UNIVERSITY OF SINDH.

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

SUBJECT

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS. CDA of the lesson The Inheritors taken from SSC Part II an example of injustice, dominance and abuse of power.

ASSIGNMENT TOPIC :

PRESENTED TO PRESENTED BY

: :

Honorable Dr: Faraz Ali Bughyo. Assadullah Mahar. MPhil. Student. University of Sindh Jamshoro.

LIST OF CONTENTS

Abstract: Introduction: Analysis of the chapter. Family power structure. Conclusion. Literature review.

Critical Discourse Analysis of the lesson The Inheritors taken from the text book of SSC Book II published by Sindh Text Book Board Jamshoro. ABSTRACT: New trends in education nowadays are focusing on developing critical thinking skills. Fisher (2001, p.1) asserts that "in recent years critical thinking has become something of a buzz word in educational circles". Students at secondary school level are mature enough; this stage of the students is regarded as a critical stage of language learning according to linguists. So the teacher must teach, keeping in mind the approach of CDA because teaching thinking skills to the students is of a greater importance in the opinion of modern educationist. Therefore the chapter "The Inheritors" taken from the text book of class Xth, prescribed for the public sector schools of Sindh has been chosen for critical discourse analysis as an example of injustice, inequality and dominance. Though the theme in this chapter is apparent nothing is hidden but here we see the theme of the lesson in context with such social pressing issues. Such sort of injistice is committed in famlies where one is weaker and other is stronger. We see this injutice from the family power structure for which critical discourse analysis is specifically interested in power abuse injustice inequality and dominance. Such picture is presented in this lesson. It reveals, how a younger brother is being cheated by the elder one. After the death of their poor father Azam the elder brother who was clever and cunning and the Mozam the younger brother was simple and trusting. Azam with the consent of younger brother decided to divide the property inherited to them by their late father which was consisted on a cow, a date-palm tree and a blanket. Division was made in such a biased way that Azam made the most of all the three things and Mozam had no use and advantage either of them. Till the old and genius man of the village happened to take notice of the situation and gave the younger brother some pieces of advice to act upon. At last when younger brother applied the tecniques suggtted to him by an old man. In the result whole scenario was changed t into fair and just division. Then Mozam could avail the advantage of his property. This story is a mirror of the society's dark side and this piece of assignment will certainly throw light on such kind of injustice.

Key words: Injustice- Front part of the cow, Rear part of the cow, Top of the date palm tree, Trunk. INTRODUCTION: Critical discourse analysis is a form of discourse analysis that studies the relationship between discourse and ideology that studies the relationship (a set of beliefs attitudes and behaviors that constitute a perspective on the world). It focuses on critiquing social injustice and has strong link to the study of language and power. Most critical discourse analysts approach a text with a political goal or agenda of some kind and are often advocate for social justice and social change, seeking to show how a text could be biased towards a particular ideology. In this sense conversation based on bias is used by elder brother who shows one side of the fact that seems advantageous apparently for younger brother. For example, the front part of cow, which is the better part, shall be yours while the rear part shall be mine. Through the approach of CDA we can clearly mark here that the front part, described as better part by elder brother, underlying hidden intention front part is definitely a better but the usefulness of rear part is concealed in the discourse. We see front part of the cow, even being better can not be beneficial for younger brother as compare to rear part. For this purpose critical discourse analysis can be used to analyze text covering a wide rang of topics for example racism, sexism homophobia politics, immigration crime and many more the reasons why critical discourse analysts study these topics is usually political motivated almost any text although usually articles) written about these topics can be analyzed using CDA as journalists constructing these texts have to make a number of decisions in how an ideology will be represented. For example, choices of who to take quotes from, terms used to name someone, what perspective the text is written from, what strategies are used etc. can all have an impact on the ideology that the text portrays overall. In our practical life, we find to read many books, articles, magazines, news papers and we watch and listen to media, radios, televisions, films and much more. Through these sources, knowledge, information, education experience and message conveyed to us by writer or speaker can only be perceived from all dimensions through the approach of CDA. It must be included in the priorities and responsibilities of best teacher to develop among the students critical thinking so that student may become more aware of authors hidden intensions and do not accept as a general truth every thing they read in the

newspapers and watch on the media. Here again we relate this fact with the story of the lesson. If we compare the character of Mozam with a student we can observe that, this student had not critical thinking to interpret the conversation used by Azam. That's why he was cheated for the time being. So the emphasis on developing critical thinking of students would surely mean to face future challenges which would be helpful not only in the academic carrier but in their social life too. In addition to this CDA emphasizes the importance of studying texts in their full social and historical context. Critical discourse analysts generally agree that there are three levels of discourse context: Macro, Meso and Micro. At the macro level. the analysis of context assesses the relationship between the text and broader social processes and ideologies: for example what social issues are of particular importance at the time the text was created. At the meso level, analysis focus on the context of production and reception of the text: where was the text made ? Who was it written by? What perspective might this person want to promote? What kind of person might read this text? etc. Finally, the micro level of discourse context simply looks at what is actually being said in the text, and what linguistic features and devices are being used to depict an idea. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE LESSON. A: Secondary stage English book for class X is published by Sindh text book board Jamshoro. The chapter 17 on pages no 65, is The Inheritors written by M.A Usmani and his team. Type of the lesson is conversational and dialoged based text with some simple prose style statements. Simple vocabulary and conversation is taken from daily life routine. Composition is simple and effective. For enhancing speaking skill of the students this lesson is a good choice included in the syllabus. On the other hand rest of lessons in the text book is in plain prose style and poetry is also added in the text book. Moreover at this stage of secondary level, students need correct usage of narrations, active and passive verbs which are used in an effective manner. Therefore this lesson is called a best selection for the students and the story of this lesson is appealing, with rural life scenario. It is interesting for the both, students belonging to rural as well as urban areas.

Here are the actual dialogues spoken between two brothers we can see how the division is made between them. B: First part of actual conversation between Azam and Mozam. Azam suggested that they should divide the property left by their late father. How shall we divide the cow, for instance cut it in to two? No stupid! answered Azam We shall divide it verbally. For instance, the front part of the cow. Which is better part, shall be yours while the rear part shall be mine. Agreed? Oh yes thank you very much. Mozam was delighted with the generosity of his elder brother. Similarly, the top of the date-palm tree, which you cannot climb, shall be mine while the lower part, thats the trunk, shall be yours, Agreed? Yes agreed. Answered Moazam cheerfully. And what about the blanket? It shall be mine only from sunset to sunrise that is only during the night. It shall be yours for the whole day. Agreed. Said Moazzam, thinking happily that it was a fair division. Analysis: Now Azam would feed the cow and Mozam would milk it. He would not give a drop of milk to Mozam . Instead he would praise him for looking after the cow that pleased younger brother. In the same manner Moazam regularly watered the date palm tree and at the season when dates were ripe for picking Azam picked all the fruit and would never offer a single date to his brother. As regards the blanket Mozam had no use of it during the day time and at nigh he would shiver and Azam enjoyed the sound sleep under warn blanket. This went on for some time and when Mozam acted according to the advice of an old man then the division was changed into a fair one. We explore here it was the discourse used by Azam and it was his art of presenting the facts in such a manner that inspite of, in being apparent loss and injustice Mozam had to agree with joy. As an elder brother it was his dominance that cheated younger brother. Through words and sentences used in polite manner Azam produced dominance through discourse ultimately manipulated the mind of his brother. That's why Moazzam thought it to be a fair division but the hidden intension of Azam behind the division was based on

greed. The Mozam having the shallow wit, could not judge how the front part of the cow, even being better, can be beneficial for him and what could be the use of trunk for him as compare to top of the date palm tree. Definitely he might have thought the top of the date-palm tree was difficult to climb as it was described before him by Azam . Again it was the case of blanket which has no use in day time but Azam produced one side of the facts before him which seemed useless for Mozam. But facts were produced before him tactfully as if those were useful. So it was what we call it abuse of power and injustice. We all have such close observations and examples in such blood and intimate relations in our society which is full of injustice and inequality. C: Second part of the actual conversation. Next morning as usual Azam began to milk the cow. Mozam also came with a short stick, and hit the cows head. The cow moved this way and that. Stop it, shouted Azam. Dont you see I am milking the cow? Dont disturb her. Im only hitting the front part which is mine, said Mozam, I shall do what I like with my part of the cow. Azam was a clever boy, so he guessed that somebody had advised Moazam to that. All right, I shall give you half the milk and, now, stop beating the cow. And you must also share in the feeding of the cow. Said Mozam, and Azam had to agree to this. After few days. "Hey What are doing? shouted Azam, Dont you see Im up here picking dates? Im only cutting my part of the tree, said Mozam, and went on cutting. I shall give you half of the dates, but you must stop cutting the tree, called out Azam. And you must also share in the watering of the tree, Shouted Mozam, and Azam had to agree to this too. The same night, when Azam came to take the blanket, he found that it was wet. What have you done with the blanket? He asked. How can I sleep under it? I dont know, answered Mozam innocently. Its mine during the day-time, and I can do with it what I please. Very well, dear brother from tomorrow night we shall share the blanket, said Azam. We shall sleep together and shall be more comfortable.

ANALYSIS: Here in this section the nature of withdrawal from an agreement is shown, what was decided between two brothers it was all according to verbal agreement between them. Mozam realizing the fact that it was injustice and exploitation of his right. He was helpless and could not do any thing regarding this. On the suggestion of an old man what he did it was not fair. If a person is milking the cow, to disturb her by hitting with stick is definitely a wrong deed. If someone is up on the top of date-palm tree, cutting the trunk of the tree with stick is cruel and dangerous for someones life. Making someones wet so that one can not sleep under it during the night is also a unfair treatment. These are the actions apparently unfair but as we finds hidden intention behind them to reach a fair conclusion what was ultimately achieved. The way Mozam chose was immoral and a kind of blackmailing but it was the reaction of injustice. Such attitudes are developed from injustices. When someone is deprived from the right, the way to get some thing back one chooses, without caring for right or wrong. FAMILY POWER STRUCTURE. In this story the injustice is committed in a family environment and it is a result of a family power structure. It is therefore necessary to discuss family power structure. In my opinion family is a small social unit of society where genders male, female and different age level members children young and old live together. The home is also called the first school of human, where physical and moral development of human takes place. In the management of house parents are mostly responsible to provide all necessities and amenities of life i.e. food, shelter, medicine, education etc. Parents are independent while children are dependant. Mostly mother is also dependant and her job is inside home to do house hold works and she is considered to be an important part of maintaining social status and fostering appropriate morals and habits in their children. Father earns outside home. (Henrick Ibsen) suggests that a woman can not be herself in modern society. It is exclusively male society with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine stand point. Hence in these relations of father and mother, husband and wife, brother and sister we see gender discrimination mostly in restricted societies, father is more powerful and mother is weaker one. In these conjugal relations of father and mother, husband and

wife, underlying injustice, inequality, dominance and male treatment is sometimes committed on the basis of these vices and take these relations to mutual mental stress and torture which affect badly the peaceful atmosphere of home. When husband, being male exercises the power over wife and bans over the independence of wife and sometimes is deprived even of her fundamental right. But hopefully awareness and education regarding the rights of woman, changes the minds of man, in the result society changes with fast speed towards a balanced society. In my opinion this is also a kind of dominance when elder of the family expects respect and obedience in excess younkers are afraid of his/ her stubborn nature to express feelings and emotions before him/her. Especially in joint family system equal treatment to all the members of the family is a challenge. Injustice on the basis of age and gender discrimination, in the same family sometimes take mental stress, and the complex of superiority and inferiority leads to the ego and misunderstanding. In such cases no one cares for other and not ready to realize the mistake of his/her own but blames other, dominance is observed and influence is exercised. In this state of anger feelings run high, these blood ties are near to break or sometimes broken not only broken but turn in to fatal enmity and killings. Reasons for these differences and hatred in these blood relations are mostly trifle, based on misunderstandings. But sometimes major disputes created from the property matters, leads to hatred, breach of ties, court rooms. Azam and Mozam as the representative characters of the society. Azam as a powerfrul while Moazam as a weaker one represent two classes of society. Elite and poor class. First class enjoys all the amenities of life, having easy access to all sources education, health, security. They make the most of car bungalows servants, name and fame. Even though this class is in shorter in number but is the richest in wealth which consists on politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, landlords, smugglers; drug mafia, land and mafia. They have permanent monopoly over the resources of country. Major part of this class exercises influence and dominance over the poor. The poor class who hardly manages food, shelter, education and medicine, is always unprotected in the state of uncertainty even some of them are below the line of poverty and leads pitiable life. In making balanced society relation between landlord and farmer should be based on equality. Relations between employer and employee, master and servant should be that of self respect. The rich may develop generous, sympathetic and

co-operative attitude towards the poor. Equal opportunities may be given to all the people in national resources without gender, racial, ethnic, religious and sectarian discrimination and prejudice. Here we overview some following relevant study: GENDER: On the basis of we have abundance of research. With regard to the maintenance of hierarchy man and women hold different roles through out the world. Ubiquitously, men serve as military leaders and hold leadership roles in religious, social political and cultural spheres (e.g., Brown, 1991, pp. 110, 137). Moreover, men hold more hierarchy-enhancing attitudes, such as support for ethnic prejudice, racism, capitalism, and right wing political parties than do women (e.g., Avery , 1988; Eisler & Love , 1983: Ekehammar & Sidanius , 1982: Shapiro & Mahajan , 1986: Sidanius & Ekehammar , 1980: see review by Sidnius Cling, & Pratto , 1991 ). On the basis of these general societal patterns, It has been predicted and shown that, on average men are more social dominance-oriented than women (see Pratto, Sidanius, & Stallworth , 1993: Sidanius, Pratto, & Babo,in press). This hypothesis was tested with the measure of social dominance orientation SDO developed in the present research. Legitimizing Myths ETHNIC PREJUDICE One of the major kinds of ideology concerning relative group status is ethnic prejudice. In the United States, the most long- standing and widely disseminated version of ethnic prejudice is anti-Black racism. Therefore, we predicted that SDO would be strongly related to anti-Black racism in the present U.S. samples. In the United States a theoretical and empirical debate about how best to measure anti-Black racism has been con-ducted for some time (e.g.: see Babo,1983: Mc Conahay, 19 86: Sears, 1988; Sniderman & Tetlock , 1986a, 1986b). Social dominance theory merely postulates that SDO should predict what ever ideologies are potent within the culture at the time of measurement. From our theoretical view point, it does not matter whether the basis of racism is fairness (e.g. Kluegel and smith 1986), genetic or biblical racial inferiorities theories, symbolic racism (e.g. Sears 1988) or family pathology (e.g. Movinhan 1965). Any potent ideology that describes groups as unequal and has policy

implications is a legitimizing myth and should therefore, correlate with SDO During the period the present research was conducted, and America was engaged in a war against Iraq, so it was also measured anti- Arab racism and expected it to correlate with SDO. NATIONALISM A more general kind of in-group prejudice that can occur in nation -states is nationalism, chauvinism or patriotism. Koster-man and Feshbach (1989) suggested that pro country feelings (patriotism) can be distinguished from comparative prejudice, that ones country is better than other countries (nationalism) and as such should dominate other countries (chauvinism).Even so, all three reflect attitudinal bias in favor of the national in-group, and thus it is postulated that patriotism, nationalism, and chauvinism would all be significantly related to CDA. CULTURE ELITISMS All societies share the idea that one of the defining features of those who belong to their society ( are part of the in-group or are considered by them to be human) is that they are "cultured." in some societies including English and American society in elitists ideology built on the cultured-not cultured distinction postulates that the elite class has "culture" not shared by middle and working-class people and is therefore more deserving of the "finer things in life" we term this legitimizing myth culture elitism, and it was expected it to correlate with CDO as well. CONCLUSION. Historically, CDA was to study everyday practices and social interactions within distinct settings including asylums, hospitals and social interactions within distinct setting including asylums, hospitals, and prisons (Gubrium and Holstein,2000) Current applications of CDA have evolved to include more open settings. One interesting and impressive example of CDA is captured in Suzanne Smythes research for her doctoral dissertation "The good mother: A critical discourse analysis of literacy advice to mothers in the 20th century" (2006). From this I conclude my ideas that as it is said seeing is not believing so blind faith in the people, or without exploring the facts mostly leads to loss. Without pondering over one can not differentiate between right or wrong. In this regard study of CDA develops critical thinking, enables us to explore social issues, injustice abuse of power, exploitation of rights. So the injustice shown in

the story of the chapter The Inheritors is taken as an example of such injustice and deception which leads us to different social pressing issues. LITERATURE REVIEW. In going through the literature related to family power structure we find abundance of research in the US and abroad but lack of conceptual and methodological sophistication. In United States the major studies published are those by Blood (1963.967) and Blood and Wolfe (1960) those by Kenkel (1961.1968) and those by Wilkening and associates Wilkeniong and Morrison. Wilkenning and Bharadwaj, (1966).In addition, a variety of studies have been made assessing the decision making pattern in different types of American families. Inspite of the fact huge studies are found on family power structure it is impossible task to describe, unless he is willing settle for just one major study. Actually, many family sociologist have done this, mainly by relying on the findings of Blood and Wolfe.(1960) not only have they settled for one study but also for one family members perception of power structure the wife's and perpetuate a wives' family sociology. (Safilios Roths1969). Most investigators in this area have used interchangeably the terms "family power" or power structure and the terms "decision making", family authority and influence. Some investigators have defined one of these terms in the way that another term has been defined by another author. Thus some investigators (Hill. 1965. Burie and Zeceive, 1987), identity decision making with " maritial authority pattern": others, while they only measure decision making, use the term decision making power or power structure, "decision authority" and "authority" practically interchangeable without making distinctions between them (Michael 1967 Stailifos- Roaths-child) in more clinical studies using some kind of observational technique, other power dimensions were often tapped and power was differently defined. For example both Straus (1964) and Mishler and (Waxler 1938) defined power as the ability to influence or control others' behaviors. David M. Heer. American family, research on decision making was conspicuous by its absence. The reason for this neglect is not completely clear: it may have reflected a fear to inquire into the power structure of American family was to deny the ideology of romance love which insists that for the happy married pair the only concern of the each is the welfare of other.

David. M. Heer. (1963). Existing studies regarding the measurement of family power have emphasis mainly on measuring the relative influence of husband and wife but lack of attention is found regarding all other family members. Therefore it can be believed that the power of children in family decision making can be ignored. For many purposes this may be a good assumption that it is not entirely true will be apparent to all parents who have dealt with a willful child.

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