DECODING WRITING STYLE WITH CRITICAL READING

Or:

“Critical Discourse Analysis in Brief”

Three Keys to Critical Discourse Analysis

• “Actor – Process – Recipient”

• “Passive Construction”

• “Nominalisation”

Actor, Process, and Recipient

Like “Subject – Verb – Object”

• Actor = Subject = Participant (sometimes also the “Agent”)

• Process = Verb

• Recipient = Object = Participant

Actor, Process, and Recipient

• PARTICIPANTS• She hit him

(participant) (verb) (participant)• « She » has a connection to « hit » in that she is

the one responsible for the action of hitting – she is the “ACTOR”

• at the same time “him” is additionally, although differently, connected as the one receiving the action of hitting – “him” is “RECIPIENT”

Actor, Process, and Recipient

• PROCESSES: Verbs = “processes”• DOING verbs as processes

– Material processes (arrived, collapsed)– Behavioural processes (sneezed, sang)

• PROJECTING verbs as processes– Mental processes (enjoyed, remembered)– Verbal processes (told, said)

• BEING verbs as processes– Existential (are, were, was + there)– Relational (are, were, seemed, felt, belongs to)

Actor, Process, and Recipient

• OBJECT as “circumstance” or “goal”

– They ate at noon.

(actor) (process material) (circumstance)

– They caught many fish.

(actor) (process material) (goal)

Passive Construction

• Actor and Goal presented in reverse order to the active construction

• Actor often referred to as AGENT• Agent perhaps omitted entirely – hence

AGENTLESS PASSIVES• The question for agentless passives: “Why has

the agent been omitted?”– Ex. “The man was murdered” – Why is the name

omitted?

Nominalisation

• Repackages events and even entire clauses as “participants”; for example:– Excessive consumption of alcohol

(participant) is a major cause of motor vehicle accidents.

• Represents a shift or transference of meaning akin to lexical metaphor

Resources

[1] D. Butt, R. Fahey, S. Feez, S. Spinks, C. Yallop, “Chapter 3,” Using Functional

Grammar: an Explorer’s Guide. Sydney: National Centre for English Language

Teaching and Research, Macquarie University. pp. 46-75.

[2] Malcolm Coulthard, “The linguist as expert witness” [posted on M. Coulthard

Profile Web Page], (2005) Aston University Website [On-line], Available

www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/profile/coulthard.jsp.

[3] P. Teo, “Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in

two Australian newspapers,” Discourse and Society, vol. 11 (2000), no.1,

London, Thousand Oaks, CA., and New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 7-49.