[2] In this sense, it differs from discourse analysis in that it highlights issues of power asymmetries, manipulation, exploitation, and structural inequities in domains such as education, media, and politics.
[3] Critical discourse analysis emerged from 'critical linguistics' developed at the University of East Anglia by Roger Fowler and fellow scholars in the 1970s, and the terms are now often interchangeable.
This is on the condition that it is able to adequately and relevantly produce insights into the way discourse reproduces (or resists) social and political inequality, power abuse or domination.
Her book "Courts and Judges on Trial: Analysing and Managing Discourses of Disapproval" showed a strong connection between political manipulation of media to encourage "tougher sentencing" while at the same time refraining from changing legislation to ensure that it happens.
[clarification needed] The meso-level or "level of discursive practice" involves studying issues of production and consumption, for instance, which institution produced a text, who is the target audience, etc.
[18] Ruth Wodak has developed a framework based on the systemic collection of sample texts on a topic to better understand the interrelationship of discourses that exist within the field.
The macro level of analysis is helpful in understanding how macro-structures of inequality persist through discursive processes across multiple sites and texts.
[21][22][23][24] Notable writers include Norman Fairclough, Michał Krzyżanowski, Paul Chilton, Teun A. van Dijk, Ruth Wodak, Martin Reisigl [de], John E. Richardson, Phil Graham, Theo Van Leeuwen, Siegfried Jäger [de], Christina Schäffner [de], James Paul Gee, Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress, Mary Talbot, Lilie Chouliaraki, Thomas Huckin, Hilary Janks, Veronika Koller, Christopher Hart, Bob Hodge, and William Feighery.