Larbi Ben Mhidi University

Department of English

Level Grade : Master 1

Specialty : Didactics
Lecturer : Mr. Karim AYADI
Second Term Syllabus of Applied
Linguistics
(From 2020 entry)

I. Description of the Course

Applied linguistics is concerned with the investigation of the impact of language on problems
faced by individuals and/or groups. Although the discipline has traditionally concerned itself
with the problem of learning and teaching second/foreign languages, it has not always realised
the potential of theory to inform classroom practice and vice versa. However, According to
cook (2006), Applied linguistics means so many things to so many people and consequently
this field has become a hybrid enterprise encompassing multidisciplinary areas of concern in
academia.

II.Contents of the course

Introduction to Applied Linguistics

1. Language policy and Planning

2. Social realism and empirical research in Applied Linguistics

3. Medical Discourse Analysis

4. Applied Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis

III. Assessment

Final Grade /20 Percentage By the end of the semester, a final

100% written exam covers almost all the
Written Exam /20
parts of all term courses.
 Larbi Ben Mhidi University
Department of English

Level Grade : Master 1

Specialty : Didactics
Lecturer : Mr. Karim AYADI
Language policy and planning
Reference : James.S, 2001, The Routeldge Book
of Applied Linguistics. Routeldge.
Course 1. Langauge Policy and Planning
By Lionel Wee

Theoretical Foundations

Understood broadly as interventions into language practices, language policy

and planning (LPP) has had a long and checkered history. As an academic
discipline, however, LPP is relatively recent in origin, having gained momentum
from the drives toward nationalism and nation building (Wright 2004: 8).
The focus of this overview is primarily on developments within LPP as an
academic discipline. The modern history of this discipline can be described in
terms of three main stages (Ricento 2000): (i) an initial stage of optimism in the
1960s and 1970s that the language problems of newly independent states could
be solved via the implementation of rational and systematic procedures; (ii) a
period of disillusionment in the wake of LPP failures (1980s
and 1990s) that opened the way for a more critical and reflexive appreciation of
the role that language and linguists play in society; and (iii) in the present
period, a growing sense that LPP needs to be reconstituted as a multidisciplinary
and politicized approach, since the issues it grapples with are complex and
represent interests that can pervade multiple levels of social life, ranging from
the individual to the state and across state boundaries as well.
A motif of this chapter is that it is worth viewing this history of LPP as a
dynamic interplay between academic concerns, on the one hand, and
political/bureaucratic interests, on the other. The benefit of such a perspective is
that it provides us with a better awareness of the kinds of constraints faced by
applied linguistics as it attempts to engage with ‘real world’ language-related
problems.
So, though it is the next section that specifically delves into the history of LPP,
there is good reason, even as we move on to the later sections, to also keep in
mind the challenges that arise when attempting to marry more intellectual
understandings of language with the practical demands faced by both policy
makers and the people whose lived experiences are affected by socio-political
decisions about language.
The distinction between processes of language selection, codification of the
selected language as standard or correct, elaboration of the language form where
necessary, and implementation to ensure that the standards were properly
adopted (Haugen 1966). These processes were typically understood to apply
sequentially, so that LPP would be pursued in a manner that was organized and
systematic. And understandably, the preferred method for data gathering during
this period was the sociolinguistic survey. Given that LPP practitioners were
mostly working at the level of the state, the scale of the envisaged changes made
the choice of survey a practical one, as far as the tracking of language attitude
and use amongst a large population were concerned. Information gathered via
the survey was also more amenable to quantification, and relative rates of
success could then be presented in a manner that was digestible to policy-
makers.

There is no disputing the fact that these concepts and distinctions, even today,
continue to serve as valuable tools when thinking about LPP. This is because, at
bottom, LPP involves making decisions about the desirability (or not) of
promoting some language practices over others. And all such decisions require
some appreciation of the possible relationships between
forms of language and their uses, and the ways in which these relationships
might be influenced.

What was problematic in this period, however, was the absence of a critical
orientation that might have otherwise prevented a number of assumptions from
going unquestioned, such as nthe notion that each nation-state would be ideally
served by having just one national language; the concomitant implication that
multilingualism is potentially problematic and ought to be minimized; and the
belief that a developmental model designed for one societal context could be
applied to another despite significant differences in socio-cultural and historical
specificities. As a consequence, these assumptions often guided the enthusiastic
articulation of solutions designed along technocratic lines, when it would
perhaps have been more helpful to ask if the framing of what counts as an LPP
problem was itself in need of interrogation. I say ‘perhaps’ because, to be fair to
these early attempts at LPP, it is not clear what kind of impact such a critical
orientation – had one been present – would have had on decision-makers
involved in the management of state objectives. There was always the possibility
that in challenging or deconstructing a state’s framing of problems, linguists
could simply have found themselves deemed largely irrelevant to the needs of
these newly independent states.
The Problem-based Nature of LPP
This withdrawal of LPP practitioners from the role of expert consultant was
accompanied by an internal criticism of the field itself. In an incisive paper,
Luke et al. (1990: 27) suggested that LPP had been overly concerned with
maintaining a ‘verneer of scientific objectivity’ and had ‘tended to avoid directly
addressing larger social and political matters within which language change, use
and development, and indeed language planning itself are embedded’. Luke et
al.’s point is that by viewing LPP as an essentially technocratic process of
efficiently administering resources so as to achieve specific goals, little
consideration had been given to questions of how such processes might help
sustain dominance and dependency relations between groups.
In other words, by not adequately attending to the socially and politically
contested nature of language, LPP initiatives, rather than solving problems, may
in fact have simply exacerbated old problems or even created new ones.
In a similar vein, Tollefson (1991) introduced a distinction to characterize what
he saw as two major approaches to LPP: the neoclassical and the historical-
structural. The major differences between the neoclassical and the historical-
structural approaches are as follows (from Wiley 1996: 115):

1 The unit of analysis employed: While the neoclassical approach focuses on

individual choices, the historical-structural pays attention to relationships
between groups.
2 The role of the historical perspective: The neoclassical is more interested in
the current language situation; the historical-structural, in contrast, emphasizes
the role of socio-historical factors.
3 Criteria for evaluating plans and policies: The neoclassical is primarily amoral
in its outlook; policies are evaluated in terms of how efficiently they achieve
their goals. The historical-structural is more sensitive to issue of domination,
exploitation and
oppression.
4 The role of the social scientist: Consistent with its amoral outlook, the
neoclassical assumes that the social scientist must and can approach language
problems in an apolitical manner. On the other hand, the historical-structural
views political stances as inescapable so that ‘those who avoid political
questions inadvertently support the status quo’.
The neoclassical approach thus tends to emphasize the rational and
individualistic nature of choices. As an illustration, individuals may choose to
learn a new language because of certain perceived benefits such as access to
better jobs. Or they may decide that the time and money spent on learning a new
language may not be worth the potential benefits, and hence may not make the
effort to expand their linguistic repertoire. Whatever the outcome, the
neoclassical approach treats these as decisions that are freely and rationally
made. But Tollefson emphasizes that we need to also ask questions like ‘Why
must that individual expend those particular costs? Why are those particular
benefits rather than others available to that individual? What are the costs and
benefits for other people in the community?’ (Tollefson 1991: 32). These kinds
of questions require attending to the socio-historical contexts and constraints
inherited by individuals and mutatis mutandis, communities.

LPP in the 1960s and 1970s had tended to work within the neoclassical
approach, where, as we have seen, language-related issues were treated as
problems that could be rationally and logically solved by adopting the
appropriate language policy. The individuals, families, or communities that were
the targets of LPP were, by the same token, assumed to be likely to
respond in a neoclassical fashion. Consequently, a major problem was that it had
neglected to take into consideration the effects of socio-historical factors in
constraining the nature of choices.
Challenges of LPP
It would not be an overstatement to suggest that LPP is in fact gaining in
practical importance and urgency because of the way the world is developing.
As a branch of applied linguistics, there is much that LPP can do to make a
contribution to debates and discussions about the role of language in a fast-
changing and increasingly culturally complex world. Language policy and
planning One significant challenge for LPP is to find ways of addressing
multiculturalism. Much of the recent theorizing regarding multiculturalism and
the politics of identity has come from philosophically inclined political or legal
theorists (Benhabib 2002; Ford 2005; Kymlicka 1995; Taylor 1994) rather than
linguists. While such theorizing is undoubtedly valuable, it is usually based on
an ‘outdated empirical understanding of the concept of language itself ’ and
tends to be ‘unaware of important sociolinguistic and other research on these
matters’ (De Schutter 2007: 3). Where LPP is concerned, the most prominent
response has been to call for the adoption of language rights (May 2001;
Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1995). The general motivation behind the
proposal for language rights is to ensure that an identifiable group – usually a
discriminated or stigmatized ethnic minority – is granted specific forms of
protection and consideration on the basis of their associated language. The
concept of language rights has had enormous appeal, finding a broad swathe of
support amongst linguists, sociologists, political philosophers, policy-makers
and community activists (Kymlicka 1995; May 2001; Phillipson and Skutnabb-
Kangas 1995). However, this actually makes it all the more critical that language
rights be subjected to careful scrutiny (Blommaert 2001; Stroud 2001). For
example, while language rights may be useful as a short-term measure, it is not
clear that theyare tenable in the longer term. One reason for this is that there will
be parties who have a
vested interest in maintaining their (usually hard-won) language rights, and their
motivations – such as the desire to cling to political power or to continue
enjoying the benefits afforded by such rights – can be quite independent of how
effective such rights may actually have been in dealing with discrimination. This
means that LPP needs to better understand the pros and
cons of language rights, and where necessary, explore alternative ways of
responding to multiculturalism. This requires combining the insights of social
and political theorists with a more sophisticated appreciation of the nature of
language (Makoni and Pennycook 2007). The interest in multiculturalism and
language rights gains further resonance because of complications posed by the
commodification of language. As Budach et al. (2003: 604, upper case in
original) point out: in a new world dominated by service and information
economies, globalization engenders a seemingly paradoxical valuing of
community and authenticity … In the new economy
… the value of community and authenticity takes on a new shape in which
COMMODIFICATION is central. At the same time, commodification provokes
a potential uncoupling of language and community. Speakers and communities
are likely to be increasingly caught up in the contradictions between treating
language as a mark of cultural heritage, and as a skill or resource to be used for
socio-economic advancement. And this can have interesting repercussions on
specific implementations of LPP. For example, in Singapore, the policy of
multiracialism aims to guarantee equal status amongst the three official ethnic
mother tongues: Mandarin (for the Chinese community), Malay (for the Malay
community) and Tamil (for the Indian community). However, the state has
recently argued that, in addition to heritage reasons, Mandarin should also be
learned in order to take advantage of China’s growing economy, thereby
actively conceding that instrumental value is an important motivating factor in
language choice. As a result, Mandarin is now becoming so popular that a
growing number of non- Chinese parents want schools to allow their children to
study the language. This new emphasis on Mandarin as a language commodity
has led to concerns within the Chinese community that the language is being
learnt for the ‘wrong’ reasons: the language is being treated less as an emblem
of local ethnicity and more as an economic resource for conducting business
negotiations with China. More generally, these developments potentially
undermine the multiracial logic of the policy, since the equal status that all three
mother tongues are supposed to enjoy is compromised by the fact that neither
Malay nor Tamil can be claimed to enjoy the same level of economic cachet as
Mandarin (Wee 2003). Thus, another important challenge for LPP is to take
better account of the fact that traditional notions of ethnicity and nation do not
fit easily with the multilingual dynamics of late modern societies, which are
increasingly characterized by a pervasive culture of consumerism (Baudrillard
1988; Bauman 1998), where ‘people define themselves through the messages
they transmit to others through the goods and practices that they possess and
display’ (Warde 1994: 878). In this regard, Stroud and Wee (2007) have
suggested that the concept of sociolinguistic consumption should be given a
more foundational status in language policy in late modernity, suggesting that
this might offer a more comprehensive account of the dynamics of language
choice and change.

Finally, one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today is that of
global migration and the related issue of ensuring the wellbeing and dignity of
individuals as they move across the globe in search of a better life. As many
states work to accommodate the presence of foreign workers, asylum seekers
and other aliens within their territories, the need to come up with realistic and
sensitive language policies will require the input of LPP specialists. If such input
is absent, there is a danger that language policies may unfairly penalize the very
people they were intended to help. Maryns (2005) provides one such example in
her discussion of a young female from Sierra Leone seeking asylum in Belgium.
Even though applicants are given the opportunity to declare what language they
want to use for making their case, Maryns (2005: 300) notes that:

Actual practice, however, reveals serious constraints on language choice, and

these constraints are language-ideologically based: only monolingual standard
varieties qualify for procedural interaction. This denial of linguistic variation
leads to a denial of pidgins and creoles as ‘languages in their own right.’
The effect of ideology of monolingualism is to deny pidgins and creoles any
legitimate presence in the asylum-seeking procedure despite the fact that for
many asylum seekers, such mixed languages might constitute their most natural
communicative codes. Thus, the move to a foreign country is not simply a shift
in physical location; it is also a shift into a location where linguistic codes are
differently valued. And the asylum seeker is expected to accommodate the
foreign bureaucratic context despite the communicative problems this raises.
Maryns (2005: 312) points out that:

The asylum seeker has to explain her very complex and contextually dense case,
addressing an official with different expectations about what is relevant and
required in a bureaucratic-institutional context. The bureaucratic format of the
interview and the time pressure under which the interaction takes place offer
very little space for negotiating intended meanings. In the particular case that
Maryns observed, the female applicant’s (2005: 313) ‘intrinsically mixed
linguistic repertoire’ (West African Krio) was displaced by the bureaucracy’s
requirement that interviews and reports utilize only monolingual standards. The
interview was conducted in English and a subsequent report written in Dutch,
neither of which were languages.
Question
In your own words, sum up the Problem-based nature of LPP and and its
challenges.
 Larbi Ben Mhidi University
Department of English

Level Grade : Master 1

Specialty : Didactics
Lecturer : Mr. Karim AYADI
Reference : Allison.S & Bob. C 2004. Applied
Linguistics as a Social Science. London
Course 2: Social realism and empirical research in Applied Linguistics

It is probably fair to say that the longest-established and still dominant ntradition
in ILL research (Lazaraton 1995) involves the following kind of approach, as
summarized by Lightbown (2000: 438) in her review of
SLA research between 1985 and 2000: The specific goals of the various research
projects differ, but there is a unifying desire to identify and better understand the
roles of the different participants in classroom interaction, the impact that certain
types of instruction may have on FLiSL learning, and the factors which promote
or inhibit learning. Much of what constitutes this kind of research tends to be
consistent with conventional, successionist models of causality. Successionist
models usually take the form of identifying a dependent and an independent
variable and then proposing a hypothesis which suggests that they will vary
inversely or conversely, thus enabling some form of causal inference to be
drawn. Ellis (1990: 199) summarizes this approach thus:
The L2 classroom researcher seeks to show how instructional
events cause or impede the acquisition of a second language. In
order to achieve this, it is necessary to (1) identify which instructional
events are significant, (2) find valid and reliable measures of
the L2 learning that takes place and (3) be able to demonstrate that
the relationship between instructional events and learning is in
some ways causal.
Although critiques of the successionist concept of causality have been made in
the ILL literature (e.g. Block 1996; van Lier 1990), and we discuss alternatives
later in the chapter, it remains a dominant
assumption in a significant proportion of the literature. ILL research, then, like
most research in both natural and social science, explores why things happen.
Our own position in response to this question is a 'modified materialist
naturalist' one. Therefore our starting point in understanding why things happen
is a belief that the world consists of phenomena - including human beings and
social structures - which have distinctive properties and powers. These objects
exist independently of our understandings of them. (This points to a significant
limitation in the purely interpretivist research which is often seen as the
alternative to successionist accounts of causality, as we explain below.) It is the
combination of the powers and properties of human beings and social structures
which generates the experienced empirical world. The attribution of these
properties and powers is not arbitrary, but is given in what phenomena are: it is
given in the nature of human beings, for example, that they are mortal, that they
have the biological attributes which enable them to use language, and so on;
social structures are emergent, durable, and have the facility to frustrate or
further the projects of people both individually and collectively. This implies a
radically different view of causality and therefore of research from that found in
both successionist and interpretivist traditions. From a realist point of view,
rather than merely cataloguing repetitions of regularly occurring co-events,
science should seek to understand and identify the causal relations or
mechanisms which produce the observed, empirical regularities. Sayer (2001)
summarizes
the key components of a realist view of causality:
Causes - that is whatever produces change - should be understood as causal
powers possessed by objects (including individuals and social structures) that
mayor may not be activated. Whether they
are depends on contingently related conditions, and if and when
they are activated, what results also depends on contingently related conditions.
(p.968)
So what are the things in the social world which have these properties and
powers? The components of the social world, from a realist perspective, are
human beings and the products of their social interaction, including social
structures and culture. It is the interaction between these components of the
social world, and the realization of their properties and powers in particular
settings and combinations, that give rise to the problems with which social
research - including applied linguistic research - is concerned. This account of
'why things happen' allows for the occurrence of patterns and regularities,
without entailing a commitment to a nomothetic perspective of 'governing laws'.
Regularities - such as, say, tendencies for groups of students with certain
characteristics to outperform groups of students with different characteristics on
particular tests of L2 performance may be indicative of causal relations, and
establishing such patterns, therefore often entails undertaking quantitative
research. The account also allows for a recognition ofthe powers of human
agency, including the reflexivity which can act as a 'confounding variable' in
traditional process-product studies. The position is also marked by seeking to
distinguish between necessity and contingency in causal relations. Research of
this type will not discover 'universal laws', because the actualization of the
properties and powers of the objects in the world is context-dependent, but it
will aim to generalize beyond the individual case of the single ethnographic
study, by drawing on particular con-ceptualizations of propensity and
probability. We can now turn to a richer image of 'complexity' than that
suggested when the term is used, as it sometimes is, as a synonym for
'complicated'. It is common to make reference to the 'complexity' of the process
of using different languages in different social contexts, and of learning how to
do so. For example, Lightbown and Spada (2001: 42) identify a number of
'variables' which 'have been found to influence second language learning'. These
include 'intelligence, aptitude, personality and motivational characteristics,
learner preferences, and age'. Some of the difficulties for researchers, they
suggest, arise because 'these learner characteristics are not independent of one
another: learner variables interact in complex ways. So far, researchers know
very little about the nature of these complex interactions.' Similarly, Cook
(1986: 13) characterizes 'the real world' as 'a complex bundle of many things',
but concludes that the researcher's task is therefore to - as it were - untie this
bundle and extract separate 'things' to measure.

However, recognizing that variables interact is not the same as recognizing that
in their interaction they generate emergent, irreducible phenomena, which are
themselves capable of interacting back on their constituent elements. In this
view of complexity, there is an emphasis on the fact that 'the behavior of
complex systems arises from the interaction of its components or agents'
(Larsen-Freeman 1997: 143, emphasis added). Larsen-Freeman is one of the few
researchers who have begun to explore more fully the implications of rejecting
successionist accounts of causation, in characterizing SLA as a complex
nonlinear process. If this is what it is, she argues, 'we will never be able to
identify, let alone measure, all ofthe factors accurately. And even if we could,
we would still be unable to predict the outcome of their combination' (ibid.:
157). As she points out, researchers in the domain of neuroscience are now
modelling the brain as an example of a complex nonlinear system, and
developments in this area contribute to explanations of extremely sophisticated
mental processes. Features of the brain which qualify it to be thought of in this
way include its 'decentralized' character, and its feedback systems which
contribute to growth and self-regulation (Johnson 2001). As we saw in Chapter
3, the characterization of language itself as a cultural emergent property entails a
recognition of its complex and emergent features (Beaugrande 1997, 1999). And
language acquisition is also recognized as an emergent phenomenon by
researchers who concentrate on the internal cognitive dimension of the process.
As Ellis (1998) puts it:

Emergentists believe that simple learning mechanisms, operating in and across

the human systems for perception, motor-action and cognition as they are
exposed to language data as part of a communicatively-rich human social
environment by an organism eager to exploit the functionality of language,
suffice to drive the emergence of complex language representations.
(p.B57)
Question :
Explain succintly what makes Applied Linguistics as a social science ?
 Larbi Ben Mhidi University
Department of English

Level Grade : Master 1

Specialty : Didactics
Lecturer : Mr. Karim AYADI
Reference Blommaert, Jan. 2005. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, Print.
Course 4 : Applied Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis Analysis
Introduction :

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been used as a basic discipline in

education to provide answers to questions about the relationships between
language, society, power, identity, ideology, politics, and culture. The rise of
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has influenced most branches and sub-
branches of humanities sciences in general, and applied linguistics in particular.
CDA views language as a powerful means through which specific ideologies,
identities, and culture become dominant in a society. CDA scholars believe that
the choice of language interlocutors make reflects their intentions, ideology, and
thought.Critical discourse analysts identify and study specific areas of injustice,
inequality, racism, danger, suffering, prejudice, and the like.

1*Aims of CDA :
1-CDA objective is to perceive language use as social practice .
2-CDA sees the relationship between language and society being dialectical .
3-The aim of CDA is to examine any aspect of power , dominance ,and social
inequality and see how they are interrelated with discourse .
4-CDA accepts this social context and studies the connections between textual
structures and takes this social context into account .
5-Another aim of CDA is that raising awareness of readers and listeners to
hidden parts of discourses .

2*Interesting Notions In Critical Discourse Analysis:

a /Social Power and Ideology:
A person is said to have "Power", when he is able to control the acts and
minds of others. Actually, this power has different sources, among these sources
:
Having control over public discourse and communication ( including text
and talk ) is a very important resource of power.Thus ,We may say that "
Language and power are interrelated" , in the sense that, Language is said to be a
medium of domination and social power. In this respect, Norman Fairclough is
the only scholar who defines the relationship between Power and Language.
A powerful speaker is the one who controls all levels and structures of:
Context ,Text Including setting Choice of topics, style… Participants.
Another thing to be highlighted ( previously controlling discourse as a major
form of power was highlighted) is "Mind Control", which is another important
way to reproduce Dominance. In specific contexts, certain meanings and
forms of control would have more influence on people's minds.
b/ Social Inequality : Gender Inequality
One vast field of critical research on discourse and language that thus far
has not been carried out within a CDA perspective is that of gender.Gender
inequality refers to the obvious disparty between individuals due to gender.
Media helps create and reiforce a gender duality based on traditional views of
men and women.Often females males are portrayed differantly in television and
film according to stereotypes. Boys and/or men are often portrayed as
active,agressive and sexually agressive persons while women are portrayed as
quaint,passive,pretty and incompetent beings.
c/Dominance:
CDA is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views
language as forms of social practices such as the exercise of dominance and
power. Fairclough focuses on the idea that social and cultural domination is
reproduced by text and talk. Social power is based on privileged access to
socially valued resources such as: wealth, income, position and status….also a
special access to various genres, forms on contexts of discourse and
communication is also power sources. Dominant people may effectively limit
the communicative rights of others. By analyzing the language use of those in
power, who are responsible for the existence of inequality.CDA researchers are
interested in the way discourse (re)produce social domination that’s the power
abuse of one group over others, and what dominated group may discursively
resist such abuse.
3*Fairclough's framework for analyzing a communicative event

A) Text:
The first analytical focus of Fairclough's three-part model is text. Analysis
of text involves linguistic analysis in terms of vocabulary, grammar, semantics,
the sound system, and cohesion-organization above the sentence level
(Fairclough, 1995b, p. 57).
Eg.1-“Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend
the
freedom and security of the American people” (Bush 2003).
The example shows how the president Bush uses I to show his passion as
president by saying “I will defend the freedom and security”, he almost
expresses that he will personally fight against the terrorists that put the country
in danger.
B) Discourse practice:
In this analytical framework , while there is linguistic analysis at the text
level , there is also linguistic analysis at the discourse practice level that
Fairclough calls ‘’ Intertextual Analysis ‘’ .
According to fairclough in (1992)., intertextuality is concerned with how texts
are produced in relation to prior texts and how texts help to construct the
existing conventions in producing new texts .

c)Socio-cultural Practice:
Analysis in this dimension is related to three aspects of the socio-cultural aspect
of a communicative event , which are:Economic Aspect ,Political and Culural
aspects
This dimension is an explanation of the relationship between these as
pressurespects and the process of production and consumption.
4*The levels of Discourse Context:

1*Macro level: It is the analysis of context that assesses the relationship

between the text and the broader social processes and ideologies. (E.g. what
a social issues are of a particular importance at the time the text was created)
2*Meso level: Analysis focuses on the context of production and reception of
the text. (E.g. where was the text made? who was it written by…)
3*Micro level: Discourse context simply looks at what is actually being said in
the text and what the linguistic features and devices are being used to depict an
idea.

5*Linguistic Analysis in CDA:

Active or passive voice:
The use of active verb gives a clear picture of who performed a particular action,
and to whom, for example: Police attack protestors.
The use of passive verb states what has been done, and to whom, but does not
blame anyone in particular for the action, for example: Protestors attacked.
Alternatively, nominalization can be used, where the noun form of the verb is
used to create even more ambiguity, for example: Attack on protestors.
Naming: the ways in which people are named can also perpetuate ideologies.
Pre-modifiers: It can present varying views of a topic.
Indirect quotes: It used where there may be no evidence of reported speech
saying this.

Conclusion:
To sum up, critical discourse analysis is a very broad topic since it is a
multidisciplinary and issue-oriented approach. This latter aims to understand
social inequality and injustice in terms of social power, dominance ,and their
reproduction. So, what we understand is that critical discourse analysts want to
investigate what structures, strategies, or other properties of text, talk, verbal
interaction, or communicative events play a role in these modes of reproduction.
Question:
What is the relationship between Applied Linguistics and CDA?
Medical Discourse
Analysis
Lecturer: Mr. Ayadi Karim
Level: Grade Master 1
Course:3
outline

• Introduction to medical discourse anlysis.

• Medical register.
• Euphemism.
• Interaction between doctor and patient.
• Speech acts in medical discourse.
• Disease and illness language.
• Medical terminology.
• Conclusion.
 introduction
medical discourse in the broadest sense is mainly
concerned with (discourse in and about healing,
curing, or therapy; expressions of suffering; and
relevant language ideologies)
while examining medical discourse the following
aspects are addressed :
• different purposes of medical communication
• analysis of doctor-patient communication
• specific communicative behaviors
 Medical register
Occupational registers ordinary language

provide an efficient code It is the type of

for the transfer of language that is
information among exchanged among
specialists. patients and ordinary
people (non-specialists).
They are largely opaque
outside the esoteric
circle.
 The gray area

Hadlow and Pitts (1991) and Kirkmayer(1988) find that

patients and medical professionals have different
understandings of terms “ in my own initial forays into
medical literature, as a naive patient, I was unaware, for
example, that the euphemism “supportive care” was a
technical term (an umbrella term for a variety of actual
therapies); it did not mean, as I had imagined, that
patients were to be treated with empathy and respect.”
 Euphemism:
• 19th century diseases names were often
euphemistic .
• this euphemism is still used in many cultures ,
especially when the diagnosis is bad .
• US physicians prefer ‘’ a clear and carefully
worded scientific explanation of a patient’s
condition as a precaution against lawsuits’’.
Interaction between doctor and patient:
 Speech acts in medical discourse:
Todd’s classification of speech acts has been
adopted in medical discourse. As a result, five
categories:

Statements:
• Example
D: Some of the slides that I’ll take from you today
will be looked at in clinic, and from these I’ll
decide whether you require treatment or not.
Questions:
• Example
D: Could you describe what the vomiting is like Mrs
Smith, for example, does it clear your lap and land
on the floor?

answers :
• Example 3
D: Was it managerial – did you have a lot of
responsibility?
P: Yes, I was in charge of a large department.
 directives:
• Example 4
D: Now let me have a look at you. Sit down, open your
mouth, head slightly forward. Let me put this tongue
depressor on your tongue.
Reactives:
• Example 5

D: Have you been abroad to any tropical or developing

countries recently?
P: Yes, I just came back from Thailand a few months ago.
D: I see.
 • Comparing to Searle’s classification two
speech acts have been excluded expressives
and commissives. Although speech acts of
these types do emerge in doctor-patient talk
infrequently.
Example 7
Example 6 P: Oh, Thank God! No sign of
D: Do you have a job at the cancer! No sign at all?
moment? D: Yes, that’s right. But listen
P: No, I’ve just been made for a moment. … In the future
redundant. you really must try to stop
D: Oh, I am sorry. What was your smoking, as long as you keep
job? smoking you can get more
P: I was desk-bound, I’m afraid. trouble with your voice, and
(expressive) one day it could turn nasty.
P: Oh, yes, Doctor. I am
trying – I’ve stopped.
 Disease and illness language:

disease language:
Illness language:
As various observers have
pointed out ( McCullough 1989 ; illness language is
Mintz 1992 ) , is an abstract
discourse about diseases and related to the
organs. the disease language is patients’ experience
related to the physians. And its of this biological issue
concerned with identifying and
examining the process of the and it’s usually
biological issue itself. expressed as
symptoms..
 Medical terminology:
considered as the core point in the analysis of the medical discourses
for both written and spoken forms,plus the breaking up of words.

• some words would be written and uttered differently

like:
Skin, bone derm , oste(o)

• there are several examples of breaking up words

especially those which are related to affixes such as:
Prefixes
Related to : size, color ,direction,..
Like: hypo, hyper
 Root
Related to: a part of the body
like : eryth ,leuk
• These affixes help in breaking up process like:
dermatisis

• “ derm” refers to the skin and

• “it is” refers to the inflammation in medicine

(the inflammation of the skin)

 Conclusion:
The process of analyzing medical discourse
seem defficult and complex , following certain
steps among them what was presented
previously will enable us to analyze and
understand the medical discourses either
written or spoken.