Dear Jim,

important question , ubiquitous and equivocal indeed. 

In my opinion , the question of circularity is a threadbare hackneyed argument leveled against literally any idea, framework or school of thought,

it is a cliche simplistic technique to  question the validity of any phenomenon including Critical Discourse Analysis,

circularity  could be a discursive practice used by scholars  to  appear philosophically sophisticated and erudite , ( which is itself an obfuscation )   ,

Into the bargain,  It is a platitude that any language or discourse could be ideologically or emotionally charged. 

What's more, all theories and paradigms are susceptible to the likelihood of turning into an institution or instrument of power itself ironically , does it signify that even movements like women's rights, human rights, disenfranchised marginalized rights movements  are themselves  manipulative and counterproductive ? Isn't this another '' circularity ''? 

this is the Achilles's Heel of all human struggles and aspirations , CDA is not immune to it either. Hence,  appealing to it as a rhetorical argument is a blatant fallacy in itself. 

, another chicken-or-egg  conundrum targeting the venerability and justifiability  of a movement which aims at creation of consciousness and awareness against production, dissemination and naturalization oppressive  suppresive  ideologies . 

At the end of the day , nothing is impeccable ,  aside from the   Immaculate Conception ! 

Dear Jim Dooher,

I believe you have broached up a very important question and ignoring the problem wouldl be closing our eyes to a fact that exists and must be answered, as you have rightly observed yourself. The main culprit highlighting the issue of circularity stems from the kind of  methodological perspectivization which is often  adopted for addressing  the link between micro-analysis of text and macro-analysis of social institutions and power relations (see Luke, 2002). Critiques like stubbs (1997) are correct to say that a one-dimensional consideration of CDA advocated by Fairclough and Wodak (1997)on the one hand, and by Van Dijk ( 1993) and  Gee(2005) on the other, leads to circularity because both approaches fail to provide  systematic comparisons existing between texts and the norm in language, which they try to investigate( see also Widdowson, 1995; Toolan, 2002 )In point of fact, as Stubbs (1997) maintains, "language and thought (ideology) can only be related if and only if the targeted data and theory are pertinent to both; otherwise, the theory is circular" (p.100).

To get out of such circularity, CDA analysts should find specific ways to offer non linguistic evidence for the patterns of beliefs and behaviors underlying individuals' language use and their views of reality.

Thank you for your insightful question and good luck.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Rahimi Ali and Reza Biria

Oh dear I think I “in over my head” now. But thank you both for your prompt replies.

As I understand this at the moment, language is as material an entity, as any other material entity. As such, and regardless of its complexity and relationship to thought, (also material) it is still material and subject to the same general laws as any other material entity.

If ‘we’ can use stone to shape stone axes and thoughts to shape other thought etc., why not use language to shape language?

While this (my own view) ‘feels’ a bit simplistic to me, I can’t find another way of dealing with it at the moment.

My dissertation is calling so I will have to delay any further reply for a week or so.

Thanks again.

The solution has tended to be reflexivity, which is how one escapes any subjectively closed circle.  if you google Fairclough reflexivity on scholar.google.com, you'll find several papers that are citable that take one perspective or another on helping to solve the issue.