When deconstructing the label of this research programme – we view CDA
basically as a research programme, the reasons for which we will explain below –
we necessarily have to define what CDA means when it employs the terms
‘critical’ and ‘discourse’. Michael Billig (2003) has clearly pointed to the fact
that CDA has become an established academic discipline with the same rituals
and institutional practices as all other academic disciplines. Ironically, he asks
the question whether this might mean that CDA has become or might become
‘uncritical’ – or if the use of acronyms such as CDA might serve the same purposes
as in other traditional, non-critical disciplines; namely to exclude outsiders
and to mystify the functions and intentions of the research. Most
recently, has Billig reiterated this question under a new umbrella: do scholars
who employ CDA write in the same way mainly by using nominalizations
extensively, like the many texts which they criticize ((Billig, 2008)?