عامر قیطوری

Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclusively used text analysis. While such investigations have led to important understandings of generic features of texts, it can be argued that incorporating interview data for triangulation can lead to better understanding of generic features of texts. Along this line, this paper reports the results of a qualitative study of Persian RA abstracts written by native speakers of Persian. Taking a macro and a micro structure framework, this article will look into the ‘moves’ and ‘author identity’ in such RA abstracts. Two patterns are often associated with English academic prose: Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion and CARS (Create-a-research-space) (Lores, 2004). This, however, did not seem to be the case in most RA abstracts under study. The other feature of Persian RA abstracts to be explored is the absence of first person pronoun. One preliminary hypothesis would be to attribute this to a carry-over of positivistic traditions (Hyland, 2001), though qualitative interviews pointed to a close link between lack of reference to self and modesty as a cultural norm among the participants under study.

The present article aims to investigate the appropriateness of the concepts introduced by modern sciences of the sign, particularly by structural and poststructural approaches, to studying God-man communication in the Quran. Such a conception of communication can be described in terms of two models, namely, communication as sending and communication as reading. These two concepts which represent an uncompromising dualism in the modern approaches to the sign, come to a compromise in the religious discourse, leading us not merely to conceiving a powerful God but also to a powerful man.

The non-linear order of revelations is often considered by many scholars to signify lack of coherence, disunity, and fragmentariness. It seems that 'coherence' and the related terms have veiled a significant linguistic feature of the Qur’an, namely, the non-linear nature of revelations, which might be used to make a distinction between ordinary and Quranic discourse. We will argue that to unveil the non-linearity, we should consider revelations in relation to God who reveals Himself in language not as an ordinary speaker whose speech is limited to a certain context, with a beginning and an end. We should not expect God to speak like a man. The Qur’an, thus, is seen here as a non-temporal, non-linear text that reflects its divine origin, by systematically destructing the spacio-temporal context and the linear order of language.