Analysing Political Discourse II: Analyses and Applications

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a way of carrying out social research with a focus on ‘discourse’ i.e. on text and other forms of semiosis analysed in their contexts of use, production and reception. CDA has become extremely popular in recent years as one of the key largely qualitative approaches to social and political change used across the variety of social and political sciences.

By offering comprehensive introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis as an approach to research on dynamics of contemporary political change, this course wishes to outline key theoretical foundations, methodological premises and analytical pathways in CDA. In doing so, the course wishes to highlight those aspects of critical-analytic studies which make them particularly useful to interdisciplinary and context-related explorations of contemporary politics. By showing similarities and differences between CDA – and especially one of its major traditions known as the Discourse-Historical Approach (or DHA) – and other discourse-based approaches widely-used in social and political studies, the course wishes to highlight such advantages of CDA/DHA research as, inter alia, systematic approach to analysis or its clear relation to the levels of pre-analytical theorising and post-analytical interpretation.

The course also aims at clarifying several misconceptions and misinterpretations of CDA that are widespread in social- and political-scientific research. For example, as CDA is often approached from a limited perspective i.e. as just a ‘method’ rather than a coherent approach with a distinct theory and methodology, the course wishes to show a variety of theories, methods and analyses deployed in critical-analytical explorations including at the intersection of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Also, as CDA is also often viewed as a homogeneous approach, the course wishes to discard such criticism while showing CDA a heterogeneous research tradition that consists of several schools which, while sharing general principles (on e.g. the relation between language and power, ideology), differ in their theoretical and methodological ontology as well as their analytical pathways and foci.

However, the major aim of the course is practical as it is geared towards making students familiar with the ways of analysing political and related discourses from a critical-analytic as well as discourse-historical perspective. For this reason, whether within lectures or the related discussion or hands-on analysis workshops, the course aims at showing the practical application of presented theories, methods and analyses. These will be related to studies of a wide array of genres incl. those from within the political field itself (e.g. parliamentary and other speeches, party programmes, etc.) as well as from within the related fields of policy-making and administration (regulations, policy documents, etc.) or of media and its representations of politics (reporting, interviews, debates, etc.). The analyses of those genres will be guided by such DHA principles as, inter alia, ‘interdiscursivity’ or ‘recontextualisation’ which allow for relating discourses produced synchronically and diachronically as well as across different contexts and within different texts and genres.

You can take this course and Analysing Political Discourse I independently of each other, or as a single two-week module (strongly advised if you want to acquire a thorough theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as in-depth analytical skills in CDA).

Analysing Political Discourse II will deepen your knowledge and skills in, and related to, Critical Discourse Studies, especially its Discourse-Historical and related approaches. We will focus on different types of research designs and analyses conducted with CDA/DHA.

The week opens with an all-day hands-on analytical workshop during which you will become familiar with pathways of analysis in CDA/DHA performed in a systematic manner i.e. along a set of clearly defined analytical categories.

The focus is on the major (i.e. entry and in-depth) levels of analysis in CDA/DHA and on showing you how static and pragmatic aspects of text and discourse can be analysed in a systematic manner. The workshop also focuses on pre-analytical procedures such as, in particular, genre classification. I will show how systematic analysis of discursive strategies can be applied in diachronic analyses of discourse that takes into account recontextualisation of discursive elements across the scales of space and time. We will practice analysis on a variety of genres in politics and the public sphere, performed from the point of view of various political and politicised debates.

Lectures on Days 7–9 show how CDA/DHA can be applied to explorations of practices in a political, policy and politico-institutional context. They focus on various ‘integrative’ approaches that combine CDA/DHA and other types of analysis, facilitating exploration of increasingly complex objects of critical-analytic investigation in contemporary politics.

The two-part lecture on Day 7 looks in detail at ways of analysing ‘Discourse and Politics’, with special interest in defining political discourses as such, and in showcasing how populist discourses can be explored by means of CDA/DHA. The lecture starts by outlining some of the key concepts relevant for the discourse-based studies of contemporary politics and right-wing populism before looking into standard features of populist discourses as well as discussing their key foci such as anti-immigration or Islamophobia. It also looks at the spread of populist discourses across the political spectrum (including in mainstream parties) as well as outside the strictly political realm, including in the online uncivil society.

On Day 8, the morning lecture continues with applications of CDA/DHA and shows how ‘Discourse and Policy’ can be explored. It showcases the so-called Discourse-Conceptual Analysis which, drawing on DHA and Historical Semantics/Conceptual History, allows us to investigate the change of salient social and political concepts and related discourses. We will cover a variety of genres, including policy and policy-communication texts that often serve sustaining regulatory regimes as well as the spread of neoliberalism-induced ideologies and practices.

The morning lecture on Day 9 looks at ‘Discourse and Political Institutions’ and argues for a Discourse-Ethnographic approach that allows us to explore various types of political institutions while relating observation of various forms of institutional/organisational practices to the array of discourses entangled in producing institutionally specific political meanings. The special focus is on deconstructing politico-institutional realities and the formation of various types of identities. The lecture also relates internal organisational realities of political institutions to the patterns of their internal and external communication, including via social/online media.

While the lectures on Days 7–9 showcase key areas and types of politics that can be explored from the point of view of CDA/DHA, the core of this week remains the student-centred sessions at noon on Days 8 and 9, and throughout Day 10.

The noon session on Day 8 and the morning session on Day 10 are workshops exploring potential avenues of analysis of students’ research ideas and material. These workshops acquaint you with the pathways and categories of analysis, give practical advice on how to carry out CDA/DHA analyses in specific research projects, and pilot-test those analyses among group members. In each workshop, two or three students will present their research projects (max 6 slides about main hypotheses and research questions, key theoretical and methodological foundations and the outline of the analysed empirical material) and provide sample material that will be analysed by the class from the point of view of CDA/DHA, under the guidance of the instructor.

If you want to present, discuss and analyse your material during these workshops, please email the instructor:

1. Your presentation
2. A one-page (max.) abstract of your MA/PhD or other current research, along with a short bio
3. One or two A4 samples of empirical material for analysis by the group.

Deadline for sending material: Friday 28 June 2019. Once you have registered for the course, in mid-late May at the latest, email the instructor to reserve your slot.

The noon session on Day 9 involves individual consultations with the instructor to discuss your research projects and ideas. You can register for these at the beginning of the week.

During the noon session on Day 10, we will present the results of out-of-class group assignments, and have a final Q&A. 

The aim of this course is to transfer and generate knowledge from discussions and interactions between the instructor and participants.

You should ask critical questions, complete all obligatory readings, participate in all in-class tasks and discussions, complete out-of-class assignments, and relate the knowledge gained to your current and future research.

You should have good, proven knowledge of the existent discourse- and language-oriented approaches to social and political analysis (especially those taught in Analysing Political Discourse I). You should also be familiar with selected aspects of social theory, especially those relevant for the discourse-analytic approaches discussed during the course (see Long Course Outline, below).

You should also be open to new, interdisciplinary qualitative methods of research in social and political sciences and interested in synchronic and/or diachronic analyses of contemporary national and supranational politics in Europe and beyond, also in relation to other fields such as media, institutions, policy-making, etc.