Critical Insights: A Perspective on Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Discourse is the study of language beyond the sentence level concerning its social and cultural practices in context. This paper 'Language as Discourse' mainly aims to analyze and explore the contribution of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in education and Classroom Discourse Analysis critically to ensure an effective teaching-learning process for better academic achievement. Similarly, it also provides insights on language, discourse, discourse analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. This theoretical study reveals that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) contributes a lot to education by providing the lens to the learners to view the outer world through critical eyes and by encouraging them not only to question and criticize the dominations, suppressions and oppressions existed inside the classrooms and society but also to empower them for the emancipation and transformation. It was also found that analyzing the discourses observed inside the classrooms as Classroom Discourse Analysis assumes, facilitates the teachers for active interaction or communication inside the classroom in harmony with Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) chain for the better academic achievement. The study has been concluded with a note that the pedagogy of Nepal should also be guided towards interactive, communicative, emancipatory, and interactive mode where teachers and learners are the responsible change agents for it. This study will provide some insights for those who want more exploration of discourse, discourse analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Classroom Discourse Analysis through the critical and analytical eyes.