The terms Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have been
frequently used interchangeably. The roots of CDA lie in classical Rhetoric,
Text linguistics and Sociolinguistics, as well as in Applied Linguistics and Pragmatics.
Deconstructing the label of this research program entails that we have to
define what CDA means when employing the terms “critical” and “discourse”.
It is necessary to stress that CDA has never been and has never attempted to be or
to provide one single or specific theory. Neither is one specific methodology characteristic of research in CDA. Quite the contrary; studies in CDA are multifarious, derived from quite different theoretical backgrounds, oriented towards different data and methodologies. Researchers in CDA also rely on a variety of grammatical approaches. The definitions of the terms “discourse”, “critical”, “ideology”, “power” and so on are also manifold.