Abstract
In its third edition, marking the 25th anniversary of the first, this now classic work by Norman Fairclough mainly discusses the role of discourse in the maintenance and/or change of power relations in society, thus being indispensable reading for those interested in the field of critical discourse analysis (CDA). CDA has become a well-established area of inquiry dealing with how language and society are inextricably linked, spanning a range of disciplines beyond linguistics, such as cultural studies, gender studies and media studies, in which context the present work has played a central role in the past 25 years.
The previous edition (2001) brought a new final chapter dealing with language and globalization, with considerations about some changes in society since the publication of the first edition (1989), focusing on the idea of the global impacting on the local, and vice-versa, while also shedding light on the significance of the Internet in that process. In this new edition, Fairclough adds a whole new Introduction while the other chapters remain essentially the same.
The new Introduction mainly discusses the development of Fairclough’s version of CDA, which represents a significant change from the goal of this chapter in the first two editions. The previous text did not presuppose knowledge of CDA from readers, which, in my experience, has always proven valuable when introducing the discussion of language and power with undergraduate students. However, there is also gain in that the new Introduction systematizes and summarizes the main features behind the theorization and applied work in CDA to date. The issue is that by presupposing knowledge of CDA, it seems to defeat the purpose of the first pages in a book that still hope to be used as introductory text in CDA. Therefore, this revised edition could have kept the previous Introduction and added a new chapter with the discussion of the main features of CDA and how they embody Fairclough’s present version of CDA.
Chapter 2 outlines the position that language is socially conditioned and also influences its social context. This concept is developed in Chapters 3 and 4, which deal with how language can be used to exert power and how it is implicated with ideological meanings. In Chapter 3, discourse is described as a place where actual relations of power are construed (power in discourse), and social orders are claimed to be ingrained with power (power behind discourse). Additionally, Fairclough contends that such power is a constant site of social struggle. Chapter 4 focuses on the construal of common sense as a tool to sustain relations of power. We are reminded that it is precisely when an ideology becomes commonsensical that it is truly powerful, since its workings are disguised. In order to tackle this issue, Fairclough presents insightful ways in which ideologies can be foregrounded and challenged.
Chapters 5 and 6 bring what is arguably the main contribution of this work: Fairclough’s framework of analysis with procedures in complementary dimensions – (a) description of textual features, (b) interpretation of discourse and attending interactional aspects and (c) explanation of the relations between text, interaction and social context. Chapter 5 presents ways in which textual features (e.g. vocabulary and grammar) can be described. Fairclough provides a set of questions to guide such analysis, which has proven quite useful in my classroom experience, since turning theoretical concepts into more objective questions can be quite challenging. Chapter 6 addresses the other two dimensions. When interpreting, Fairclough tackles the mediation between text and social context by revealing the discourse processes of text production. Then, the relations between such discourses and the social context are explained by connecting the commonsensical assumptions underlying them and the social struggle and power relations at play.
Chapter 7 shows a practical example of how these analytical dimensions may elucidate the discursive construal of political ideologies and identities by addressing the process of text production. This analysis is certainly beneficial to the reader; however, in discussing the process, Fairclough makes a claim that needs to be questioned. Explaining how the text producer’s position may be problematized, he states that ‘mixed-sex interaction is widely problematic these days because of the increasingly contested relative social positions of women and men’ (p. 178). Although there is a connection between social relations and text production, the example used does not seem to hold true today, since these social positions have undergone dramatic changes over the past 25 years. One cannot rely on the sex divide to make claims about language use when the focus should be on gender performance and its impermanence and instability. In other words, gender does not lend itself to overgeneralizations about how relations between any two people may influence text production and interpretation. Such criticism is further justified when we see that Fairclough shows concern for the discussion of how discourse is related to social change (Chapter 8) but focuses on consumerism and state bureaucracy in contemporary capitalism, thus leaving out other issues such as the development in the understanding of gender relations. Although this limitation is somewhat acknowledged by Fairclough (p. 225), it assumes relevance vis-à-vis such conceptual oversight.
The final chapter would also have profited from the discussion of more current issues, especially seeing that the theme of globalization has informed most of Fairclough’s recent work in CDA. However, the text is still rather relevant as ‘a resource for struggle against domination’ (p. 252), especially when taking into account the need for critical language education (Chapter 9) in a world that is ever-changing, thus requiring the awareness of the power relations being construed and the role language use has in this oftentimes challenging context.