A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Education Policy Discourse

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a new discourse analysis approach, which came into being in the1970s. With the further development of theory and the further research of application, critical discourse analysis has enriched in research methods and angles of view. Critical discourse analysis is also characterized by interdisciplinary, which is becoming more and more prominent in recent studies. Education policy discourse analysis has so far developed into an important branch of education research field. Civic education plays an important role in the education course of America. Civics and government is one of the main courses of American civic education in primary and high schools. Therefore, the analysis of the relative education policy discourses of civics and government not only has instructional meanings for the education researchers to further know and understand American civic education, but also provides practical significance for the ideological and political education in China. This paper attempts to apply critical discourse analysis to education policy research field, and understand and analyze education policy discourse with the method of interpretation.National Standards for Civics and Government, which was formulated by the Center for American Civic Education in1994, is a series of standards for civics and government. It is now the first and only national standards for civics and government in America. With the aid of Antconc3.2.4., this paper mainly uses Fairclough’s discursive practice approach and Wodak’s discourse historical analysis approach to analyze the corpus from both macro and micro levels, as well as diachronic and synchronic levels. The macro analysis of corpus is mainly unfolded from discourse order and textuality based on the social historical context; while the micro analysis mainly focuses on the selection of modal words and discursive strategies that have been used in the discourse. Based on the macro and micro analyses of the corpus, this paper aims to unveil the hidden power relationships and ideologies of this education policy, thus provide a feasible method for the education researcher to perceive the characteristics and objectives of American civic education objectively. Besides, the research in this thesis is an example for critical discourse analysis’s practicality in education research field.According to the critical discourse analysis of National Standards for Civics and Government, it is found that the nature of this discourse is not as voluntary as it is written in its Preface part or as it has been claimed by the authorities. Both the formulation and the conveyance of intents of this discourse are constrained and affected by a series of factors, including the ideologies and the social relations of text makers, the national ideology of the United States, and the political systems etc. The hidden ideologies and power relationships functioned on the discourse by means of discourse order, intertextuality, modal verbs selection and discourse strategies. Meanwhile, the analysis of this discourse verifies the fact that educational policy discourses are the results of the interdependence and interaction of the complex power relationships in them.