Download - DECODING WRITING STYLE WITH CRITICAL READING
DECODING WRITING STYLE WITH CRITICAL READING
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“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.