The ability to critically analyze is very important for a person. In practice, this ability, when used in a timely manner, significantly saves time and prevents rash acts that can only aggravate the situation, and helps to unravel the tangle of causes and effects. However, critical analysis is a rather capacious concept. It is useful not only for detectives, but also applicable, perhaps, to all areas of human life. With its features and principles of work, we will try to figure it out.
What?
The concept of “critical analysis” appeared much later than its practice. Even the ancient philosophers Aristotle, Socrates used his principles in their writings, research. A general classical definition of critical analysis can be called an assessment of the merits and demerits of certain provisions, conclusions and ideas based on their correlation with their own ideas or other theories and teachings that have proved their worth and effectiveness.
When interpreting the analyzed material, an honest and unbiased approach is required. Therefore, the main criteria here are objectivity and comprehensive consideration.
goal
What is critical analysis for? Each study (scientific or practical) has specific tasks. In this case, to analyze critically means to check these problems for the quality of the solution, and also, using evidence, to confirm or refute the correctness of one's own or another's hypothesis.
From a personal point of view, critical analysis helps to develop critical thinking, contributes to the formation of one's own reasoned opinion, increases cognitive activity, broadens one's horizons. Its foundations are often laid back in the school period and are developed in universities.
Methods
The critical analysis method implies a way to achieve the goal. It can be deductive and inductive. In the first case, the analysis of the situation develops from general to particular. That is, the researcher first puts forward a hypothesis, or an axiom. Then, from a general statement, the train of thought is directed to the corollary, or theorem. This is a private link. The simplest example of such a method might be the following:
- Man is mortal.
- Mozart is a man.
- Conclusion: Mozart is mortal.
In contrast to deduction, an inductive method was created. Here, a critical analysis develops, on the contrary, from the particular to the general. The path to the conclusion is not built using logic, but rather through certain psychological, mathematical or factual representations. Distinguish between full and incomplete induction.
In the first case, the analysis is aimed at proving the statement for the minimum number of particularities that exhaust all the probabilities. Another option monitors individual cases-consequences and reduces them to a general conclusion (hypothesis, reason), which requires evidence. Cause and effect are the main elements on which critical analysis is based. An example of the inductive method can be observed in a series of detective stories by C. Doyle about "Sherlock Holmes". Although the author himself mistakenly calls the detective's method deduction:
- Man N has poison.
- Man N is confused in the testimony.
- Person N has no alibi at the time of the crime.
- Therefore, man N is a killer.
The founder of pragmatism, C. S. Piers, also considered the third type of reasoning as a method of critical analysis - abduction. In other words, this is the cognitive acceptance of hypotheses, used to discover theoretical laws. At first, all concepts are abstract, not confirmed by experience. The path to the conclusion goes through a system of assumptions (hypotheses), verified by logical conclusions:
- Package: People are mortal.
- Conclusion: Mozart is mortal.
- Therefore, Mozart is a man (missing link).
Structure and types
The structure of the critical analysis is a clear algorithm of actions, usually due to logical relationships:
- First, the researcher needs to get acquainted with the picture of phenomena, idea, position. From this material it is necessary to free the main idea.
- You can decompose the situation into several key points and abstractly depict the material as separate elements.
- For each item, it is necessary to form your own vision, opinion, etc.
- At the next stage, it is necessary to confirm your own interpretation, to summarize the above theses.
An important point! To prove their hypotheses, it is possible and even necessary to use external sources: analogy examples,
conceptual apparatus, citations, documents. All this will only confirm the objectivity and comprehensiveness of the study.
A significant role in building conclusions is played by the materials themselves, situations or phenomena for which a critical analysis is created. His views may affect the scientific, social, political, practical sphere and the sphere of art.
Discourse analysis
At the end of the last century, professor of linguistics Norman Feirklaf founded a critical discourse analysis. It was aimed at studying changes in arguments, mental premise, text over time and interpretation options. In relation to sociolinguistics, Fairclough called intertextuality the main mechanism of such transformations. This is a trick when one text is correlated with elements of others (discourses).
Critical discourse analysis was largely formed under the influence of the ideas of the linguist M. Bakhtin, sociologists M. Foucault and P. Bourdieu. Its other name is a textually oriented discourse analysis (or TODA). Its methodology covers the linguistic properties of the text, speech genres (appeal, dialogue, rhetoric) and sociolinguistic methods (material collection, processing, questionnaire survey, testing, etc.).
A distinctive feature of this type of critical analysis is that it does not pretend to be objective at all, i.e. it cannot be called socially neutral. With regard to politics, for example, a critical analysis of discourse aims to reveal ideological structures of power, political control, and domination by searching for discrimination strategies expressed in language. Thus, here he turns into an analytical tool, interfering in social and political practice.
Dutch linguist T.A. Van Dyck devoted a lot of work to critical analysis of media discourse. According to the scientist, its beginning was laid in ancient rhetoric. Today, five key categories serve as sources:
- Semiotics, ethnography, structuralism.
- Speech communication and its analysis.
- Speech acts and pragmatics.
- Sociolinguistics.
- Processing the psychological components of the text.
The critical discourse analysis (news description, social research , etc.) is based on these five “pillars”.
Literary
Literally critical analysis can also be called textually oriented. The difference with the discourse is only in the arrangement of key elements. The first (described above) view focuses on the formal side of the text, and the second on the content side.
Literary critical analysis takes place according to the classical algorithm. The key points for interpretation in it are: plot, place and time of action, characters, theme, idea and personal point of view. From this position, three levels of research can be distinguished:
- Thematic repertoire (substantive side).
- Cognitive (image method, storytelling, genre).
- Linguistic (linguistic means by which the cognitive aspect is created).
In critical analysis, a hierarchy should be respected. The first and third levels are explicit categories (embodied materially). As for the cognitive level, it is determined by the two previous ones. Of course, each of the tiers can represent a separate study. However, a detailed examination between them established a strong relationship, elements of each level will be present in neighboring ones.
The need for this type of critical analysis, in addition to the personal formation and development of critical thinking skills, lies in the social need to distinguish aesthetically valuable works in a stream of mediocre ones.
An important point! Critical literary analysis is not an exposition of a literary text, but an analysis of its substantial components and a possible correlation with reality.
This is not a like or dislike score. For all types of analysis, the critical path analysis must go through the mandatory stages of justification, evidence of any assumptions and hypotheses associated with the research material.
Informational
This type of critical analysis is used to evaluate news, goods and services (in marketing). It can be aimed at determining the quality, as well as the effectiveness of the income and expenses of an enterprise, associated with changes in advertising parameters.
Why do we need such an assessment? A critical analysis of information in the case of marketing is aimed at saturating the market with quality goods, expanding and deepening the assortment. In relation to news (society, politics, etc.), it helps to check the quality of information regarding facts, time and place and interpret it in your own point of view on events. In this case, reliable sources are needed that will become the arguments of the hypothesis. The purpose of this type of analysis may also be a forecast of the development of events. In this case, the hypothesis is formed through psychological, social, cultural features-components.
Study analysis
A critical analysis of the study is inherent in the scientific field of human activity. For the formation of an individual reasoned opinion about a particular problem, the correct formulation of tasks and their solution is necessary. This is what this type of analysis does. Research work involves a whole range of activities and in many ways echoes critical discourse.
So, at the preparatory stage, there is a collection of material, the study of authoritative sources, the formation of a concept (construction) of the direction of development of thought and the filtering of important information elements. It must be remembered that the purpose of such work through critical analysis is to obtain new knowledge, and not to generalize existing truths.
A critical analysis of the study has the following structure (or plan):
- target;
- problems and main issues;
- facts and information;
- interpretation and conclusions;
- concept, theory, ideas;
- hypotheses;
- consequences;
- own opinion, point of view.
For a scientific article, the rules of analysis may be different. Here, the source itself is often evaluated, the convincing arguments of its author, the identification of inconsistencies, contradictions, or violations of logic.
Principles
The principles of critical analysis largely depend on its type. Even at the dawn of the history of this type of study of objects and materials, an intuitive principle (or “internal insight”) was used. This is an abstract approach, consisting in the discovery of new theoretical, empirical laws, the justification of new phenomena, tasks and concepts of reality. The disadvantage of this principle of analysis is unconvincing, the possibility of options, unconfirmed assumptions.
A critical analysis of discourse often applies a socially oriented principle. Its purpose, as a rule, is the phenomena and transformations taking place in society. These include immigration, racial discrimination, national genocide, extremism. The subject of the research is, of course, thematic texts and their impact on social thinking. Also, this approach to study helps to find and portray the true picture and convey it to society, in order to avoid confusion of the reader in undemocratic discourses.
For the same type of critical analysis, a cognitively oriented principle is also applicable. It was widely covered by T.A. van Dyck and is based on the psychological features of the construction and presentation of the material (discourse texts). This principle is widely applied in the analysis of news (mass media). In addition, the analyst’s attention should be focused on a narrative (sequential, interconnected) assessment of events, sign systems of speech communication (metaphors, collective symbols).
The principle of historicism is most often applied in scientific and literary studies. It is based on the study of the development of a certain phenomenon or object in space and time. However, this is a rather abstract characteristic. In practice, this happens a little deeper and more global. For example, a genre or technique (literary concept) is taken as a basis - this is the purpose of the study. Then there is a collection of materials related to the topic (cognitive components). In the third stage, you can begin to study and filter information. The main point here is the chronology, the evolution of the phenomenon in a certain time period. Only after such an assessment can we proceed to conclusions, hypotheses and forecasts.
The principle of key concepts is one of the earliest in critical analysis. Most often he is found in art criticism (works of Aristotle, Lessing, V.G. Belinsky). Conventionally, it can be designated by a scale of measurements and comparisons. Creating a system of concepts helps to literally decompose the text into structural components, to trace their interaction and relationship, as well as to reveal the value of one component for another. As a rule, this principle is mandatory, but secondary, since any research relies on a conceptual apparatus, regardless of the purpose of its application.
During any critical analysis, there may be different principles for dealing with the problem. Sometimes there is a synthesis of two or more. In this case, one is dominant, while the others are auxiliary. So, the principle of historism is often combined with the principle of key concepts, while the intuitive is supported by cognitive-oriented, etc.
Of the concept
The concept in critical analysis is the study and evaluation of the main idea, the system of views of the author of the material on the problem. Norman Fairclough in his book Language and Power mentions the concept of synthetic personalization. An example of this can be political texts in which authors often address directly to the people through the second person pronouns. The main task posed by a critical analysis of the concept is to determine the degree of influence of such techniques, their effectiveness in changing social thinking.
Regardless of the type of material, the author’s concept is always considered as a way of communicating with the reader, viewer or buyer.