A critique of critical discourse analysis with a special reference to Imam Ali's (P.B.U.H)‎ epistle to Malik al-Ashter

Abstract EN

The present study offers a critique of critical discourse analysis (CDA), namely, van Dijk's (1998) theory of ideological square, and proposes an alternative approach.

It tries to trace the notion of 'equality' in van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach to CDA.

The present study takes a number of steps, starting with a theoretical presentation of CDA in general and the theory of ideological square in particular.

The theory of ideological square is claimed to suffer from a number of shortcomings such as the confusion of equality and justice, being one-sided treatment, interest-governed and circularity.

That is why it is necessary to formally recognize these shortcomings in CDA.

Additionally, there is a need to make some recommendations for resolving the identified shortcomings of CDA.

These requirements define the problems of the present study.

The present study has the aims of identifying the shortcomings of van Dijk's theory of the ideological square and conducts a modification to this theory in order to be more objective when conducting a CDA study.

The procedures used in the present study are investigating the shortcomings of van Dijk's theory of the ideological square and conduct a modification to that theory.

Finally, the present study has come out with the conclusions that the universality of van Dijk's ideological square is inaccurate and questionable, so there is a need to widen the CDA studies for non-Western world and the model of the theory of the ideological square suffers from a shortcoming of classifying the participants into in-group and out-group members with one-sided treatment that could lead to unequal treatment.