Representational choices of social actors in letters of application

Abstract

This paper is written from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a field that is concerned with the study and analysis of written and spoken texts to reveal the sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias (see eg. Van Dijk 1998). One of its strengths lies in its potential for making transparent the connections between discourse practices, social practices and social structures. The present paper aims at highlighting how (a) social actor(s) is (are) created, maintained and/or developed in the discourse practice corresponding to letters of application. The characteristics of the discourse community, the institutional function of the genre will influence the dynamic unfolding of the representation of social actors throughout the text construction. Approaching this study from the field of Critical Discourse Analysis allows for a focus on the text both constitutive of a discourse practice and revealing the traces of both the social and ideological practice.