Rethinking intertextuality in CDA

ABSTRACT

Intertextuality – instances of texts linking to other texts (explicitly, implicitly, by referring to them or incorporating elements of them) – is a key concept with which CDA accounts for discursive elements in social relations of power and solidarity. However, ‘intertextuality’ has not been widely operationalised to chart existing relations of power and solidarity at the levels of discourse and orders of discourse. This article develops the methodological framework for intertextuality in CDA and makes that framework more congruent with its potential to analyse and critique social relations of power and solidarity through intertextuality than has been the case until now. It introduces three concepts: the inter-text, networks of inter-texts and typicality. It discusses two methodological options for creating a corpus for analysing networks of inter-texts and presents new analytical categories which recognise intertextual reference to whole texts. Crucially, it emphasises absence and ambiguity as key analytical foci for intertextuality.

KEYWORDS:

• Intertextuality
• discourse
• orders of discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Michael Farrelly is a lecturer in English Language and researches political and policy discourse. He leads the research theme on social, economic and environmental sustainability for the Faculty of Arts, Cultures and Education and is a member of the Centre for Government, both at the University of Hull. He also works in collaboration with the Cultural Political Economy Research Centre at Lancaster University. His recent book is Discourse and Democracy: critical analysis of the language of government.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.