ABSTRACT
Discourse analysis (DA) is the intimate study of talk and text (Traynor, 2006; van Dijk, 2012). As a research methodology it is used to interpret, understand and in some cases to critique the function of talk, communication or text. The elements of discourse that are of interest include the style of the communication, the underlying social structures that permit or limit the communication or text and the message that is being delivered that is inclusive of both the overt and covert. As with other research methodologies there are various forms of discourse analysis (Lupton, 2004). DA that are interpretive only focus on how language, text is created and used while critical DA approach advocates assume that discursive practices provide for a power base that legitimates the speaker/ authors’ (of the talk/text) authenticity and therefore validates primacy. Being heard and thus having power is time and context specific; that is, it is relational to social influences and dominant ideologies at the time the talk is generated (Rudge, Holmes, and Perron, 2011). The critical DA theorists assert that there is a political intent of discourse embedded in the constructions each speaker has of who they are and their ideological beliefs that inform their understandings, which can be revealed through a DA process (Cheek and Rudge, 1997; Gillett, 2012; Mulligan, Elliot, and Schuster-Wallace, 2012; Rudge et al., 2011).
