One aim of this paper is to begin to face the problem of how to relate an ethical, polltical, and critical perspective to the rational-technical means of analysis and description that have been developed by modern linguists.

The second (and principal) question that this paper seeks to pursue is the following. Given that any utterance is a highly complex event in which wording, phrasing, and text-organisation fulfill multiple and simultaneous functions, what details is it possible to pin down in a text in such a way that it is rational to make claims about and critiques of ideological or distorted communication?