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Dear friends,<br>
<br>
I do not usually look up Wikipedia when I need to know something I do
not know, although the idea of a shared net-cyclopedia is great, and I
wished we had something like that for discourse studies (I proposed the
idea some years ago, but it did not work out because of technical
problems: on which server to put it, etc...).<br>
<br>
However, if you type in "Critical Discourse Analysis" or "Discourse
Analysis" in Google, as undoubtedly many students do, then you also hit
on the Wikipedia definitions - and on some surprises, such as a mere
two books being mentioned as references for DA, one of which is...
Austin's <i>How to do things with words</i>: Check it out for yourself:<br>
<br>
<font color="#336666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_Analysis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_Analysis</a></font><br>
<br>
as well as some other confused, misguided, etc, statements like:<br>
<br>
</font>Thus, most discourse analysts following Harris have conducted
work that
falls under the heading of “pragmatics” in modern linguistics, rather
than “syntactics,” though many discourse analysts would reject
linguists’ tripartite division of the main characteristics of
language--the third characteristic being "semantics."<br>
<br>
(...)<br>
<br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_discourse_analysis"
title="Critical discourse analysis">Critical discourse analysis</a>,
which combines discourse analysis with critical theory (particularly
that of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School"
title="Frankfurt School">Frankfurt School</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault"
title="Michel Foucault">Michel Foucault</a> and <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida"
title="Jacques Derrida">Jacques Derrida</a>, as well as literary,
semiotic and psychoanalytic influences from <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva"
title="Julia Kristeva">Julia Kristeva</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
title="Roland Barthes">Roland Barthes</a>, and <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan" title="Jacques Lacan">Jacques
Lacan</a>), to create a politically engaged form of linguistic
discourse analysis.<br>
<br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS">Of course this is no drama, but always
worrying about what students learn, I find this at least a bad example
of a Wikipedia entry. Or maybe I simply have no idea who of all these
French heroes were actually CDA-ers <i>avant la lettre... </i>Jaques
Lacan a CDA-er? <br>
<br>
The item on CDA has the following surprising statement:<br>
<br>
</font>In terms of method, CDA can generally be described as
hyper-linguistic
or supra-linguistic, in that practitioners who use CDA consider the
larger discourse context or the meaning that lies beyond the
grammatical structure.<br>
<br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS">Obviously, this has little to do with CDA
(or is a raving triviality). </font><br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS"><br>
Just check it out:<br>
<br>
<font color="#336666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Discourse_Analysis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Discourse_Analysis</a></font><br>
<br>
And while you are at it, also check the (basic) entry on Discourse:<br>
<br>
<font color="#336666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse</a></font><br>
<br>
where you can read initial statements such as:<br>
<br>
</font><i><b>Discourse</b></i> is a term used in <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics" title="Semantics">semantics</a>
as in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis"
title="Discourse analysis">discourse analysis</a>, but it also refers
to a social conception of discourse, often linked with the work of
French philosopher <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault"
title="Michel Foucault">Michel Foucault</a> (1926-1984) and <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas"
title="Jürgen Habermas">Jürgen Habermas</a>' <i>The Theory of
Communicative Action</i>.
Even though each thinker had personal and incompatible conceptions of
discourse, they remain two important figures in this field; Habermas
trying to find the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendent"
title="Transcendent">transcendent</a>
rules upon which speakers could agree on a groundworks consensus, while
Foucault was developing a battle-type of discourse which opposed the
classic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist" title="Marxist">marxist</a>
definition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology"
title="Ideology">ideology</a> as part of the <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstructure"
title="Superstructure">superstructure</a>).<br>
<br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS">Now who in contemporary DA recognize
themselves in this statement as an introduction to contemporary
discourse analysis? Habermas (with all due respect for his work) as the
leading scholar in the definition of 'discourse'?</font><br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS"><br>
<font color="#660000">So, WHO IS WRITING THIS NONSENSE?</font><br>
</font><br>
<font face="Comic Sans MS">I thought that Wikipedia editing was meant
to correct obvious errors, add new references, or add an obvious point
that had been forgotten, but not that people who have no idea (re)write
items...<br>
<br>
I also discovered that I am (still) described in Wikipedia as a
text-linguist -- that is, by someone who has not read his (?) discourse
analysis literature for some 30 years... <br>
<br>
In sum, this is not doing Wikipedia or our students any good, so I
propose at least some of us jointly compose some items on (C)DA that
can be warranted as more or less representative of the field, then to
be submitted to (for instance) this list, with requests for corrections
and additions, and then we post it on Wikipedia... and see what happens
to those items...<br>
<br>
I of course <i>know</i> that encyclopedia items come in many guises,
and reflect the interests, etc. of the writer(s), and no entry can be
'objective', but I think they should at least be more or less correct,
and more or less representative.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
<br>
Teun<br>
<br>
<small>PS. Para l@s hispanohablantes escribí entradas sobre AD y ACD
para la versión de Wikipedia en español -- espero que sean más
representativas:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso">http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso">http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso</a><br>
</small><br>
________________________________________<br>
<br>
Teun A. van Dijk<br>
Universitat Pompeu Fabra<br>
Dept. de Traducció i Filologia<br>
Rambla 30<br>
08002 Barcelona<br>
<br>
E-mail: teun@discourse-in-society org<br>
Internet: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.discourse-in-society.org">www.discourse-in-society.org</a><br>
<br>
Para hispanohablantes también:<br>
E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:teun@discursos.org">teun@discursos.org</a><br>
Internet: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.discursos.org">www.discursos.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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