CDA

[Georgina Heydon]

Pegeen,

I must confess that, ponder as I might, I can't find appropriate answers to
your questions.

What I mean by 'applications of cda' is the sort of thing that Wodak does.
That is, to take a corpus of linguistic data from within an insitutional
setting (eg. a hospital ward, a court of law etc.) and analyse it with an
emphasis on the prevailing ideologies and power structures which are
embedded in the discourse.  It may be that changes to discursive practices
within the institution (by doctors and nurses in the hospital for instance)
will provide greater access to services and understanding of those services
for the lay community (in this case, patients) who come into contact with
the institution.  However, it may also be the case that such changes do not
have this effect because they only serve to conceal the existing power
structures, thus making them even less susceptible to change than before.

This is a very poor explanation (and my apologies to Ruth Wodak!) but I
hope I have answered your question in some way.

I'm not quite sure if the 'production of texts' in a pedagogical setting
can be compared with this sort of application of cda - but that depends on
what you mean by 'production of texts'.  However, the discourse of the
classroom can certainly be analysed in this way, and similar conclusions
have, apparently, been reached, though I couldn'y give references - it was
just something a lecturer mentioned to me the other day.


Georgina Heydon
Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
University of Melbourne
Parkville   Victoria    3052
Australia

Ph: 61 3 9344 5488

email: g.heydon at linguistics.unimelb.edu.au


----------
> From: Pegeen Reichert Powell <reichepm at miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
> To: DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU
> Subject: CDA
> Date: Monday, 11 January 1999 2:42
>
> Georgina and Dave (Stacey)--
>
> Thanks for the references to other critical discourse analysis (CDA)
stuff.
> It'll be good to have something to look forward to reading after my
exams.
> I was wondering if either of you or anyone else on the list has used CDA
in
> an undergraduate writing classroom, or any other kind of undergraduate
> class?  I'm especially interested in how it can be used in a pedagogy
that
> focuses on _producing_ text, rather than "just" analysis of others'
texts.
>
> I assume that production of texts is what you, Georgina, mean (or Ruth
> Wodak means) when you talk about "application of cda"?  Is that correct?
> And then are students "the lay community"?:
>
> Georgina wrote:
> "even if changes to discursive practices (eg. in insitutional discourse)
> are made through the application of cda, these changes may only further
> obfuscate the asymmetrical power structure of the discourse, and not open
> it (the
> discourse) to the lay community, as was intended."
>
> What kinds of pedagogies wouldn't "obfuscate the asymmetrical power
> structure of the discourse"?
>
> Sorry I have more questions that comments right now!  Pegeen