critical discourse analysis in qualitative research

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Discourse Analysis – Methods, Types and Examples

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Discourse analysis is a qualitative research method used to analyze language in texts, conversations, or social contexts to understand meaning, power dynamics, and social constructs. This approach explores how language shapes and reflects social realities, making it an invaluable tool for studies in linguistics, sociology, communication, and cultural studies. This guide covers discourse analysis methods, types, and practical examples.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis examines the structure, function, and context of language in communication. It focuses on how words, phrases, and interactions contribute to constructing meaning and how these linguistic choices relate to broader social, cultural, or political frameworks. This type of analysis can be applied to both spoken and written forms of communication, including interviews, conversations, social media posts, advertisements, and policy documents.

Key Objectives of Discourse Analysis :

Identify Patterns : Recognize recurring themes, language structures, or rhetorical strategies.
Understand Context : Analyze the social, political, or cultural context influencing language use.
Explore Power Dynamics : Investigate how language reflects or enforces power relations.

Methods of Discourse Analysis

Content analysis involves categorizing words, phrases, or themes within the text to identify patterns or dominant ideas. This method is often used to quantify specific elements, such as the frequency of certain words or themes.
Example : Analyzing political speeches to determine the most frequently used terms related to “freedom” or “security.”
CDA examines language to uncover underlying power dynamics, ideologies, and social inequalities. It seeks to understand how language contributes to maintaining or challenging societal structures.
Example : Studying news coverage of marginalized groups to identify biases in language that reinforce stereotypes or social hierarchies.
Conversation analysis focuses on the structure of verbal interactions, including turn-taking, pauses, and conversational markers. CA is used to study the unspoken rules governing everyday conversations.
Example : Analyzing doctor-patient interactions to understand how medical professionals convey authority or empathy.
Narrative analysis explores how stories and narratives are constructed to convey identity, experience, or moral messages. This approach examines the sequence, structure, and purpose of storytelling.
Example : Analyzing patient narratives in healthcare to understand how individuals describe their experiences with illness and recovery.
Semiotic analysis investigates signs, symbols, and meanings within texts, understanding how visual or linguistic symbols communicate cultural or social messages.
Example : Analyzing an advertisement to determine how images and words convey ideas about beauty, success, or happiness.

Types of Discourse Analysis

1. descriptive discourse analysis.

Descriptive discourse analysis focuses on describing language use without delving deeply into broader social implications. It may involve examining word choice, sentence structure, or thematic elements within a text.

Example : Analyzing the language in customer reviews to understand common phrases or sentiments.

2. Interpretive Discourse Analysis

Interpretive discourse analysis seeks to understand the meaning of language within a specific social or cultural context. It goes beyond surface-level descriptions, exploring how language reflects beliefs, attitudes, or experiences.

Example : Analyzing interviews with teachers to understand how they talk about student motivation and learning.

3. Social Constructivist Discourse Analysis

This type of discourse analysis examines how language constructs social realities, beliefs, or identities. Social constructivist approaches explore how discourse shapes what is considered “normal” or “acceptable” in society.

Example : Studying political campaign rhetoric to understand how candidates frame concepts like “leadership” or “patriotism.”

4. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

Critical discourse analysis examines language to reveal hidden power structures, social inequalities, and ideologies. CDA aims to expose biases or assumptions in language that may reinforce dominant social groups.

Example : Analyzing news articles about immigration to reveal subtle biases or stereotypes that reinforce negative perceptions of immigrants.

5. Historical Discourse Analysis

Historical discourse analysis investigates how language and discourse have evolved over time. It often involves comparing texts from different historical periods to see how societal attitudes or values have changed.

Example : Analyzing speeches on women’s rights from the 19th and 21st centuries to trace shifts in discourse on gender equality.

Examples of Discourse Analysis in Research

Objective : To study how political ideologies are expressed on social media.
Method : Critical discourse analysis of Twitter posts by politicians.
Findings : Identifying language patterns that reinforce group identities, promote specific ideologies, or frame political opponents.
Objective : To analyze media language surrounding a public health crisis.
Method : Content analysis of news articles about COVID-19.
Findings : Observing shifts in language from “pandemic” to “endemic” as public perception and understanding of the virus changed over time.
Objective : To understand how teachers discuss discipline and authority.
Method : Conversation analysis of interviews with teachers.
Findings : Revealing language patterns that indicate different approaches to authority and student interaction.
Objective : To study how advertisements construct consumer identities.
Method : Semiotic analysis of fashion magazine ads.
Findings : Observing how brands use images, colors, and language to create aspirational identities and lifestyles for consumers.

Writing Guide for Discourse Analysis

When writing about discourse analysis, it’s essential to clearly explain your methods, provide examples, and interpret findings within a social or cultural context. Here is a step-by-step guide for structuring a discourse analysis paper.

Step 1: Introduction

Introduce the topic and explain why discourse analysis is appropriate for the study. Present your research question and briefly describe the discourse (texts, conversations, or media) being analyzed.

Example : “This study examines the discourse surrounding remote work in corporate blogs, focusing on language that frames productivity, flexibility, and employee well-being.”

Step 2: Methodology

Describe the method used to conduct the discourse analysis. Specify whether you used critical discourse analysis, content analysis, conversation analysis, etc. Include details on data sources, sample selection, and analytic procedures.

Example : “The analysis includes 50 blog articles from major corporate websites, using content analysis to identify common themes and rhetorical strategies.”

Step 3: Data Analysis and Findings

Present the findings from your analysis. Highlight specific language patterns, themes, or structures you identified and provide examples from the discourse. Discuss the implications of these findings and relate them to the research question.

Example : “The term ‘work-life balance’ appeared in 70% of articles, often framed as a benefit of remote work. However, this framing sometimes conflicted with language emphasizing productivity, indicating a tension between flexibility and productivity expectations.”

Step 4: Discussion

Interpret the findings and explore their broader social, cultural, or political significance. Discuss how the discourse reflects or shapes social norms, beliefs, or identities. Consider whether the discourse maintains, challenges, or reshapes power dynamics.

Example : “The discourse on remote work both supports employee autonomy and subtly enforces productivity, suggesting that while companies endorse flexibility, they still prioritize high performance.”

Step 5: Conclusion

Summarize the main findings and implications of the study. Suggest directions for future research or ways in which the discourse may evolve over time.

Example : “This study highlights how corporate discourse on remote work constructs a dual narrative of flexibility and productivity, reflecting shifting expectations in modern workplaces. Future studies could explore how this discourse adapts to long-term changes in work culture.”

Tips for Effective Discourse Analysis

Define the Scope : Limit your analysis to specific texts, contexts, or themes to maintain focus.
Be Objective : Avoid imposing personal interpretations; let the language and patterns in the data guide your analysis.
Use Examples : Provide direct quotes or examples from your data to support your interpretations.
Acknowledge Limitations : Recognize any limitations, such as sample size or context, that might affect the analysis.
Relate to Broader Context : Discuss how the discourse reflects larger social, political, or cultural frameworks.

Discourse analysis offers a unique lens for understanding how language shapes and reflects social reality. By examining patterns, power dynamics, and cultural contexts, researchers can uncover the deeper meanings and implications of language in society. Whether through critical analysis, content analysis, or semiotic interpretation, discourse analysis provides invaluable insights into how language impacts our perceptions, behaviors, and social norms.

Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language . Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (2014). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method . Routledge.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2011). Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction . Sage Publications.
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2015). Methods of Critical Discourse Studies . Sage Publications.
Johnstone, B. (2018). Discourse Analysis . Wiley-Blackwell.

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Understanding Critical Discourse Analysis in Qualitative Research

This article explores critical discourse analysis as a theory in qualitative research. The framework of analysis includes analysis of texts, interactions and social practices at the local, institutional and societal levels. It aims at revealing the motivation and politics involved in the arguing for or against a specific research method, statement, or value. It draws on the necessity for describing, interpreting, analysing, and critiquing social life reflected in text by using critical discourse analysis. The article recognises that Human subjects use texts to make sense of their world and to construct social actions and relations in the labour of everyday life while at the same time, texts position and construct individuals, making available various meanings, ideas and versions of the world (Lucke 1996:12). Drawing from literature, this study will explore programmes, various forms of critical discourse analysis, principles as well as advantages and disadvantages of using this theor...

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Critical Discourse Analysis
Edited by: Lisa M. Given
In: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
Chapter DOI: https:// doi. org/10.4135/9781412963909.n80
Subject: Anthropology , Business and Management , Criminology and Criminal Justice , Communication and Media Studies , Counseling and Psychotherapy , Economics , Education , Geography , Health , History , Marketing , Nursing , Political Science and International Relations , Psychology , Social Policy and Public Policy , Social Work , Sociology
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Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a theoretical approach to studying the role of language in society that originated within linguistics but has found widespread application across the social sciences. The term is also sometimes used to refer only to the methodological framework of CDA that centers on the qualitative linguistic analysis of spoken or written texts.

Background and Key Tenets

CDA became known through the writings of a group of primarily European linguists during the late 1980s, most prominently Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, and Teun van Dijk. Similar but largely independent developments emerged in the United States around the same time through the work of James Paul Gee. The intellectual origins of CDA reach back to British and Australian critical linguistics of the 1970s that researched the intersection of discourse, ideology, and power. Critical linguists were greatly influenced by M. A. K. Halliday's systemic functional linguistics, which provides an important foundation for current CDA theory and methodology as well. Although the specific research areas and methods of analysis within CDA are by no means homogeneous, what unites all scholars engaged in CDA is a critical perspective that is geared toward examining the subtle ways in which unequal power relations are maintained and reproduced through language use. Many CDA scholars reject the idea that CDA is an established “school” or “paradigm” and prefer to characterize their work as an explicitly critical and political orientation to studying discourse.

The term discourse is generally understood to refer to any instance of signification, or meaning-making, whether through oral or written language or nonverbal means. In this sense, a dinner table conversation and a newspaper article on globalization are instances of discourse, and so is an advertisement in a fishing magazine, although most CDA analyses rely on written texts or transcripts of oral interactions as data. In CDA, discourse is assumed to be a central vehicle in the construction of social reality. Because different ways of using language are thought to produce different social outcomes, close attention to linguistic properties of texts can shed light on how different outcomes may come about. Most CDA research operates within a moderate version of social constructivism that acknowledges the enabling and constraining effects of existing structural arrangements.

CDA scholars also advocate situating linguistic investigations within social analysis. Their emphasis on interdisciplinarity has resulted in an engagement with a variety of theories outside of the linguistic canon, most often in sociology, cultural studies, and political economy. This fusion has entailed a significant expansion in the conceptual toolkit of the CDA analyst because the goal is no longer linguistic description but rather an understanding of how language-in-use (discourse) contributes to and reproduces social inequality. Concepts such as globalization, power, ideology, and hegemony often figure in CDA studies that attempt to capture the interconnections among discourse, power, and social organization.

Areas of Research and Application

Much of the early work within CDA targeted the political domain. This remains a very active line of research [Page 146] to date, and studies typically scrutinize speeches by key politicians or critique documents published by government agencies, institutions, or international organizations. Many scholars have engaged in researching and critiquing media texts from a CDA perspective, pointing to systematic biases and discriminatory tendencies in news reporting. Examining media images such as advertisements constitutes an important area of visual semiotics, a line of inquiry that has taken CDA tenets beyond the verbal realm. A considerable number of feminist researchers have relied on CDA to produce illuminating analyses of gender-based discriminatory practices in a variety of discourse genres. CDA has been widely applied within research in education, an area not only rife with social problems but also where discursive practices are central and salient. Recently, more CDA studies analyze face-to-face interaction, examining various service encounters or personal narratives produced in research interviews.

Major Theoretical Strands

In addition to methodological and conceptual diversity, CDA as a mode of investigation lacks a unitary theoretical framework, although it is by no means atheoretical. Norman Fairclough was one of the leading developers of CDA's theoretical grounding, and his writings have become standard reference points for many who pursue critical textual analysis. One of the theoretical challenges for CDA as a socially and politically sensitive model of language use has been to explicate the relationship between discourse and social formations while attending to the layered nature of social existence. Fairclough addressed this particular problem by advocating a three-tier organization of social life that is well known within the social sciences: Social events (micro level) are linked to social structures (macro level) by mediating social practices (meso level). Discourse is a part of all three levels; language is seen as a set of structural possibilities from which certain orders of discourse emerge at the level of social practices, which then influence the production and reception of discourse in social events. Importantly, discourse in this sense is not another social practice but rather a part of social practices. As such, it should be analyzed in conjunction with other social elements of events and practices such as material surroundings and participants and their social relationships.

A second theoretical strand within CDA concerns itself with the role of cognition in maintaining oppressive social practices and reproducing ideologies, and the works of Teun van Dijk and Paul Chilton are relevant in this regard. Cognition within CDA is always socially rooted and encompasses shared group norms, beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies. Researchers studying social cognition emphasize that individual or group discriminatory practices, such as acts of race-related violence or anti-immigrant legislation, need to be studied in conjunction with the social cognitions (attitudes and ideologies) that are necessary to produce and maintain them. Many scholars have studied metaphors as a discursive link that mediates between social cognition and social organization. Discourse constitutes an important arena because beliefs and norms are largely disseminated and reproduced through public means of communication, all of which are controlled by the elite. Through their privileged access to outlets of public discourse, elites play an instrumental role in the shaping of public opinion and the production and maintenance of discriminatory and biased beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies.

In their investigations of discriminatory discourses of various kinds, Ruth Wodak and her colleagues developed the discourse-historical approach as a critical mode of inquiry within the larger framework of CDA. Like most CDA research, discourse-historical studies are concerned with social critique through the in-depth analysis of hegemonic discursive practices within particular social domains, most notably politics. Discourse-historical investigations place special emphasis on studying diachronic changes in discourses as well as tracing intertextual connections among areas of social life as a necessary step to uncover how genres and discourse topics spread across time and social domains. Analyses are complex because researchers rely on multiple data sources (e.g., newspapers, legislative texts, individual narratives) to link text-internal analysis to sociohistorical context and draw on interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks for interpretation and explanation. Researchers working within this strand have identified systematic ways of using language to discursively construct sameness or difference (“us” vs. “them”) that are deployed in racist or nationalist discourses across contexts.

Methodological Principles

Given CDA's disciplinary roots in linguistics and the theoretical import attributed to language, linguistic (grammatical) analysis constitutes a core element of most CDA research. However, there is widespread variation among studies in this regard. Analyzing texts for grammatical structures requires some training in [Page 147] formal linguistics. Scholars who have taken up CDA vary greatly with regard to disciplinary orientation and background in linguistics, resulting in analyses that differ widely in their scope and detail to attention to linguistic properties of texts. Second, in every text, there is a multitude of potentially relevant discourse structures that could be examined so that a full analysis of any piece of discourse is impossible. Third, the type of data used will, to some extent, determine the type of linguistic properties that can be examined. For instance, although a politician's speech may be studied for the intonation patterns and phonetic features he or she employs, such analysis is clearly impossible when one is dealing with newspaper articles.

In line with CDA's explicit commitment to furthering social justice, most investigations start by identifying a social problem that has a discursive aspect. Often the social problem under scrutiny involves some form of systematic oppression or marginalization of particular groups by a dominant group such as racism or nationalism. Studies focus on the discursive manifestations of (hegemonic) oppression within a particular network of practices such as education or the media. The specific social domain will also partly determine what kinds of data are to be analyzed. Studies looking at media representations of minority groups may examine newspaper articles, transcripts of television debates, and/or radio interviews. If the locus of interest lies in the discursive exclusion of immigrant children in mainstream classrooms, the researcher may record class interaction and conduct interviews with teachers. There are no rules for how much data are enough; that decision will depend on the scope of the research project. Analysts can choose to look at how a particular event is reported in several newspapers, compare two textbooks for ideological content, or critically examine a single political debate. Ideally, CDA research is conducted within an ethnographic framework or involves a thorough description of the institutional framework in which the given social practice is embedded. The ultimate goal of analysis is to identify ways of resisting or changing oppressive discursive practices, although this objective often receives only modest attention.

Regarding the analytic procedures of CDA, texts can be examined for a number of properties that are thought to contribute to their ideological shaping. When researching how certain people or events are discursively represented, for instance, one can examine how agentic or salient they appear in a text. One way of doing that is to analyze the grammatical role in which a person is placed (e.g., actor, affected) or whether a person appears as a named individual (e.g., Mr. Brown), as a member of a group (e.g., a policeman), or as a collective (e.g., the police). One can also look at the types of processes that are associated with particular people and look for any patterned differences. In a newspaper article, for example, who typically appears as agents of activities that have negative connotations? A researcher may choose to concentrate on analyzing the argumentation structure of a text and its rhetorical effects. This may entail looking at how clauses and sentences are linked through causal, contrastive, or other relations. The text may also be analyzed with regard to the source of legitimation the author uses to support points and claims (e.g., personal narrative, reference to authority), and an examination of modality (e.g., modal verbs, hedges) can shed light on whether the information is conveyed as a fact, a possibility, or an opinion. Studies that look at conversational interaction will have additional analytic dimensions such as turn taking, interruptions, and the role of nonverbal cues.

Critical Assessments

Critical discourse analysis has gained currency and legitimacy across many disciplines in the social sciences and, due partly to its popularity, has also become the target of substantial scholarly critique. Probably the most serious critique has questioned the assumptions of CDA research regarding the relationship between linguistic form and social function. It is a problem of circularity; CDA claims that no linguistic form has intrinsic ideological function, yet analysts are able to “read off” the manipulative intent of texts. Many critics have also raised the point that, given the analyst's a priori critical and political stance, the analyst is likely to find what he or she is looking for in a text. This also relates to charges against a lack of methodological rigor in data selection/elicitation and analysis that leaves too much room for researcher bias to guide the research process. Finally, a preference for structural and ideological critique within CDA has precluded analyses that highlight the creative power of language that enables people to resist or subvert powerful discourses. Clearly, CDA scholars will need to continue engaging with these critical issues, especially if CDA is to maintain its appeal as a cross-disciplinary framework and advance both theoretically and methodologically.

Discourse Analysis
Textual Analysis

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Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples

Critical Discourse Analysis | Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on 5 May 2022 by Amy Luo . Revised on 5 December 2022.

Discourse analysis is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real-life situations.

When you do discourse analysis, you might focus on:

The purposes and effects of different types of language
Cultural rules and conventions in communication
How values, beliefs, and assumptions are communicated
How language use relates to its social, political, and historical context

Discourse analysis is a common qualitative research method in many humanities and social science disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies. It is also called critical discourse analysis.

What is discourse analysis used for, how is discourse analysis different from other methods, how to conduct discourse analysis.

Conducting discourse analysis means examining how language functions and how meaning is created in different social contexts. It can be applied to any instance of written or oral language, as well as non-verbal aspects of communication, such as tone and gestures.

Materials that are suitable for discourse analysis include:

Books, newspapers, and periodicals
Marketing material, such as brochures and advertisements
Business and government documents
Websites, forums, social media posts, and comments
Interviews and conversations

By analysing these types of discourse, researchers aim to gain an understanding of social groups and how they communicate.

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Unlike linguistic approaches that focus only on the rules of language use, discourse analysis emphasises the contextual meaning of language.

It focuses on the social aspects of communication and the ways people use language to achieve specific effects (e.g., to build trust, to create doubt, to evoke emotions, or to manage conflict).

Instead of focusing on smaller units of language, such as sounds, words, or phrases, discourse analysis is used to study larger chunks of language, such as entire conversations, texts, or collections of texts. The selected sources can be analysed on multiple levels.

Discourse analysis is a qualitative and interpretive method of analysing texts (in contrast to more systematic methods like content analysis ). You make interpretations based on both the details of the material itself and on contextual knowledge.

There are many different approaches and techniques you can use to conduct discourse analysis, but the steps below outline the basic structure you need to follow.

Step 1: Define the research question and select the content of analysis

To do discourse analysis, you begin with a clearly defined research question . Once you have developed your question, select a range of material that is appropriate to answer it.

Discourse analysis is a method that can be applied both to large volumes of material and to smaller samples, depending on the aims and timescale of your research.

Step 2: Gather information and theory on the context

Next, you must establish the social and historical context in which the material was produced and intended to be received. Gather factual details of when and where the content was created, who the author is, who published it, and whom it was disseminated to.

As well as understanding the real-life context of the discourse, you can also conduct a literature review on the topic and construct a theoretical framework to guide your analysis.

Step 3: Analyse the content for themes and patterns

This step involves closely examining various elements of the material – such as words, sentences, paragraphs, and overall structure – and relating them to attributes, themes, and patterns relevant to your research question.

Step 4: Review your results and draw conclusions

Once you have assigned particular attributes to elements of the material, reflect on your results to examine the function and meaning of the language used. Here, you will consider your analysis in relation to the broader context that you established earlier to draw conclusions that answer your research question.

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Understanding Critical Discourse Analysis in Qualitative Research
In linguistics, qualitative method encompasses discourse analysis and content analysis of linguistic structures or phenomena in specific contexts (Tebogo, 2014). This research is valuable for ...
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discourse analysis (or discourse analysis) is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used in real life situations. ... Discourse analysis is a common qualitative research method in many humanities and social science disciplines, ...
Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is a qualitative research method used to analyze language in texts, conversations, or social contexts to understand meaning, power dynamics, and social constructs. ... Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Routledge. Gee, J. P. (2014). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. Routledge.
Critical discourse analysis and critical qualitative inquiry: data
This manuscript describes an approach to critical qualitative data analysis that combines (1) Carspecken's critical qualitative methodological framework with (2) the conceptual resources of critical discourse analysis (CDA), as framed by Fairclough and colleagues.
Understanding Critical Discourse Analysis in Qualitative Research
McGregor (2003:2) argues that given the power of the written and spoken word, critical International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE) Page 105 Understanding Critical Discourse Analysis in Qualitative Research discourse analysis is necessary for describing, interpreting, analysing and critiquing social life reflected ...
Sage Research Methods
Qualitative research is designed to explore the human elements of a given topic, while specific qualitative methods examine how individuals see and experienc. Skip to main content Browse By Tools Free Trial Sign in: Sign in to my profile ... Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a theoretical approach to studying the role of language in society ...
A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for Educational Research
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a qualitative analytical approach for critically describing, interpreting, and explaining the ways in which discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities. CDA rests on the notion that the way we use language is purposeful, regardless of whether discursive choices are conscious or ...
PDF Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Qualitative Inquiry: Data
critical discourse analysis and in the methodological literature on applying critical qualitative methods in education research, these literatures have not focused on how we as researchers might use the conceptual connections between the two in data analysis, as called for by
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discourse analysis is a qualitative research method for studying language in relation to its social context. It aims to understand how language is used to achieve specific effects and to reveal ideological associations, formality, and euphemistic content.
PDF A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for Educational Research
This article presents a general critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework and illustrates its application to a literature review of CDA studies in education. CDA is a qualitative approach that examines how discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities.