The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA)

Abstract

We start our chapter by introducing the notions of ‘critique’,‘ideology’ and ‘power’. These three concepts are constitutive for every approach in CDA, albeit frequently employed with different meanings.Therefore, it is important to clarify how they are conceptualized in the DHA.We then proceed with the delineation of other terms significant for our purposes, such as ‘discourse’, ‘genre’, ‘text’, ‘recontextualization’, ‘intertextuality’ and ‘interdiscursivity’. The second section summarizes some analytical tools and general principles of the DHA, while in the third section, we illustrate our methodology step by step by focusing on ‘discourses about climate change’. In the final section, we discuss the strengths and limitations of the DHA and point to future challenges for the field.