ABSTRACT

This chapter examines how literature can be conceived of as discourse, and how one might infer literary effects from linguistic features and so provide a textual warrant for interpretation. It talks about the term critical which is associated with what would appear to be two rather different approaches to textual interpretation: literary criticism and critical linguistics. The chapter describes the field that always tend be defined in the terms of its most vigorous development, which is all the more reason for questioning the equation. It explains that if you read something as literature, you recognize that it does not have any direct referential connection with your concerns. The chapter describes that critical discourse analysis (CDA), in seeking to extend its scope of analysis, actually ends up by being reductionist and far from incorporating literary criticism into a comprehensive concept of critical practice; it actually applies literary critical procedures in inappropriate and uncritical ways.