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“Critical discourse analysis as ‘dialectical reasoning’: from normative critique towards action, by way of explanation”

Interview with Norman Fairclough conducted by Ronny Scholz
« L’analyse critique du discours en tant que “raisonnement dialectique” : de la critique normative à l’action, en passant par l’explication »
«El análisis crítico del discurso como “razonamiento dialéctico”: de la normativa crítica a la acción, por el camino de la explicitación»
Norman Fairclough et Ronny Scholz
p. 113-123

Résumés

Cet entretien retrace les origines de l’analyse critique du discours (CDA) depuis les années 1980 du point de vue de Norman Fairclough. Nous y abordons le climat politique et le contexte théorique dans lequel son approche s’est développée. En soulignant son attitude prudente, Norman Fairclough rend intelligible l’évolution de sa compréhension d’une recherche engagée qui associe critique normative et explicative. Il présente sa vision actuelle de la CDA en tant que « raisonnement dialectique », qu’il considère comme la base de l’analyse critique pour la « nouvelle ère » dans laquelle nous vivons.

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Texte intégral

Mots. Les langages du politique: During the last 40 years Critical Discourse Studies has established itself as an approach to politically engaged research in the Anglo-Saxon world and beyond. You were one of the main proponents from the early days. How would you describe the political and social context in which your work in critical discourse analysis (CDA) began? What was at stake?

Norman Fairclough: I began working in CDA in the early 1980s, shortly after the victory of Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 General Election, which heralded a hegemonic shift in British and international capitalism from a Keynesian mixed economy to neoliberalism, and which was a big disappointment to me. For various reasons, my focus changed from political activism to a critical shift in my academic work. My work in CDA roughly corresponds to the neoliberal era; I am now well into retirement, and my latest work is coloured by the (possibly terminal) current troubles of neoliberalism. The political-economic and wider social shifts of neoliberalism were partly constituted and largely driven by shifts in discourse, in the sense that changes in discourse came first, and were then operationalized in wider social changes. Language studies (I was working in a Linguistics department) ought to be elucidating that.

Mots. Les langages du politique: Before we come to your work I would like to know a little bit more about the research field of CDA. Maybe you can briefly outline the different strands that are united under the umbrella of CDA?

Norman Fairclough: I was a member of a group of critical discourse analysts in Europe which met for a number of years, and included Teun van Dijk, Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, Ruth Wodak and other CDA people. There was enough common ground to sustain stimulating discussions over a long period of time. But significantly different approaches developed, including van Dijk’s “socio-cognitive” approach, which relates discourse to social structures via a socio-cognitive interface; Reisigl and Wodak’s “discourse-historical approach”, which gives particular attention to matters of identity and discrimination, with a historical perspective, notably on anti-Semitic discourse; the work of Kress and van Leeuwen on “multimodality”, the interconnection between language and other semiotic modalities. CDA is a very diverse field, but there was a consensus at that time that the diversity of approaches was a strength of CDA. John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson (2018) have recently brought together detailed accounts of these and quite a number of other approaches, written by their supporters.

Mots. Les langages du politique: In what ways has your work in CDA been influenced by other critical approaches such as Critical Theory, Political Economy (Poulantzas, Jessop), Post-Structuralism (Laclau/Mouffe), and other approaches to language and discourse?

Norman Fairclough: Early influences on my approach include the “critical linguistics” of Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress and others which used Michael Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics to develop a method of critical linguistic analysis, and the Althusserian approach to language and ideology of Michel Pêcheux. Other significant influences from early on include Basil Bernstein, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Stuart Hall, Ernesto Laclau, Marx, and Chantal Mouffe. And more recently Roy Bhaskar, David Harvey, Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum, Andrew Sayer. My co-authors include Eve Chiapello, Lilie Chouliaraki, Isabela Fairclough, Phil Graham, Ruth Wodak. There are other influences, but these are perhaps the main ones.

Mots. Les langages du politique: What distinguishes your own approach from the ones you mentioned?

Norman Fairclough: My emphasis has been on dialectical relations between language and other facets of social practices, structures and processes, but always in relation to continuities and transformations in capitalism. “Discourse” is language (and other semiotic “modalities” such as visual images) conceived in terms of these relations. For example, “marketization” of universities in the UK (Fairclough, 1993) is partly a discursive process, and largely discourse-driven; emerging market discourses are “operationalized” in changing practices (discursively, including genres), identities (discursively, including styles) and structures (discursively, including orders of discourse) in changing managerial systems, academic practices and identities, and the direction of change is one facet of the rolling out of the neoliberal form of capitalism. This relational conception of CDA requires a transdisciplinary (versus just interdisciplinary) approach, i.e. interaction between disciplines which changes those disciplines. For instance, there is a new “cultural” form of political economy which incorporates a version of CDA, and in so doing gives the latter a more political-economic character: an emphasis on relationships between shifts in discourse and shifts in political-economic processes, practices and structures (Fairclough, 2013; Jessop, Sum, 2010).

Mots. Les langages du politique: How has your approach to CDA developed? What continuities are there, and what changes? Why have you made these changes?

Norman Fairclough: Stuart Hall and his colleagues initiated a “new times” debate over the nature of “Thatcherism” in the early 1980s – what was new about this era, what new focuses for analysis did it call for, and what political response? New times call for a rethink of the research agenda in critical social theory and analysis, including CDA. In my first book on CDA (Fairclough, 2015 [1989]), I developed an approach to addressing the place of language in the production, maintenance and change of social relations of power; critique of ideology was the central concern, though I did begin to address the new times, the shift to neoliberalism, in a chapter on Thatcherism. In my second book (Fairclough, 1992), I presented a version of this approach to CDA to address more systematically the relationship between change in discourse and the social changes associated with the roll-out of the hegemony of neoliberalism, in the wake of the economic and social crises of the 1970s. What is distinctive about this version of the approach is that it develops categories (such as interdiscursivity, order of discourse, operationalization) and methods for critical scrutiny of the relationship between discourse and other facets of social change. “Order of discourse” is adopted from Foucault and adapted for this version of CDA.

In publications over the last decade or so (Fairclough, Fairclough, 2012; Fairclough, 2013; Fairclough, 2018), I have been developing another new version of my approach for the crisis in and of neoliberalism which followed the financial crash of 2007-2008, and the struggle over strategies to overcome the crisis. This has involved a methodological shift, based upon the work of Isabela Fairclough, to analysis of practical argumentation and deliberation in these strategic struggles (Fairclough, Fairclough, 2012), envisaging CDA as a part of cultural political economy (Fairclough, 2013), and leading to the view of CDA as dialectical reasoning (Fairclough, 2018). There have also been significant developments of a broadly environmental nature which critical social analysis and CDA need to address, including climate change, the drastic decline in biodiversity, and pollution of the air and the oceans, which also require a focus on crises and strategies to address and overcome them.

I should add that the relationship between different versions of my approach is cumulative rather than replacive – the concerns and methods of versions 1 and 2 remain, to be integrated into version 3.

Mots. Les langages du politique: How would you describe the stance that CDA takes in its critique? Is it normative, explanatory, or both? And, what are the targets of this critique?

Norman Fairclough: CDA is a part of critical social analysis whose distinctive contribution is elucidating relations between language (and other semiotic modalities) and other facets of social processes, practices and structures. The targets of critique are aspects of processes, practices or structures which there are widely accepted arguments for seeing as inconsistent with values which the society, or institution, or organisation at issue is committed to. So critique in CDA is not simply a critique of discourse, it is a critique of processes, practices or structures focused upon relations between their discourse and other facets.

The critique is both normative and explanatory. For example, returning to the “marketization” of universities, construing universities as businesses in competition with each other, so that for instance each university should develop and promote its own distinctive ‘brand’, is open to normative critique on the grounds that it is inconsistent with values which have continued to be widely seen as essential to the special purpose of the university which distinguishes it from other types of institution, including businesses. But from the beginning I have seen it as necessary to also include explanation within critique – in this case, explanations of why universities have been marketized in such ways. As indicated above, the marketization of universities can be explained as part of the rolling out of the neoliberal form of capitalism, and particularly its extension of markets into a range of public institutions.

Mots. Les langages du politique: Can you tell us a little bit more about how to combine normative and explanatory critique with political action?

Norman Fairclough: Recently (Fairclough, 2018), I have developed the combination of normative and explanatory critique into a conception of CDA as a form of “dialectical reasoning”, which integrates normative critique, explanation and action: normative critique of discourse, explanation of how discourse figures in particular aspects of existing social reality, as a basis for action to change aspects of existing reality. For instance, normative critique of the discourse of universities, and explanation of it as part of the shift to neoliberalism, as a basis for action to change them “for the better”. We cannot move from normative critique towards action except via explanation: without explanatory understanding of social reality, we cannot know what needs to be changed, what can be changed, and how. And it’s never a matter of simply changing the language. As I argued in my first book (Fairclough, 2015 [1989]), the focus is not just on power in discourse but also power behind discourse, not just for instance on critique of manipulation but also critique of ideology, not just on particular aspects of existing social realities (e.g. representations of migrants in the press) but also its capitalist character and how that impacts on all its aspects.

Mots. Les langages du politique: Recently the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts” have been used in political communication for propagandistic purposes, often to dismiss the logic of argumentation of political opponents or justify the re-contextualisation of events diverging from main stream narratives. To some extent one can interpret the use of these terms as a disguised understanding of discursivity. In this sense discursivity and the arbitrary constructs of reality based on discourses seem to have become the object of public discourses themselves (Angermuller, 2018). On this backdrop, what do you think could be an appropriate reaction to avoid CDA being drawn too much into (“party”) politics without losing its enhancing nature for political activism?

Norman Fairclough: I have recently felt it necessary to draw a sharper distinction between CDA and political activism than in my own earlier work, and in much of the work of others in CDA. This is because of the character of the “new times” we are now in, and the rethinking of CDA which is consequently required, which I discuss below. Normative critique has become more contentious in critical social analysis, because sharply different and strongly opposed views of what is wrong and needs righting have emerged; these differences are not simply “left versus right”, for instance, they cut through both left and right. This has led me to argue that CDA must distinguish itself more clearly from the partisan, “party political” advocacy of politics (in the sense of political activism).

There is a limited sense in which CDA is inherently a form of advocacy and partisanship: in its commitment to “righting” social “wrongs”, it sides with people who suffer from such “wrongs”. There is always a tension between advocacy and partisanship, even in these limited forms, and the commitment of CDA to social scientific critique. CDA will tend to slide into political activism, and continuing debate over where the line should be drawn is inevitable. But there should be a clear difference between politics and CDA in what is focal: action to bring about social change, in politics; critical analysis and understanding of problems, as a basis for identifying feasible and ethical solutions, in CDA. The focus in CDA needs to be on critique, on criticism, which includes a willingness to subject its own standpoints to critical questioning, rather than defending a pre-determined normative standpoint even in the face of evidence that it may be unreasonable.

CDA can best protect its focal concern with social scientific critique by giving primacy to a methodological procedure (Fairclough, Fairclough, 2018). It should privilege a procedural “discourse ethics”, grounded in a requirement of impartiality, of evaluating diverse and conflicting proposals for action, and incorporating a multiplicity of possible ethical standpoints – deontological, consequentialist and virtue ethics. CDA itself can be seen as practical, deliberative reasoning: the analyst evaluates and seeks explanations for practical argumentation (e.g. in political discourse), and identifies possible solutions to problems, in the light of goals (as desirable “imaginaries”) and in accordance with normative sources such as moral-political values. These goals and normative sources are selected in accordance with the limited advocacy and partisanship of CDA as a form of critical social analysis. This reasoning may inform action to bring about social change in political activism, but this does not mean that CDA is the same as political activism.

Mots. Les langages du politique: Indeed, in these “new times” societies seem to undergo quite a number of changes on different levels. Social media provide a well of information with many different explanations for these changes. Some of these narratives try to appeal to the masses by proliferating nationalist, racist, anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic views. What do you think is CDA’s role in relation to this struggle for the popular mind by means of populist rhetoric?

Norman Fairclough: I will take this if I may as a question which raises other questions, rather than directly answering it. There is a widespread view that the contemporary “new times” are characterized by a clash between “populism” and “liberalism” – the former is “anti-liberal”, the latter is “anti-populist”. But there are dangers in seeing this simply as a clash of opposites, or a choice between them. Both “populism” and “liberalism” are complex and contradictory positions.

“Populism” is said to speak for “the people” against “the elites”, and much of the support that “populist” politicians (e.g. Trump in the USA, Farage in Britain) have attracted has come from sections of the population that are seen and see themselves, often justifiably, as having been excluded and ignored for decades by what such politicians call “liberal elites”. Yet when such politicians “speak for the people” they are effectively speaking against large (“liberal”) sections of “the people”, as well as assigning blame to particular sections, not only “the elites” but also in some cases sections whose rights have been a matter of controversy, such as immigrants. “Populism” can be accused of being divisive, simplistic, and a vehicle for spreading hatred. But the main voter base of “populist” movements has been working class (Goodhart, 2017, p. 72), and these movements are widely seen as speaking for working class people who have been largely “forgotten”, even by the parties (Labour in the UK, Democrats in the USA) which used to speak for them. Whether these movements actually improve things for these people is another matter. But demonising important political changes, in which working class people have begun to regain a presence in politics, as “populism” seems a convenient way for “liberals” to carry on “forgetting” them.

“Liberalism” on the other hand speaks for the rights of individuals and of identity groups (sometimes “minorities”); yet in the neoliberal era which began in the 1970s, “liberalism” has failed to speak for the rights of the working class, and of people outside the prosperous metropolitan centres – indeed it can be blamed for having brought about the exclusion, neglect and “forgetting” of large sections of the population.

In earlier days, it was relatively easy to maintain a broad consensus in CDA over the “wrongs” that needed to be “righted”, and what righting them meant. In these new times, there are more diverse and often conflicting views of wrongs and righting (broadly). If people in critical social science were to embrace only the liberal view of wrongs and rights, as many people in CDA now seem to, they would be falling into the partisan political advocacy which I cautioned against. Moreover, it seems clear to me that the limited advocacy and partisanship inherent in CDA should extend to both views of wrongs. As David Goodhart (2017) argues, both the “liberal” focus on the rights of individuals and minorities, and the focus on righting the wrongs of “forgotten” sections of the population, are reasonable positions (though are both prone to unreasonable excesses, which should be subjected to critique). The problem has been, as he says, the imbalance between them: the liberal position has received the lion’s share of resources and of attention and legitimation in the public sphere for decades. The imbalance needs to be corrected. It is emphatically not a matter of abandoning the liberal position and replacing it with a focus on the wrongs of “forgotten” sections of the population; identity politics receives an excessive proportion of resources and legitimation, but the gains which have been made in racial, gender and sexual equality in the past fifty years have been tremendous.

Mots. Les langages du politique: How do you think CDA can help to overcome the fissure that seems to have opened between liberal and working class interests; and, that has played into the hands of right-wing populist strategies? Do you see any potential in the current debates that could be turned into a common progressive emancipatory cause?

Norman Fairclough: “Populists” have criticized the “political correctness” of “liberals” and sections of the left, partly on the grounds of its “Puritanical… moral self-righteousness”, its attempt to put certain views and arguments beyond the pale by labelling them as “sexist”, “racist”, “xenophobic” and so forth, and undermining freedom of speech. For example, seeking to discredit any criticism of immigration policies as “xenophobic”. But I have taken “Puritanical” and “moral self-righteousness” from a characterisation of “political correctness” by Stuart Hall (1994), who was unquestionably neither “populist” nor conservative, and who developed a left-wing critique of “political correctness”. CDA should similarly assess the critique of “political correctness” on its merits. The case for doing so is supported by a critique of neoliberalism and “NewLiberalSpeak” by Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant (2001), the emergence of a “new planetary vulgate” which sought, pretty successfully, to separate what was speakable and what was unspeakable, what was within the pale and beyond the pale. This demarcation included both economic categories and terms (e.g. “globalisation” was in, “capitalism” was out, “markets” were in, “state regulation of markets” was out) and social-relational categories and terms (e.g. “identity” was in, “class” was out). Neoliberalism itself, we might say, is inclined to a “political correctness” as well as what we might call “economic correctness” (i.e. the only speakable economic discourse is neoliberal economic discourse).

One aspect of the “populist” and conservative critique of “political correctness” which should be critically scrutinized is not only its silence about “economic correctness”, but also its silence about the neoliberal connection between them. “Populists” attack the cultural and political “elites” but not the neoliberal economic “elites”, which in some cases they are a part of (most notably Trump). Failing to see, or ignoring, the neoliberal character of its critique is also an aspect of the “political correctness” of “liberals” and sections of the left which should be critically scrutinized. So also should the exclusivity of its concern with the rights and wrongs of social identity and emancipation, and the neglect of the rights and wrongs of social class. This one-sided righteousness is one target in the protests of the excluded and “forgotten” sections of the population and their advocates against “the elites”.

Mots. Les langages du politique: To what extent, do you think, can “CDA as dialectical reasoning” foster an emancipatory progress in 21st century societies?

Norman Fairclough: Critique should give salience to the great divide which neoliberalism has left us with – between people in different geographical regions, between social classes, and between people in rich and poor countries. The focus on practical argumentation (argumentation about what is to be done) and deliberation is crucial for CDA to be able to contribute to analysis and explanation of the “dialogue of the deaf” which is a feature of the great divide, and for action to achieve an inclusive political dialogue and debate, which is essential for achieving a settlement by democratic means. The recent protests by the gilets jaunes in France against increases in fuel tax, justified as a carbon tax necessary to meet climate change objectives, suggest another reason why real dialogue and debate across the great divide, and a genuine attempt by those with power and resources to understand and act upon the condition the disadvantaged parts of the population, are essential. The immense effort and change demanded by the environmental crises will not be achieved in democratic societies which are divided and unfair, any more than the changes needed to settle the furious controversies over, for instance, immigration. Indeed, action to address these crises is at risk from the great divide: environmental politics is being seen by many as lumped in with identity politics as an obsession of “liberal elites”. Moreover, I think that tackling the environmental crises will require deep changes in economic systems and in the character of capitalism which are needed also for a variety of other reasons. So the big political question of the day is how to transcend the great divide, and the question for CDA is how to rethink its agenda and methods to contribute.

Critical social analysis, and CDA, need to bring to bear “careful analysis and understanding” (Glasman, 2019) to these political conflicts. The recent shift in my approach to CDA, towards practical argumentation, and then dialectical reasoning, offers I think a framework congenial to careful analysis and understanding. The shift towards practical argumentation was argued for (Fairclough, Fairclough, 2012) on the grounds that politics is primarily about action, and determining what is to be done, and that critical analysis of politics, including political discourse in CDA, needs to mirror this primacy in its frameworks. CDA has tended to focus on “discourses”, on representations, rather than action (and “genres”). Of course representations matter a great deal, but they should be critically scrutinized as elements of action, and practical argumentation over what is to be done.

The framework for CDA developed by Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough (2012) is a framework for critically analysing and evaluating practical argumentation and deliberation in practical politics, in which diverse and competing practical arguments are analysed and evaluated. This framework might be applied for instance to Brexit in the UK: the 2016 referendum, the political arguments which preceded it and have followed it, the negotiations between the UK and the EU on withdrawal from the EU and representations of and responses to them, by all the significant “players” – which must emphatically include not only the various political entities, the various governmental entities, the various other institutional entities, the various sections of the mass media, but also the various sections of the population, including those in favour of leaving the EU and those in favour of remaining. To reach understanding, it is essential to carefully analyse what exactly is being argued for or against by these diverse “players”, and what exactly are the reasons which are given. It is not enough to just establish what (and who) is being represented and how it is being represented, what ‘discourses’ are used, and to evaluate representations and “discourses” – though analysis and evaluation of representations are an essential part of analysis and evaluation of practical argumentation.

My view of CDA as “dialectical reasoning” is a development of this framework. It allows CDA to move from normative critique towards action, by way of explanation. Although this was developed for CDA as critical analysis of political discourse as a part of, and way into, political action, I have also suggested (Fairclough, 2018) that it can be a resource for political activists. The inclusion of explanation is crucial for achieving understanding: why do people advance arguments which are open to normative critique? Without a knowledge of what people on different sides of the current disputes and conflicts say, and an understanding of why they say it, there is no way of judging what action might change existing states of affairs “for the better”.

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Bibliographie

Angermuller Johannes, 2018, “Truth after post-truth: For a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies”, Palgrave Communications, n. 4, article 30,
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Norman Fairclough et Ronny Scholz, « “Critical discourse analysis as ‘dialectical reasoning’: from normative critique towards action, by way of explanation” »Mots. Les langages du politique [En ligne], 122 | 2020, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2021, consulté le 30 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mots/26320 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mots.26320

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Norman Fairclough

Lancaster University

Ronny Scholz

British University in Egypt

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