ES actitud crítica / CAT actitud crítica / FR attitude critique / DE kritische Haltung

Critical attitude means an enquiring, active state of mind adopted by social agents as users of a language. To develop this attitude, the users of the texts must be able to identify the frame or sphere of the communication activity, to ask themselves about the aims and interests of the discourses produced, to analyze their degree of conventionality, the voices included (polyphony) and silenced, the senses of the linguistic options taken, and to determine the value and power that every discourse genre confers on whoever is able to handle it.

Therefore, to take a critical attitude implies handling discourses from a personal, unprejudiced point of view, taking sides ideologically regarding the content. This approach promotes participation in social and cultural practices that make the text meaningful, making explicit one's own and others' point of view, the values and social representations underlying the text that is being created or interpreted, and the awakening of how those ideological contents interact which each other polyphonically. From a didactic point of view, critical attitude promotes interaction among learners throughout a text, both as responses based on comprehension and as the construction of an appropriate identity in each discourse genre.

References

• Cots, Josep Maria (2006). Teaching ‘with an attitude’: Critical Discourse Analysis in EFL teaching. ELT Journal, 60(4), 336-345.
• Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Nueva York: Longman.
• Halliday, Michael K. (1991). An Introduction to functional grammar. Londres: Edward Arnold.