Critical theory of discourse and text

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a debate and research agenda for a critical theory of discourse, relating it, on the one hand, to critical social theory and, on the other, to systemic functional linguistics. Fundamental concepts in the critical theory of discourse are: social practice, social event, genre and text. Textually oriented discourse analysis (TODA) proposes to understand social practices in a dialectical view of discourse, involving genres and meaning construction in texts: actions (genres), representations (discourses), identifications (styles). Three important moments in the development of this theory, as well as points for future research, are presented.