Discourse, Knowledge, Power and Politics. Towards Critical Epistemic Discourse Analysis
Abstract
Although both are fundamental terms in the humanities and social sciences, discourse and knowledge have seldom been explicitly related, and even less so in critical discourse studies. After a brief summary of what we know about these relationships in linguistics, psychology, epistemology and the social sciences, with special emphasis on the role of knowledge in the formation of mental models as a basis for discourse, I examine in more detail how a critical study of discourse and knowledge may be articulated in critical discourse studies. Thus, several areas of critical epistemic discourse analysis are identified, and then applied in a study of Tony Blair’s Iraq speech on March 18, 2003, in which he sought to legitimatize his decision to go to war in Iraq with George Bush. The analysis shows the various modes of how knowledge is managed and manipulated of all levels of discourse of this speech.Downloads
The works published in this magazine are subject to the following terms:
1. The Publications Service of the University of Murcia (the publisher) preserves the economic rights (copyright) of the published works, and favors and allows the reuse of same under the license of use indicated in point 2.
2. The papers are published in the electronic edition of the magazine under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative 3.0 Spain license (legal text). Papers may be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted and publicly exhibited if the following requirements are met: i) The authorship and the original source of its publication (magazine, editorial and URL of the work) must be cited; ii) The works cannot be used for commercial purposes; iii) The existence and specifications of this user license must be explicitly mentioned.
3. Self-archiving conditions. Authors can electronically disseminate pre-print versions (version before being evaluated) and / or post-print versions (version evaluated and accepted for publication). This makes possible its circulation and diffusion earlier and with it a possible increase in its citation and reach among the academic community. RoMEO color: green.
