Interaction between Visual and Verbal Communication: Changing Patterns in the Printed Media

Abstract

It is common cause that we refer to Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as interdisciplinary areas of research with no pretence of being autonomous, of having a ‘sole mandate’ in analysing, describing and explaining a clearly delineated set of objects, entities or phenomena. The interdisciplinary approach of CDA allows us to consider a wide variety of communicative methods and media from different perspectives in a way that does justice to the complexity of linguistic, extralinguistic and contextual components of authentic, real-life communication. An academic focus on patterns of language use in public and institutional discourses that reflect unequal power relations, is singularly characteristic of CL and CDA.¹ So, a unifying principle in CDA is to be found in its specific interest in discourses that take place in contested domains, such as the domains of nuclear energy, of human and civil rights of citizens and foreigners in modern states, of respectable educational opportunities, and so on.