Ideology, Identity, Interaction: Contradictions and Challenges for Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, Vol. 5 (2): 1 – 18, 2012This article reflects on the condition of CDA, by analyzing key terms in the 2010 CADAAD conference: ideology, identity, interaction. It uses ideological-complex theory to emphasize contradiction as key to ideological effects in a highly complex world, source of both dynamism and vulnerability in theory, analysis and action. It argues for a single diverse and inclusive analytic project, including social, cognitive and linguistic lines, studying all media, including verbal, operating across all scales of space and time. Only an inclusive, contradictory CDA can have the impact it deserves.