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<TITLE>Re: "(Critical) Discourse Analysis" on Wikipedia</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Dear all<BR>
Perhaps </SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">Teun A. van Dijk s should post his own version(s) of DA and CDA on this list, so we can all be properly enlightened.<BR>
As an (ex?) ethnomedologist / CA student I find the relevant sections of Wikipedia something of a travesty as they concentrate purely on the 'turn-taking' program. Yet this is not a perspective confined to the 'Wikies'. You find it – and other travesties – throughout (eg) applied linguistics.<BR>
Still, as I'm merely given a small entry in a bibliography on the site, I can't get seem to get too steamed up about it. Also, given my edu background, neither can I get steamed up about ANY description of CDA.<BR>
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One last point Teun A. van Dijk seems to question the importance of JL Austin in the history of DA. Is he sure?<BR>
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Cheers<BR>
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David Hatch<BR>
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On 11/3/06 12:46 AM, "Teun A. van Dijk" <teun@DISCOURSE-IN-SOCIETY.ORG> wrote:<BR>
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Dear friends,<BR>
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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>
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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>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><FONT COLOR="#336666"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_Analysis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_Analysis</a><BR>
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as well as some other confused, misguided, etc, statements like:<BR>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000099"><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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>
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(...)<BR>
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Critical discourse analysis <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_discourse_analysis"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_discourse_analysis></a> , which combines discourse analysis with critical theory (particularly that of the Frankfurt School <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School></a> , Michel Foucault <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault></a> and Jacques Derrida <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida></a> , as well as literary, semiotic and psychoanalytic influences from Julia Kristeva <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva></a> , Roland Barthes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes></a> , and Jacques Lacan <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan></a> ), to create a politically engaged form of linguistic discourse analysis.<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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>
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The item on CDA has the following surprising statement:<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">Obviously, this has little to do with CDA (or is a raving triviality). <BR>
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Just check it out:<BR>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><FONT COLOR="#336666"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Discourse_Analysis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Discourse_Analysis</a><BR>
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And while you are at it, also check the (basic) entry on Discourse:<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#336666"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse</a><BR>
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where you can read initial statements such as:<BR>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000099"><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><B><I>Discourse</I></B> is a term used in semantics <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics></a> as in discourse analysis <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis></a> , but it also refers to a social conception of discourse, often linked with the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault></a> (1926-1984) and Jürgen Habermas <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_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 transcendent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendent"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 marxist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist></a> definition of ideology <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology></a> as part of the superstructure <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstructure"><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstructure></a> ).<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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'?<BR>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><FONT COLOR="#660000">So, WHO IS WRITING THIS NONSENSE?<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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Cheers<BR>
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Teun<BR>
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PS. Para l@s hispanohablantes escribí entradas sobre AD y ACD para la versión de Wikipedia en español -- espero que sean más representativas:<BR>
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<a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso">http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso</a> <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso"><http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_del_discurso></a> <BR>
<a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso">http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso</a> <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso"><http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Análisis_crítico_del_discurso></a> <BR>
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________________________________________<BR>
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Teun A. van Dijk<BR>
Universitat Pompeu Fabra<BR>
Dept. de Traducció i Filologia<BR>
Rambla 30<BR>
08002 Barcelona<BR>
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E-mail: teun@discourse-in-society org<BR>
Internet: www.discourse-in-society.org <a href="http://www.discourse-in-society.org"><http://www.discourse-in-society.org></a> <BR>
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Para hispanohablantes también:<BR>
E-mail: teun@discursos.org<BR>
Internet: www.discursos.org <a href="http://www.discursos.org"><http://www.discursos.org></a> <BR>
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