"(Critical) Discourse Analysis" on Wikipedia

Sat Mar 11 01:45:48 UTC 2006

Well, to linguistic anthropologists on this list, inspired by  
Professor van Dijk, I checked out our entry. It's no better! First,  
there is none! The search is redirected to Anthropological  
linguistics, and here are the first few sentences:

"Anthropological linguistics is the study of language through human  
genetics and human development. This strongly overlaps the field of  
linguistic anthropology, which is the branch of anthropology that  
studies humans through the languages that they use.

Whatever one calls it, this field has had a major impact in the  
studies of visual perception (especially colour) and bioregional  
democracy, both of which are concerned with distinctions that are  
made in languages about perceptions of the surroundings."

Bioregional democracy? Anthropological linguistics focuses on human  
genetics? Who IS writing these entries?

Jim Wilce

On Mar 10, 2006, at 4:46 PM, Teun A. van Dijk wrote:

>
> Dear friends,
>
> 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...).
>
> 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 How to do things with words: Check it out for yourself:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_Analysis
>
> as well as some other confused, misguided, etc, statements like:
>
> 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."
>
> (...)
>
> Critical discourse analysis, which combines discourse analysis with  
> critical theory (particularly that of the Frankfurt School, Michel  
> Foucault and Jacques Derrida, as well as literary, semiotic and  
> psychoanalytic influences from Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, and  
> Jacques Lacan), to create a politically engaged form of linguistic  
> discourse analysis.
>
> 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 avant la lettre... Jaques Lacan a CDA-er?
>
> The item on CDA has the following surprising statement:
>
> 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.
>
> Obviously, this has little to do with CDA (or is a raving triviality).
>
> Just check it out:
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Discourse_Analysis
>
> And while you are at it, also check the (basic) entry on Discourse:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse
>
> where you can read initial statements such as:
>
> Discourse is a term used in semantics as in discourse analysis, but  
> it also refers to a social conception of discourse, often linked  
> with the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and  
> Jürgen Habermas' The Theory of Communicative Action. Even though  
> each thinker had personal and incompatible conceptions of  
> discourse, they remain two important figures in this field;  
> Habermas trying to find the transcendent rules upon which speakers  
> could agree on a groundworks consensus, while Foucault was  
> developing a battle-type of discourse which opposed the classic  
> marxist definition of ideology as part of the superstructure).
>
> 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'?
>
> So, WHO IS WRITING THIS NONSENSE?
>
> 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...
>
> 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...
>
> 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...
>
> I of course know 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.
>
> Cheers
>
> Teun
>
> PS. Para l at s hispanohablantes escribí entradas sobre AD y ACD para  
> la versión de Wikipedia en español -- espero que sean más  
> representativas:
>
> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso
> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso
>
> ________________________________________
>
> Teun A. van Dijk
> Universitat Pompeu Fabra
> Dept. de Traducció i Filologia
> Rambla 30
> 08002 Barcelona
>
> E-mail: teun at discourse-in-society org
> Internet: www.discourse-in-society.org
>
> Para hispanohablantes también:
> E-mail: teun at discursos.org
> Internet: www.discursos.org
>
>
>
>

Jim Wilce, Professor of Anthropology
Editor, Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture
Box 15200
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200
Bldg. 98D, Room 101E
Office: 928-523-2729
email: jim.wilce at nau.edu
Home page: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22

Note: I'm having trouble with email, specifically with people who try  
to reach me by hitting Reply to an email I send them. It's better to  
manually enter my address, jim.wilce at nau.edu. Thank you.

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