199 17 Methodological issues in critical discourse studies Christian W. Chun Introduction: critical discourse analysis or critical discourse studies? Critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an analytic stance and approach appeared in the 1980s (e.g., Fairclough, 1989), creating a subfield within discourse analysis. In the ensuing 30 years, there has been substantial work done in this area (e.g., Fairclough, 1992a, 2015; Flowerdew, 2008; Gee, 2008; Janks, 1997; Richardson, 2007; Rogers, 2011; van Dijk, 2008; van Leeu- wen, 2008; Wodak, 1996; Wodak & Meyer, 2016). However, appropriate to critically oriented scholars’ stances and reflexivities (see McKinley, this volume), there have been numerous debates about and within CDA; methodology being one of the most prominent of them. One issue has recently emerged questioning the very term of critical discourse analysis itself – specifically, the seemingly problematic use of the word ‘analysis’. Teun van Dijk (2009) was the first scholar to argue that the term ‘critical discourse analysis’ should be renamed as criti- cal discourse studies (CDS) as this latter, “more general term suggests that such a critical approach not only involves critical analysis, but also critical theory, as well as critical applica- tions” (p. 62). He pointed out that the use of designation CDS “may also avoid the widespread misconception that a critical approach is a method of discourse analysis” (p. 62). Rather, it should be regarded as “a critical perspective or attitude in the field of discourse studies . . . using many different methods of the humanities and social sciences” (van Dijk, 2016, p. 63). Indeed, in their summarizing of van Dijk’s argument of using the new term CDS, Flowerdew and Richardson (2018) wrote, “the rationale for this change of designation resides in the fact CDA was increasingly not restricted to applied analysis, but also included philosophical, the- oretical, methodological and practical developments” (p. 2). Hence, the term CDS will be employed in this chapter referring to past and present works in this research area. CDS approaches: a brief survey There are numerous approaches in CDS, including (but not limited to) the discourse-historical approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2016), the sociocognitive approach (van Dijk, 2016), and corpus linguistics (Mautner, 2016) – all of which are detailed in the recent third edition of Methods of critical discourse studies edited by Wodak and Meyer (2016). However, a discussion detailing 15031-3338d-1pass-r03.indd 199 10/19/2019 8:10:42 AM