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The language of critical discourse analysis: the case of nominalization
journal contribution
posted on 2013-10-15, 11:09 authored by Michael BilligThis article examines the way that critical discourse is written.
It does so by considering the concept of nominalization. Critical discourse
analysts have suggested that nominalization (along with passivization)
has important ideological functions such as deleting agency and reifying
processes. However, the language used by critical analysts, as they explore
nominalization, is revealing. They tend to use, and thereby instantiate, the
very forms of language whose ideological potentiality they are warning
against – such as deleting agency, using passives and turning processes
into entities. The concept of ‘nominalization’ is itself a nominalization; it
is typically used in imprecise ways that fail to specify underlying processes.
If critical analysts take seriously their own ideological warnings about
nominalization and passivization, they need to change the standard ways
of writing critical analysis. We need to use simpler, less technical prose that
clearly ascribes actions to human agents.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Citation
BILLIG, M., 2008. The language of critical discourse analysis: the case of nominalization. Discourse & Society, 19 (6), pp.783-800.Publisher
© SageVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2008ISSN
0957-9265Publisher version
Language
- en