Critical Linguistics : Demythlogising Society

Abstract

Only in the second half of the twentieth century, Linguistics started adopting a functionalist paradigm. Halliday is a crucial figure of this time. By the 1970s, scholars felt the need to analyse language not just in terms of its structure, but also the underlying ideology that each utterance carries. Form here, the ‘critical’ perspective to language analysis got introduced. A critical study assumes that nothing said is neutral; it is always said from a particular point of view along with some aims. This claim is in line with Halliday’s argument that language is socially anchored. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) got formalized in 1991. Since language is an indispensable part of society and represents as well as constructs the society, it is only essential that language is critically studied. People using language should be well aware of the ways it can be (mis)used and its speakers be mentally influenced. With this aim of creating awareness, that is, demythlogising society, CDA seeks to read between the lines of a discourse and search for the representative attitudes and the underlying ideologies.