TeunVan Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Model of Critical Discourse Analysis

The present article is concerned with Teun Van Dijk’s model of critical discourse analysis that is known to be a sociocognitive model. Studying the language of media, Van Dijk’s main concern is how power relations influence the legitimacy and establishment of a particular discursive practice among other public discourses. In this model,discourses are studied closely from the perspective of social, political, and ideological influences of powerful relations and institutions. On the other hand, the influence of power on the textual parameter of discourses are taken into account. Some of these parameters include transivity, modality, and speech acts. The other notions in Van Dijk’s model are hegemony, manipulation and persuasion. The overlapping concepts put emphasis on the point that the hegemonic powers, such as news agencies, apply various strategies such as reflexivity to add to the credibility of the discourses and the macro-statements they produce and to interrupt the public’s top-down processes of omprehension of a particular event.

Keywords:

hegemony , reflexivity , critical discourse analysis , Teun Van Dijk