A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Hateful Eight

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which arises in 1970s in England, is an approach of discourse analysis. It is aimed at revealing the hidden ideology and power in language and the relationship among language, ideology and power through analyzing the linguistic features and the social context of a certain discourse. Because of their explicit ideology, the public discourses, especially political discourses, are the focus of CDA studies, while literature discourses such as novel and script are always neglected.Therefore, this study chooses the rarely explored script as the research data, trying to uncover the hidden ideology and power control behind the discourse as well as find out the embedded reasons.The present study, whose analytic data come from the script The Hateful Eight, will adopt Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model and Gee's seven building tools as theoretical framework and analytical tools respectively. The data will be analyzed at three levels: description, interpretation and explanation. At the descriptive level, the data's language features analysis will be conducted from seven perspectives: significance,activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections and sign systems and knowledge.Through analyzing the linguistic features, this level will attempt to discover the ideology and power control in the chosen discourse. In this study, the ideologies mainly refer to black discrimination and values of the North and the South, while power control primarily includes two dimensions: Lincoln's letter's influence and the gang's power. At the level of interpretation, which mainly interprets how to produce, distribute and consume a discourse and how a writer interacts with readers, it tries to address three issues: creation of the script; people who are involved and their relations; and role of Language in The Hateful Eight. At the stage of explanation, the social, cultural and historical background of The Hateful Eight will be explored.Through critical discourse analysis, it is found that language in The Hateful Eight is ideology and power-loaded. The discourse producer builds ideology and power control through language features and structures. Long-term black slavery, the Civil War, The Western Movement, the differences and conflicts between the North and the South are the reasons behind black discrimination and power control.The findings demonstrate that literary works also express the deep ideology and power control and language, ideology and power are mutually influenced. Theoretically,this study further proves that CDA, as an approach of discourse analysis, has wide applicability, which can apply to various discourses including literary works. What's more, Gee's seven building tools can be adopted in CDA as analytical tools, Practically,this research can help readers improve their critical awareness and sensitivity in reading,thus help them cultivate critical thinking ability, reasonably interpreting information instead of accepting passively.