Showing 61 results for Critical Discourse Analysis
Volume 0, Issue 0 (2-2024)
Abstract
Today, the news media has a momentous role in shaping public opinion and social developments. Journalistic translation thus follows guidelines and standards in order to convey the message and objectives of its source material. The translation of the political press discourse surrounding the US and international sanctions on Iran is particularly sensitive, due to its high potential in impacting international relations and political affairs.
The objective of our research is to highlight the importance of methodologies used for the translation of political press discourse. For this purpose, we have analyzed two important news articles related to the aforementioned sanctions. First, we conduct a critical analysis of the political discourse, based on Van Dijk's model, and then we perform a translational analysis, based on Antoine Berman's views. Finally, we explore the different types of modifications made by translators, as well as the efforts made to adapt the news to the media’s political ideology. In line with Van Dijk's opinions, we have shown that there is a close relationship between the ruling policy (power) and the press discourse (media), in shaping the public perception of policies and events at mass scale. We demonstrate how subtle deletion, change, and intensification is strategically used in jo urnalistic translation, in line with their desired discourse functions to achieve political goals.
Volume 2, Issue 6 (7-2009)
Abstract
Discourse analysis has emanated from ideas os scholars od Linguistics, semiotics, hermeneutics and the theories of Michel Foucault (1926-1992), but in contrast to the aforementioned methods, it cover the two aspects of the text: form and meaning and so it is a comprehensive approach for text analysis. Scholars like Fairclough, Wodak, Van Dijk, Fowler and Kress played an important role in introducing and promoting critical discourse analysis as a new approach to text analysis. In this research we have used Norman Fairclough’s approach. In the present study, it was tried to analyze Sovashoon of Simin Daneshvar. In so doing, we discussed the views of the author, and using an innovative approach, we discovered various semantic and thematic layers of meanings closer to this novel. It was concluded that Daneshvar,with her special approach to the political and social changes of her time ,has connected the politico-social factors to mythological ones. This approach is specific to her, different with others' and so we can consider it as her own unique ideology. From a critical discourses analytic perspective, Simin Daneshvar, in her writings, made use of specific terms, epical and mythical dimensions and its connection with religion while generalizing these elements and connecting it to our era, has sought to create an independent Iranian identity. She managed to create an anti-imperialistic hero from the working class and naturally promoted women’s role in the contemporary novels from a housewife to a reformer and activist in the socio-political areas.
Volume 3, Issue 2 (6-2012)
Abstract
The main aim of this research is finding the similarities and differences between the representations of social actors in the two different versions of Bahman’s vengeance seeking. Accordingly, the author tried to find the ideological background behind the two texts and show the difference in impression by studying socio-semantic elements that Theo Van Leeuwen offered in his suggested pattern and comparing them with the corresponding parts in Shahnama and Bahmannama. The results showed that some branches of the two main methods are exclusion, and inclusion is to some extent visible in both texts. Also association, dissociation, nomination and categorization along with their subsets are the techniques used to represent the social actors. Analysis of the two texts clearly shows that Bahman in Shahnama is seeking legitimacy for his goal while he has the authority and individuality in Bahmannama while he does not need to use persuasive and approval seeking techniques; so representations of social actors in Shahnama are more than in Bahmannama and they were used deliberately.
Volume 3, Issue 4 (12-2012)
Abstract
Although linguists have been studying the “News” as a type of text for a long period of time, the researches have been mainly of the product-oriented types, which purely analyze the news texts and their linguistic characteristics. Linguists and media researchers have been mainly keen to determine sets of criteria known as “News Values” so far, and the result is various lists of media and linguistic news selection norms. The goal of this article is finding answer for the following questions: How news production process can be orchestrated in a linguistic model? What are the linguistic news values? and How these linguistic values correlate with other selection criteria? In addition to revisiting the theoretical notion of “News Values” and introducing the “Grice Maxims” as the linguistic criteria of news composition, this paper, as a descriptive analytical study based on field work, also represents the multi-level model of news composition and selection based on linguistically oriented findings. The mentioned model not only determines and explains different levels of news composition and selection process from the event to the news, but also puts the role of macro-structural elements of news discourse production such as ideology, relations of power and composition in the center of attention.
Volume 4, Issue 1 (3-2013)
Abstract
Revealing the unequal relations of power, which lead to hegemony in media and make audiences aware of it, has been in the center of attention for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for a long period of time. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic network of social actors is considered as a competent framework for linguists and discourse analysts to do so. In this article, we study 50 hard news and articles published in leading international news agencies and newspapers about Iran’s nuclear program during November and December 2010 to analyze the way the social actors of both sides of the quarrel have been represented in the media. The results showed that although the international news agencies and newspapers claim to stay neutral in representing the events, some linguistic mechanisms to represent Iranian social actors differently from the western ones are obvious and Iranian social actors playing role in this case are shown as irrational hardliners while western counterparts are introduced as logical peace seeker ones.
Volume 4, Issue 2 (4-2012)
Abstract
Narrating the past history of Iranians, Ferdowsi'sShahnameh has transferred major elements of Iranian identity throughout the centuries. To identify Iranian vs. non-Iranian identity and the contexts leading to the creation of Shahnameh, the present paper has employed critical discourse analysis (CDA). The findings of a textual analysisof the story of Siavash indicate that the discourse of Iranian identity has been shaped through confrontation with that of Aniranian, and in both discourses, the political dimension of identity has been more important. Ferdowsi regards the political institute as the guardian of freedom and independence of Iran. In fact, taking into consideration the conditions of the time and the conquest of Iran by the Arabs and their dominance, Ferdowsi tried to propose his political ideas in "an ideal king". Enjoying divine charisma, justice and wisdom, the ideal king is the nodal point in the discourse of Iranian identity. In contrast, the king of Aniran has been delegitimized as the nodal point of Aniranian identity, lacking divne charisma, justice and wisdom.
Volume 4, Issue 2 (7-2013)
Abstract
Critical discourse analysis deals with power and ideology. This approach makes connection between ideology and the manner of expression by the use of discursive features. This article was carried out in discreptive-analytic method to study discursive features in the expressions, sentences and texts of the narration “Miyan-e diruz va farad” from “Azar Mah-e Akhar-e Payiz” (Azar, The Last Month of Autumn) written by Ebrahim Golestan. Therefore, the present article studies socio-semantic features on the basis of Van Leeuwen (1996) in the story of “Miyan-e diruz va farad” for clarifying the ideology beyond the text. This article aims to answer these questions: 1- How are socio-semantic features used in this story? 2- Have social situations been affected in the style of narration? and 3-What kind of functions has the author considered for ideology? The results indicated that this story has used all kinds of socio-semantic features with the exception of symbolization. The author has used implicit features due to political and social situations, and explicit features have been used because of the importance of actors and their actions. The author has also used ideology for transferring group believes. This article makes an attempt to express why the author has used these features and expressed them implicity.
Volume 4, Issue 11 (1-2016)
Abstract
Proverbs are the mirror of the culture of a community. The examination of proverbs on women can, therefore, help us better understand beliefs and attitudes of the speakers of a community towards women and the socio-cultural values of the same community. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the representation of women in Gilaki (Eshkevarat variety) proverbs. The data have been collected via a structured interview with sixty native speakers (both men and women) who were over forty five years old and barely influenced by standard Persian. Since the method of this research is descriptive-analytic, the collected data were, first, categorized and described. It is worth nothing that the proverbs were semantically classified into eighteen categories encompassed by three different representations of women which are as follows in order of frequency: a. negative representation, b. positive representation, and c. neutral representation. The distribution of theses representations were analyzed within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Feminist studies. One of the important findings is that in Gilaki (Eshkevarat variety) speaking community, gender is perceived as an ideological structure. According to the rigid hierarchical relationships of dominance and inferiority, the social group of women is considered inferior and disadvantageous that counts for nothing.
Volume 5, Issue 2 (7-2014)
Abstract
One of the language functions is making communication among thoughts and beliefs. This language function is regarded as a part of social and communicative events as writing of editorials. Texts of editorials, not only through a chain of sentences but also through a hierarchical structure are organized.This structure is divided into units, called "episode", which has an integrated nature either structurally or semantically, and its borders are verbally clear. As episodes are assumed as discourse semantic units, we must define them in according to semantic terms such as propositions. The problem and goal of this study is to recognize propositional levels in the west´s editorials texts on Iran´s nuclear activity. On this basis, by using Van Dijk's episodic model (1981) and analytical method, we tried to analyze one sample of Independent editorial about the nuclear activity of Iran, published in Britain, to answer this question; "how we can describe the organizing process of editorials in an integrated model of propositions".
This study shows that general macropropositions are manifested in the first thematic sentences and provide a summary of the text, which is America's policy toward the nuclear activity of Iran. Subtheme of the text, which is about the opinions and reactions of powerful governments and also that of Iran toward this policy, is presented in the paragraphs and the general structure of the text, respectively.
Volume 5, Issue 4 (12-2014)
Abstract
The “Persian Gulf”, as a very important geopolitical region known as global heartland, is the third great gulf of the world. There have been some controversies over the name of this region in recent few decades, and recently some Persian Gulf Arab states or sometimes American and European institutes have tried to coin the fake name of “Arab Gulf” instead. In this paper, after reviewing the literature and historical and international documents, we study the naming strategy of international media toward the name of this important geographical entity. We compare the frequency, genre and content of the articles and news in which four referring expressions of “Arabic/Arab/Arabian/Persian Gulf” have been used within the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. The data are gathered from Time magazine archive (1923-2008) and Contemporary Corpus of American English (COCA) (1990-2012).
The findings of this article show that, comparing with other terms, the usage of the term “Persian Gulf” is considerably and undeniably more than the other three terms in a way that in Time magazine archive, there are 969 and in COCA corpus, 5003 cases of “Persian Gulf” usages while this number is around a hundred for all of the three coined words.
The results further shows that while Persian Gulf is widely used context freely as default name, “Arab Gulf” term is mostly used in economic context, especially in those news and articles, which are about the “oil”.
Volume 5, Issue 4 (12-2014)
Abstract
In the present study, which has been done from critical discourse analysis perspective, the authors focus on the media news, since it is the media that puts as a topic of discourse analysis more than other texts. The general purpose of the present paper is based on an analytical framework in order to study the order of the contemporary media discourse. The authors intend to analyze the nonverbal factor influences on the choice of words used in the media news. In general, the data, which have been used in this research, are Persian news of four radios including Iran, USA, Farda, and Israel. The authors are going to analyze them in the framework of the strategies such as lexical generalization, address forms, and over lexicalization. The methodology of the research is comparative in which the shared news of the studied radios are compared to each other.
Volume 5, Issue 18 (8-2012)
Abstract
One of the most effective approaches for critical studies of literary works is Critical Discourse Analysis. This article studies Madār-e sefr darajehwithin this framework by analyzing some of the most important aspects of the novel such as semiology of its title, images, characters (actor, affected, and narrator), narratology, structure and the theme of the story. Furthermore, the status of this novel in the field of political fiction is studied. Based on Fairclough’s approach, the findings of the article suggest that Madār-e sefr darajeh,as a literary text, is in direct relation with the dominant social discursive practices and social hegemony.
Volume 6, Issue 2 (5-2015)
Abstract
The goal of this article is to demystify the press texts and discover their hidden layers of meaning in the framework of critical discourse analysis. To do so, using socio-semantic features of Van Leeuwen's model (1996), 40 numbers of four Iranian Persian publications of a two–month period, from July 22 to September 21, 2011 were studied qualitatively. The data analysis results indicated that the ideology dominating the minds of writers and groups is reflected in the text using discursive features as personalization, impersonalization, activation, backgrounding, etc., and the linguistic realization of discursive structures is performed using linguistic structures as nominalization, pre-modifiers, active versus passive structures, coordination, etc. in the texts. Also there is a dialectic relationship between discursive structures and ideology, which can be determined by studying these structures in the texts and social institutions.
Volume 6, Issue 3 (8-2015)
Abstract
Hedging is a rhetorical strategy which speaker employs for lack of a full commitment either to the full category membership of a term or expression (content mitigation), or to the intended illocutionary force of the utterance (force mitigation). Hedging must be considered as an intentional action. The speaker chooses a linguistic device over the propositional content of the message which will affect the interpretation of the utterance; either modifies the content of the utterance or its force. Although hedges have no certain lexical meaning; they have powerful functional and pragmatic meaning. This research has been done by means of descriptive-analytical method with purpose of definition, introducing of applications of hedges based on Fraser(2009) , and finally a case study of hedges in political discourse of press conferences of president Ahmadinejad within the framework of critical discourse analysis .The results show that the president (Ahmadinejad) has used hedging as a political language strategy to express vagueness and evasion which are one of the skillfully policies in political speech. He applied passive voice and impersonal pronouns more than other kinds of hedges.
Volume 6, Issue 19 (5-2018)
Abstract
This article analyzed the woman´s place in Turkish proverbs by using Fairclough´s critical discourse analysis model. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate woman´s representation in Turkish proverbs. 166 proverbs were gathered through purposeful sampling from two books: Sorudlir (1393) and Ostevar (1392). Findings showed that the number of positive and negative representation of woman was almost equal and in most cases woman´s representation was neutral. There was not any discrimination or gender inequality in these proverbs. Power was divided not only between male and female but also among women according to their roles in the family.
Volume 6, Issue 21 (3-2013)
Abstract
Memories of the imposed Iraq war against Iran were linked to men’s narratees. More women played a role as an object linked to solider, such as martyr’s mother and wife. Da is a different book. In this article, we try to study Da and its relation to the dominant social discourse, with using Fairclough theory and method. He mentioned three-dimensional framework for studying discourse: analysis of language texts, analysis of discourse practice and analysis of socio-cultural practice. We will show Da, unlike the traditional discourse, emphasis on the other roles of women in the imposed war. In addition, Da tries to make a female verbal construction that it is not found in similar women books. Da goes beyond the traditional discourse of women’s role in war, and seems to have succeeded in this way. With a male act and female speech, Da creates a new text and a new discourse.
Volume 6, Issue 23 (10-2013)
Abstract
In this essay, the novel Raz'haye Sarzamine Man (The Mysteries of My Land) has been analyzed due to the issues of gender representation, using the critical discourse analysis methods and Simone de Beauvoir's notion of gender. This, has led to the conclusion that portraying female characters in this novel, has two significant aspects: first, the Transformation of binary opposition of Innocent Girl/Prostitute (Athiry /Lakkateh) that has been illustrated by Hedayat, into Revolutionary Mother/ Royal Prostitute in this novel; and second, the emphasize placed on the political role of women in the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the importance of this role, and the portrayal of these women as powerful, visionary and open mind characters. Here, the hidden ideology of the text, has changed the problem of women and presumptions and judgments about them into a political and class-related one and so, has effected the writer's concept of the history. It has been shown here also that the metaphor of the homeland as mother has shaded the text in the form of a mythical thought.
Volume 7, Issue 2 (5-2016)
Abstract
Linguistic mechanisms of representation (Personalization/ Impersonalization ) of social actors in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), especially van Leeuwen’s approach to CDA has been longly in the center of attention. This prominence will be much higher when the subject of the study is naming strategy and representation of “Iran” as one of the most important actors of the Middle East and the socio-political and ideological rival of the United States of America. In this article, we studied the naming and representation (exclusion/inclusion) strategy of Time magazine toward Iran/the Islamic Republic of Iran within van Leeuwen socio-semantic framework. The data has been gathered from the archive of time magazine from 1920s to 2010 . The findings showed that both the frequency and the addressing method of Iran in Time magazine has been considerably divergent within decades and through the time. While the name of “Iran” has been mentioned for more than 5600 times in this corpus, the official title of “the Islamic Republic of Iran” has gone under an extremely exclusion process and repeated for only 8 times, all of these cases are oriented with clearly biased adjectives and modifiers. The findings of this research may be interesting for both scholars and public audience of the mass media.
Volume 7, Issue 3 (10-2016)
Abstract
Prohibition of the slave trade that started from the late 18th century from France and gradually spread over the Europe; At the beginning of the 19th century it came to Asia and then to the Persian Gulf region. The leader of this process in the Persian Gulf were English people who were somehow trying for more consolidated position and Protection of their interests in region. The struggle continued to early 20th century.
Causes formation and persistence of this process for almost a century, are significant issue that is dealt with in this study through critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. This method has an Intertextual approach and texts as Susceptible Graph Processes, movements and political and social change applies. Therefore, the present research focused on selecting of a portion of the notes by Amir Kabir and Justin Sheil, minister in Tehran, that between 17 Rabi al- Thani to 10 Jumada al-Awwal 1267 concerning the prohibition of the slave trade were written, this process has analyzed and thereby, influence and dominate the "discourse imperialism" in the relations of power and in contrast the weakness of rule-based "discourse absolute despotism" of Qajar, the main causes for the formation and persistence of the struggle against slave trade during this period, has been considered.
Volume 7, Issue 4 (10-2016)
Abstract
Unlike text-based reading, discourse analysis considers all effective elements in the meaning of the text. In addition to linguistic aspects of the text, situational context, and metalanguage in general are also taken into account. In terms of critical perspective, it studies ideology and power relations as leading elements of the text. Such an approach prepares the way to a comprehensive understanding of the text to the translator. In this regard, the present paper aims to employ a reference- analysis of critical analysis discourse in translating Arabic texts into Persian. Thus, with the assumptions of the deficiency of the text-based reading, the practicality of critical discourse analysis in transferring the hidden parts of the text has been sought. By analyzing and translating some contemporary Arabic texts, the paper has tried to prove the above assumptions. In conclusion, it can be noticed that in addition to highlighting the situational aspects of the text, the presented ideology directs the text. Considering the meanings of hypertextuality, the translator has organized the target text with an appropriate style.