Ideology and Lexicography: A Critical Discourse Analysis Approach to Lexicographers’ Choice of Lexical Items

Ideology, as stressed by Thompson (1990), is “meaning in the service of power” (p. 7, emphasis in original). And language as ideology, as discussed by Kumaravadivelu (2006), “goes way beyond the confines of the systemic and discoursal features of language, … and serves vested interests” (p. 16, emphasis added). “Lexical items,” Van Dijk (1997) further argues, “… presupposes that language users express opinions or ideologies [emphasis in original], and thus contribute to the construction of new ones or the modification of existing ones with their recipients” (p. 17). Lexicography, as one of the main tools of promoting ideology and linguistic imperialism, has seldom been investigated for the ideology it advances. When using a dictionary, a student might come to believe that what the dictionary says is ‘common sense’, ‘value free”, ‘self-evident’, and simply ‘the way things are’. Critical Discourse Analysis, as its primary goal, attempts to expose the ideological forces underlying meanings. Drawing on Fairclough’s (2010) three-dimensional framework of analysis (text, discourse practice and social practice), the present study investigates the underlying ideological presuppositions invisible in the lexicographers’ selection of lexical items when defining some ideologically significant words like Jerusalem, philistine, jihad and crusade. The implications hold for both EFL teachers and students, so as not to serve as pawns being used in shaping the new world order.