Norman Fairclough’s Analysing
Discourse

Social analysis, discourse analysis, text analysis
• 2C Fairclough’s approach (called ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’) assumes that there is a dialectical
relationship between language and other elements of social life.
• 2D There are two main kinds of discourse analysis:
• (a) Textually-Oriented Discourse Analysis (TODA)
• (b) non-TODA (for example, Michel Foucault’s approach)
• Fairclough’s approach tries to combine these two.
• 3A The focus of his approach ‘oscillates’ between both:
• (a) specific texts (linguistic analysis)
• (b) orders of discourse (interdiscursive analysis)

…………………………………………..…..Continued
Order of discourse = ‘the relatively durable social structuring of language which is itself one element of
the relatively durable structuring and networking of social practices.’
Interdiscursive analysis = ‘seeing texts in terms of the different discourses, genres and styles [that] they
draw upon and articulate together’
3B NF’s approach to the linguistic analysis of text is part of a broader project in social research. There is a
‘manifesto’ about this broader project in the Conclusion chapter (p. 202).
Terminology: text, discourse, language
3C Text = ‘any actual instance of language in use’
‘Language’and ‘Discourse’ can be used in either a general or a particular way.
‘Discourse’ = (a) general meaning: language in use as an element of social life which is closely
interconnected with other elements.
(b) particular meaning: e.g. New Labour ‘Third Way’ discourse