Deconstructing Discourse within a Discourse: an Inter-Textual Aspect on Blogging

Abstract

The ability of the participants to perceive situations around them and bring in various resources to reinforce their belief and opinions, illustrates how an individual’s awareness builds up certain ideologies. This study involves a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the comments of various respondents on the issues being discussed in the Yahoo! News articles, using Appraisal as a tool in the analysis. The analysis found, various attitudes through language use. Also, different stances from respondents are used to refute or agree with someone else’s comments by using ‘direct quotations’, ‘direct reference’, ‘unreferenced sources’ as well as ‘hypothetical text’ that respondents obtain from various resources. These devices determine the inter-textual aspect of blogging which contribute to a continuing flow of discussion. This sometimes leads to the agreement or argumentation with the previous respondents and often shapes the individual’s ideology.