996a). Disorders in discourse. London: Longman. Wodak, R. (1996b). The genesis of racist discourse in Austria since 1989. In C. R. Caldas-Coulthard & M. Coulthard (Eds.), Texts and practicesReadings in critical discourse analysis (pp. 107128). London: Routledge. Wodak, R. (1997a): Das Ausland and anti-semitic discourse: The discursive construction of the `other. In S. H. Riggins (Ed.), The language and politics of exclusion (pp. 6588). London: Sage. Wodak, R. (Ed.). (1997b). Gender and discourse. London: Sage. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Gruber, H., Mitten, R., Nowak, P., & Pelikan, J. (1990). Wir sind alle unschuldige Tter! Studien zum antisemitischen Diskurs im Nachkriegssterreich [We are all innocent perpetrators! Studies on antisemitic discourse in postwar Austria]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., Liebhart, K., Hofsttter, K., & Kargl, M. (1998). Zur diskursiven konstruktion nationaler Identitt [The discursive construction of national identity]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R., & Iedema, R. (Eds.). (1999). Discourse in organizations [Special issue]. Discourse & Society, 10(3). Wodak, R., & Matouschek, B. (1993). We are dealing with people whose origins one can clearly tell just by looking: Critical discourse analysis and the study of neo-racism in contemporary Austria. Discourse & Society, 4, 225248. Wodak, R., Menz, F., Mitten, R., & Stern, F. (1994). Die Sprachen der Vergangenheiten: ffentliches Gedenken in sterreichischen und deutschen Medien [Languages of the past: Public commemoration in Austrian and German media]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R., & Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). Racism at the top. Unpublished manuscript. Wodak, R., & Reisigl, M. (in press-a). Discourse and discrimination: The rhetorics of racism and antisemitism. London: Longman. Wodak, R., & Reisigl, M. (in press-b). Discourse and racism. Annual Review of Anthropology.

Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved