ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how to analyse language as ideologically loaded discourse so that a close description of a text can be developed to also consider interpretation and explanation. Kress and van Leeuwen have a developed a grammar of visual discourse which has been used extensively by critical discourse analysts in carrying out CDA. Machin and Mayr provide a comprehensive overview of the importance of visual as well as verbal semiotic choices in contemporary discourse. Lexical cohesion refers to the repetition and reiteration of words which are linked in meaning and which serve therefore to consistently define certain features of an incident or event. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model demonstrates how to analyse institutional discourse through description, interpretation and explanation. By approaching language in the all-encompassing way proposed by this model, an analysis transcends the merely descriptive.
