Agentless passive construction

Along with nominalisation , the agentless passive construction is a linguistic structure which has received much attention in CDA, espeically in Critical Linguistics. It involves a 'transformation' whereby the affected takes the subject position of the sentence and the agent is left out of the ojbect position. In syntactic terms, the agentless passive voice means there is no direct reference to who performed the action designated by the verb, thus causing a separation of agent and action (Trew1979: 98). The construction is therefore said to conceal or 'mystify' responsbility for the action or process described, particularly for readers unwilling to invest the extra effort required to recover the relevant information. However, there is now some doubt as to the significance of the agentless passive. For example, O'Halloran (2003) argues that pragmatic principles of relevance mean that readers can be expected to recover the 'concealed' information automatically based on background assumptions. Consequently, agent exclusions may not be mystificatory at all but simply based on a co-operative principle of economy.

Text
'Text' is used to refer to particular language usages with an identifiable beginning and end situated in time and place. Texts can be considered the outcome of discourse. That is, discourse is a process that produces text (Brown and Yule 1983: 25; Widdowson 1979: 71). On this definition, texts are a 'trace' of the communicative act, or discourse event (Brown and Yule 1983: 6). They may be spoken or written, where written texts represent a (semi)permanent record. Of course, written texts may be records of spoken texts. For some scholars, such as Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2001) text is conceived as multimodal rather than limited to linguistic form. Texts are also concrete realisations of discourses (Lemke 1995), which is to say that discourses find their expression in text (Kress 1985: 27).

Discourse Event
For Norman Fairclough (1989, 1995) each discourse event is made up of three dimensions or facets. There is the text itself and the discourse practice of producing and interpreting the text. In addition, every discourse practice is seen to be an instance of social practice. Fairclough illustrates these layers in a three-dimensional framework in which the connection between text and social practice is mediated by discourse practice (Fairclough 1995: 133). Against this framework, discourse is seen as a site of social action and as constitutive of social relations and identities. The view of language as action, embodied in the title of Austin's (1962) posthumously published How to do Things with Words, is inspired by both ordinary language philosophy (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Wittgenstein 1953) and Critical Theory. According to Habermas, for example, language is also a medium of...social force' (1977: 259).

Fairclough's three-dimensional framework

Corresponding with the three dimesions of a discourse event, Norman Fairclough proposes three dimensions of discourse analysis. These are linguistic description of the text, interpretation of the relationship between discursive processes (production and interpretation) and the text, and explanation of the relationship between the discursive process and social phenomena (Fairclough 1995: 97). CDA has mainly been concerned with linguistic description and social explanation. It has paid comparatively little attention to interpretation-stage analysis and especially the cognitive processes involved in discourse (O'Halloran 2003).

Genre
Texts also belong to different 'genres'. In contrast to 'register'. what captures the genre of a text is not its lexicogrammatical features but the context itself in which the text is produced (van Dijk 2008, 2009). This context can be defined according to the three aspects of situation that determine register - field, tenor and mode. So for example, newspaper reports and political speeches are two distinct text genres. Producing a newspaper report and a political speech are two different social activities (field). In each case, there are different social and power relations held between the textproducer and text-consumers (tenor). And both are delivered via different mediums: written versus spoken respectively (mode). Genre (or type of 'speech event') has also been modelled by Dell Hymes (1972) using the following mnemonic: S. Setting P. Participants E. Ends A. Act K. Key I. Instrumentalities N. Norms G. Genre

Intertextuality
The concept of intertextuality is based on Bakhtin and Voloshinov. Texts are produced within an 'intertextual context'. That is, texts 'have histories, they belong to historical series' (Fairclough 1989: 127). Texts are related to other texts within their intertextual context through intertextuality, whereby a current text contains elements of a previous text. Intertextuality often involves reported speech, which Voloshinov characterises as 'speech within speech, utterance within utterance, and at the same time also speech about speech, utterance about utterance' (1973: 115) Reported speech is especially common in news discourse. According to Monika Bednarek, one of the most characteristic features of newspaper language is its "embededness": much of what features in the

news is actually reported speech' (2006: 59). For example, as John Richardson (2007: 102) notes, 'a news report may contain elements of a press release, or a quote from a source either involved in the reported action/event (information) or commenting on it (evaluation)'.

Interdiscursivity
Interdiscursivity refers to the phenomenon whereby elements from different discourses are combined in textsresulting in new hybrid or nodal discourses. Interdiscursivity can also refer to the combination in text of context and register features associated with different genres resulting in new hybrid genres. For example, Milonas (2007: 100) notes that television genres are flexible enough to mix and provide new creative possibilities. With reference to a documentary film on the London transport attacks of 7 July 2005, Milonas states that the film's hybrid genre 'has strong elements of the traditional foundations of documentary, enriched by new stylistic choices, performance, the filmmaker's presence and entertainment' (ibid.). Another example, given by Blackledge (2007: 11), would be the use of conversational features of language in the formal context of a speech to Parliament. According to Fairclough (2003), interdiscursivity in text creates a hybridity of social practices characteristic of the blurring of social boundaries.

Lexicogrammar
In Systemic Functional Grammar, language is seen as a social system of semiotic resources, which exists as a meaning potential. The system is organised into 'strata' at different levels of abstraction. They are related by means of realization. The semantic strata is realised in lexicogrammar - the network of lexical and grammatical options available for the expression of meaning. In the semantic strata, three basic elements of a semantic configuration are identified: process, participant and circumstance. These are realised in lexicogrammar as verbs, nominals and adverbials. CDA is often concerned with transitivity choices at the level of lexicogrammar. The availability of choice in lexicogrammar means linguistic representation is always necessarily ideological.

Metaphor
Metaphor is a linguistic and conceptual structure which has received growing attention in CDA. A whole approach dedicated to metaphor now exists under the bannar of Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004). According to Charteris-Black, metaphor is 'central to critical discourse analysis since it is concerned forming a coherent view of reality' (2004: 28). Critical Metaphor Analysis applies metaphor theory from Cognitive Linguistics. Here, metaphor is seen as a conceptual structure in which one domain of experience provides the basis for our understanding of another more abstract social domain (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). These conceptual metaphors are an important part of ideology since they 'provide the cognitive

framework for worldview' (Santa Ana 2002: 21). This worldview, however, is only partial, where conceptual metaphors privilege one understanding of reality over others' (Chilton 1996: 74). Conceptual metaphors are reflected in, and reproduced by, linguistic metaphors. Critical analysis of linguistic metaphors in text can therefore reveal underlying ideologies and ideoological reproduction. Conceptual metaphors, as well as other idealised cognitive models such as frames, can be thought of as the formal structures which discourses take (Hart 2010).

Metonymy
Metonymy is a linguistic and conceptual structure where one element stands referentially for another. Metonymy can be used for a range of ideological purposes. For example, instrument-foragent or place-for-person metonymies allow responsibility for an action or process to be glossed over or 'mystified'. Part-for-whole metonymies allow certain elements of an individual's identity to be profiled or for one subtype of a category to stand stereotypically for all its members.

Modality
Modality is a semantic category in which speakers express their attitude and commitment toward communicated propositions. It belongs to the interpersonal metafunction. Modality can be deontic or epistemic and is most obviously manifested in modal verbs. In deontic modality speakers express obligation and permission. In epistemic modality speakers express degrees of certainty. The ideological significance of modality is that it suggests the presence of an individual subjectivity behind the printed text, who is qualified with the knowledge required to pass judgement' (1991: 64). Modality is therefore 'an important part of the practices by means of which claims to authority are articulated and legitimated authority is expressed' (Fowler 1985: 73).

Nominalisation
Nominalisations, like agentless passive constructions, are a linguistic structure to have received much attention in CDA, especially Critical Linguistics and the sociosemiotic approach. Nominalisations are processes transformed into nouns. They are 'reduced' representations which offer ideological opportunities (Fairclough 1989: 103; Fowler 1991: 80). Specifically, certain informaton, e.g. participants, time, and modality, may be glossed over or 'mystified' in nominal forms. Nominalisation thus permits 'habits of concealment, particularly in the areas of power-relations and writiers' attitudes' (Fowler 1991: 80) The significance of nominalisation, however, has recently been the subject of debate in an issue of Discourse & Society.

Register
Texts belong to different 'registers'. According to Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen (2004: 27), registers are 'ways of using language in different contexts'. Register therefore describes the linguistic characteristics of a given genre. For example, there are formal and colloquial registers used in official and everyday settings respectively. In some cases, there can be register-variation within a single genre. For example, newspaper reporting is a single genre but different newspapers may vary in register. Register is described in terms of the configuration of linguistic resources in lexicogrammar, which members of a 'speech community' associate with a given situation (Halliday 2007: 182). According to Halliday and Hasan (1985: 38) three aspects of situation determine register: field, tenor and mode. Field refers to the activity in which the text-producer is participating. Tenor refers to the social relations held between text-producer and text-consumers. And mode refers to the medium by which the text is produced.

Social Cognition
Teun van Dijk views discourses, or ideologies, in explicitly cognitive terms. According to van Dijk, textual structure and social structure are mediated by social cognition, which is defined as the system of mental representations and processes of group members' (1995: 18). Indeed, van Dijk (1993: 280) believes that it is theoretically essential for microlevel notions such as text and macrolevel notions such as social relations to be mediated by social cognition. For van Dijk, to explain how texts can be socially constructive presupposes an account that relates textual structures to social cognition, and social cognition to social structures (ibid.). Social cognitions exist as part of semantic, as opposed to episodic, memory. Although embodied in the minds of individuals, social cognitions are semantic in so far as 'they are shared and presupposed by group members' (van Dijk 1993: 257). Crucially, these cognitive structures are largely acquired, used and changed through discourse (van Dijk 1990: 165).

Strategies
The term 'strategy', as defined by Martin Reisigl and Ruth Wodak (2001: 44), describes 'a more or less intentional plan of practices (including discourse practices) adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim'. A number of such strategies and various typologies for them have been proposed (see Chilton 2004; Chilton and Schffner 1997; Hart 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2001; Wodak 2001). In racist discourse, these include reference, predication, argumentation, perspectivation, and intensification ormitigation (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 44-56). Referential (or nomination) strategies are strategies by means of which speakers classify social actors (see van Leeuwen 1996) . In predicational strategies speakers assign to social actors

evaluative - positive or negative - attributes. In argumentation strategies, predications function as topoi to justify discrimination and/or exclusion. In perspectivation strategies speakers express their own point of view by appraising the propositions they are communicating. In intensification or mitigation strategies speakers strengthen or weaken the epistemic status of propositions.

Text
'Text' is used to refer to particular language usages with an identifiable beginning and end situated in time and place. Texts can be considered the outcome of discourse. That is, discourse is a process that produces text (Brown and Yule 1983: 25; Widdowson 1979: 71). On this definition, texts are a 'trace' of the communicative act, or discourse event (Brown and Yule 1983: 6). They may be spoken or written, where written texts represent a (semi)permanent record. Of course, written texts may be records of spoken texts. For some scholars, such as Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2001) text is conceived as multimodal rather than limited to linguistic form. Texts are also concrete realisations of discourses (Lemke 1995), which is to say that discourses find their expression in text (Kress 1985: 27).

Topoi
The term topos' has its roots in Rhetoric. It translates as a 'place' where arguments can be found. However, 'topos' is also translated as a rule or procedure (van Eemeren et al. 1996: 38). It is this latter translation that is used in CDA, where topoi are conceived of as content-related warrants which can be expressed as conditional 'conclusion rules' (Riesigl and Wodak 2001: 74). In CDA, topoi are understood as standard 'argumentation schemes' which 'represent the common-sense reasoning typical for specific issues' (van Dijk 2000: 98). In other words, they are arguments in which an implicit conclusion is presupposed by a premise (Reisigl and Wodak 2001; van Dijk 2000; Wodak 2001). In argumentation strategies, predications can function as first premises in topoi which justify or warrent particular courses of action.

Transitivity
According to Roger Fowler (1991: 70), transitivity is a 'fundamental and powerful semantic concept in Halliday' and the 'foundation of representation' (1991: 71). In contrast to its syntactic definition, i.e., whether or not a verb takes a direct object, transitivity in Systemic Functional Grammar concerns what kind of action or process a verb designates, which participants (e.g. agent and patient) are encoded, how, and where they occur in the sentence. Transitivity is of interest in CDA because it has 'the facility to analyse the same event in different ways' (Fowler 1991: 71). Transitivity choices therefore communicate ideology, reflect (and reproduce) a particular point of view.