Discourse Analysis (DA) is a modern discipline of the social sciences that covers a wide variety of different sociolinguistic approaches. It aims to study and analyze the use of discourse in at least one of the three ways stated above, and more often than not, all of them at once. Analysis of discourse looks not only at the basic level of what is said, but takes into consideration the surrounding social and historical contexts. Making the distinction between whether a person is described as a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’ is something DA would look at, whilst considering the implications of each term. To expand, 'terrorist' is a term that brings negative connotations of evil and violence, whereas 'freedom fighter' has positive connotations of fighting towards political upheaval of dictatorships. So, one term is looked upon a lot more favorably than the other, and this is what a Discourse Analyst would consider. Discourse analysts will look at any given text, and this just means anything that communicates a message, and particularly, how that message constructs a social reality or view of the world.
