Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; better named critical discourse studies [CDS]) is a movement or perspective of multidisciplinary discourse studies that specifically focuses on the discursive reproduction of power abuse, such as sexism, racism, and other forms of social inequality, as well as the resistance against such domination. CDA/CDS is not a specific method of discourse studies but makes use of all relevant methods of the humanities and social sciences in the study of important social problems. Unlike most other approaches, the CDS framework presented here not only relates discourse structures to social structures but does so through a sociocognitive interface that links mental representations of communicative and other social situations and events with the cognitive structures underlying discourse. Power is conceptualized as control – for example, control of the structures of context, text, or talk, and thus indirectly of people's minds