Norman Fairclough

Norman Fairclough (; born 3 April 1941) is an emeritus professor of linguistics at Lancaster University. He is one of the founders of critical discourse analysis (CDA) as applied to sociolinguistics.

Critical discourse analysis Critical discourse analysis, also called textually oriented discourse analysis or TODA to distinguish it from philosophical enquiries not involving linguistic methodology, is concerned with the mutual effects of linguistic textual properties, sociolinguistic speech genres, and sociological practices. The main thrust of Fairclough's analysis is that, if according to Foucauldian theory practices are discursively shaped and enacted, the intrinsic properties of discourse, which are linguistically analysable, constitute a key element of their interpretation. He is thus interested in how social practices are discursively shaped, as well as the subsequent discursive effects of social practices.

Language and Power (1989) explored the overlaps between language and socio-political institutional practices. In the book Fairclough develops the concept of synthetic personalisation to account for the linguistic effects providing an appearance of direct concern and contact with the individual listener in mass-crafted discourse phenomena, such as advertising, marketing, and political or media discourse. This is seen as part of a larger-scale process of technologisation of discourse, which encompasses the increasingly subtle technical developments in the field of communication that aim to bring under scientifically regulated practice semiotic fields that were formerly considered suprasegmental, such as patterns of intonation, the graphic layout of text on the page, or proxemic data.

His book New Labour, New Language? (2000) looks at the rhetoric used by the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, with a particular focus on the party's developments towards New Labour.

Influences Fairclough's theories have been influenced by Mikhail Bakhtin and Michael Halliday Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault,

Honorary degrees Dr.phil.h.c., Aalborg University, 2004 Honorary Doctorate, University of Jyväskylä, 1998

Publications

Books

As author Language and Power. London: Longman. 1989. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity. 1992. Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis. Boston: Addison-Wesley. 1995 Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. With Lilie Chouliaraki. Edinburgh University Press. 1999. New Labour, New Language? London: Routledge. 2000 Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. 2003. Language and Globalization. London: Routledge. 2006. Discourse and Contemporary Social Change. Edited with Guiseppina Cortese and Patrizia Ardizzone. Bern: Peter Lang. 2007. Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students. With Isabela Fairclough. London: Routledge. 2013.

As editor Critical Language Awareness. London: Longman. 1992.

Selected journal articles

Selected book chapters "The Appropriacy of 'Appropriateness'". In Fairclough, Norman (ed.). Critical Language Awareness. London: Routledge. 1992. "Discourse and Cultural Change in the Enterprise Culture". In Graddol, David; Thompson, Linda; Byram, Michael (eds.). Language and Culture. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 1993. "Technologisation of Discourse". In Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen Rosa; Coulthard, Malcolm (eds.). Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. 1996. "The Conversationalisation of Political Discourse: A Comparative View". With Anna Mauranen. In Blommaert, Jan; Bulcaen, Chris (eds.). Political Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1998. "Democracy and the Public Sphere in Critical Research on Discourse". In Wodak, Ruth; Ludwig, Christoph (eds.). Challenges in a Changing World: Issues in Critical Discourse Analysis. Vienna: Passagen Verlag. 1999. "Critical Discourse Analysis". In McHoul, Alec; Rapley, Mark (eds.). How to Analyse Talk in Institutional Settings: A Casebook of Methods. London: Continuum. 2001. "Critical Discourse Analysis as a Method in Social Scientific Research". In Wodak, Ruth; Meyer, Michael (eds.). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. 2001. "The Discourse of New Labour: Critical Discourse Analysis". In Wetherell, Margaret; Taylor, Stephanie; Yates, Simeon (eds.). Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis. London: Sage. 2001.