Discourse analysis

The study of lexical bundles, among types of text analysis, is gaining importance over the others in the last century. The present study employed a frequency-based analysis approach to the use of lexical bundles. The discussion section of 60 political science articles, with corpora around 253,063 words were investigated in three aspects of structure, form, and function of lexical bundles. The present study selected its data pool out of scholarly articles from qualified journals in the field of political sciences. One part of the data pool was made up of 30 articles written by American native speakers. The second half of the data comprised the 30 articles written by Iranian scholars in political sciences. The findings showed that native and Persian-speaking writers employed the same forms of lexical bundles, and there were significant differences concerning the nativeness and functions. Bearing in mind the findings of the present study, material developers would think of the possibility of the addition of lexical clusters into the materials. It can similarly be valuable for the development of the second language writing strategies, for those who need to write in academic contexts especially political contexts.

Japanese exhibits a large degree of flexibility in terms of word order. Thus, not only SOV but also OSV (scrambling) and SVO (postposing) are grammatical. In terms of discourse function, there are some similarities between scrambling and (non-pause type) postposing. According to Author (2017) and Shimojo (2005), scrambled objects and postposed elements are anaphorically salient but cataphorically non-salient. Yet, Shimojo (2005: 202) observed no example with a postposed object. In order to explain this tendency, I propose that scrambling is not as costly as postposing due to the following two reasons. First, scrambling follows given-new-ordering whereas postposing does not. Second, rightward movements are more costly than leftward movements in Japanese (Fukui: 1993). Therefore, postposing is expected to be selected when scrambling cannot be chosen. As scrambling can be used for the object but not for the subject in SOV, postposing is dominantly utilized for subjects.

Academic discourse has always been the focus of many linguists, especially those who have been involved with English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and discourse analysis. Persuasion, as part of rhetorical structure of academic writing, is partly achieved by employing modality markers.  Adopting a descriptive design, the present study was carried out to compare the use of modality markers in terms of frequency and their categorical distribution in two academic books, written in English, in the field of Applied Linguistics by native English and non-native Iranian authors.  Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik’s (1985) model of modality was employed as an analytical framework to identify the type of modal verbs. The frequency of different types of modal verbs was calculated per 100000 words and the significance of difference in their distribution was checked through Chi-square nonparametric inferential statistics. The results of the statistical analyses did not show any significant difference in the overall distribution of modality (both epistemic and root) markers.  However, significant differences were observed in the categorical distributions of modal verbs in two corpora. The results were attributed to the non-native writers’ lack of awareness of the conventional rules of English rhetoric, and the lack of explicit instruction in this field. The findings could offer pedagogical implications for those involved in syllabus design and materials development in general and English writing courses in particular.

This paper, largely motivated by Hoey (2001), revisits the issue of Written Discourse Analysis and, in particular, the Problem-Solution Pattern. Much discussion embarrasses the way in which texts are pro-duced and understood. The different functional approaches include Halliday and Hasan’s approach, van Dijk’s process-oriented approach, the procedural approach of de Beaugrande and Dressler, and the Problem Solution approach of Michael Hoey. These approaches attempt to answer the question: what is a text? How is it constructed and how can it be interpreted? According to Hoey, the processes of reading and writing in any discourse are based on culturally popular patterns of organisation between the writer and the reader. The text may be seen as an interaction between the writer and the reader in which the reader seeks to anticipate the questions that the writer is going to answer. In conclusion, analysing some texts indicates that the problem solution method is a comprehensive and easy method for producing narrative and non-narrative texts.

Today, there is a plethora of literature on the process of accelerating growth of science and technology in Iran. Assuming technology as a social construct of modern society, and in the light of Ricoeurian hermeneutic approach, this paper aims, first, to show the resemblance of the current discursive relationship between the Iranian society and technology to a "discourse of faith" and, second to explain how this discourse has roots in the preceding one which can be considered as a "discourse of suspicion". To do so, the paper first, builds a conceptual model based on the Ricoeurian theory of interpretation, where, by analogy, modern technology is compared to the text and the user of the technology as its reader. Then, it introduces two episodes of relationship between technology and its Iranian users in the public policy of the post-revolutionary era: distanciation and appropriation. It concludes that the current growth of scientific endeavors serves as the material base for an Iranian discourse of techno-nationalism; a new self-identification which motivates the elites to develop new bases for national self-esteem.

The United States with its presidents stepping into power from either the Democratic or Republican parties influences global affairs in one way or another. These two main political parties have long been struggling for power and the significance of tapping into the ideological inclinations of the two parties underscores scholars’ accountability toward raising the critical language awareness of the public which could be an initial step toward a change for the better. The presidential inaugural speeches, due to their programmatic and strategic nature, are of significance to researchers. This study employed van Dijk’s (2006b) socio-cognitive framework where he defined two levels of analyses for a political discourse including the micro-level and macro-level text analyses. The former included 25 discursive devices such as polarization, generalization, hyperbole, etc. The latter drew on the dichotomy of ‘positive self-representation’ and ‘negative other-representation’. In the present study, the linguistic features in 16 inaugural speeches delivered by American Democratic and Republican presidents from 1961 to 2017 were examined at both levels. The overall data analysis revealed that Democrats employed ‘norm expression’ and ‘presupposition’ significantly more than Republicans, while Republicans made more use of ‘categorization’, ‘lexicalization’, and ‘populism’. The macro-level comparison of the two parties indicated that both Democrats and Republicans resorted to using ‘positive self-representation’ significantly more than ‘negative other-representation’ while the deployment of ‘negative other-representation’ by Republicans was significantly more than that by Democrats. The findings of this study have some implications for English for political purposes, political studies, as well as attempts in discourse studies.

This study attempted to examine the extent to which university instructors contributed as obstacles or facilitators to developing critical thinking skills in undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate students. To this end, six university classes, two classes from each of the above-mentioned programs, were selected randomly from the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics in a State University. The corpus of the study was collected via video recordings during a semester. Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory was utilized to interpret the data. The results revealed that instructors in BA and one of MA classes were facilitators of critical thinking skills, while those in the other MA class and both Ph.D. classes acted more as obstacles to such skills. This finding contradicted the expectations of the researcher who, based on Fisher’s (2005) arguments, believed that thinking skills should be more developed at tertiary levels by instructors, particularly as one moves from bachelor to master and doctoral levels, which are more about frontiers of knowledge. The implications of the study pointed to the vital role of the university instructors in promoting thinking skills by decreasing interruptions, increasing wait-time, asking referential questions, and using selective repair.

Because of the limited capacity of coastal lands and conflicting interests among stakeholders for coastal resources, there are intensifying pressures to retain and provide more public access to the coast. Coastal gated communities have been developed increasingly in the middle shoreline of Caspian Sea in North of Iran. They are kind of exclusive space production as they restrict public access to the public resources of shoreline. As space production has roots in social processes, according to Lefebvre’s theory, there are two main approaches in the analysis of social phenomena. First is institutionalism and the other one is discourse analysis. Due to some weaknesses each approach suffered from, the discursive institutionalism became the main methodology to analyze the interaction of discourses and institutions in coastal exclusive space production.  Critical realism emphasizes the inherent feature of the world which is categorized into three layers of reality that are constructed by agents, discourses and structures. Rather than experiencing the world in constructivism or conceptualizing the world in interpretivism, critical realism supposes different ontology, the existence of hidden or invisible mechanisms behind what human understand from the social phenomena and though emphasizing on the causality of both agents and structures. This research aims to conduct the conceptual and methodological framework for the analysis of the exclusive space production as a social phenomenon in North of Iran with the help of critical realism perspective in discursive institutionalism approach. This could be a significant guideline for further researches on spatial evolution in coastal urban areas.  

Developing a comprehensive document based on the utmost use of renewable energy efficiency in the architecture design is the first step in national level to follow the goals of sustainable architecture and this is not possible without having a deep trend of the climatic compartment. The modeling of comprehensive energy plans in the architecture without having a quantitative approach is incomplete and inefficient in all of these areas without accurate scrutiny Also, one of the main challenges regarding the climatic compartment in architecture is the qualitative approach of designers and researchers of architecture towards this science; which has a basic contradiction with quantitative data of climate science. Hence, through the quantitative potential climatic investigation and integrating it with qualitative components affecting architecture, a suitable approach to architectural design is obtainable. The purpose is to measure and evaluate solar energy in the design of the architecture of buildings in Iran with a climatic approach. The first step in achieving this purpose is to identify and prioritize the relevant factors and criteria for utilizing the solar energy capability in the design of architecture and climate. The variables of this model with the above objective function include 5 main criteria and 15 sub-criteria. In the next step, we define and eliminate non-usable areas and then draw a fuzzy hierarchy structure. After that, the relative weight of criterion is determined using the FAHP technique and based on the views of a group of academic, governmental and industrial experts in the Super Decision analysis software.

Iranian exceptionalism has been a major factor in preventing rapprochement between the US and Iran. There are two major factions within the foreign policy establishment of the Islamic Republic representing “reconciliation discourse” and “resistance discourse”. These two can be seen as sub-discourses within the Islamic Revolution discourse engaged in a struggle over its “correct” interpretation. The “reconciliation discourse” seeks development as the main goal of Iran’s foreign policy, and, hence, considers reconciliation with the US to be a precondition to that goal. Its arguments imply that Iran is not an exceptional country. The resistance discourse, on the other hand, is deeply exceptionalist and deems resistance against the US and maximalist independence to be the main objectives of Iran’s foreign policy. This discourse strongly opposes mending ties with the US because such a move would be understood as a threat to Iran’s exceptionalism. 

The Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 by the leadership of Imam Khomeini, the resulting discourse and its influence on the internal political and social structure, affected the Islamic world, the Middle East, and the Lebanese Shias. The rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon was a manifestation of the Islamic Revolution discourse on the Shia community regarding meaning and identity. With a critical approach, the present study aimed to answer the question ‘How close and different has Hezbollah to the discourse of the Islamic Revolution from the discoursive view, structural and identity?’. The issue was analyzed using the theory of Laclau and Mouffe's discourse analysis and operationalized by explaining the positions of the movement, its leaders and the function of Hezbollah and comparing it with the political thought and works of Imam Khomeini as the Islamic Revolution ideologue. It shows that the Islamic Revolution has been very influential in shaping Hezbollah's Islamic and revolutionary identity. Meanwhile, the sign of Shia political Islam is the central sign of the Islamic Revolution discourse, and the (Islamic) resistance is the primary sign of the Hezbollah speech. The result indicated similarities in most floating characters, namely Shia political Islam, belief in Velayat-e Faqih, justice-seeking, nationalism, independence, issuance of Revolution and revolutionary identity, and resistance (struggle against Israel and anti-Zionism, and anti-arrogance). However, there are some identity distinctions regarding the emphasizing Hezbollah on the Shia, Arab and Lebanese identity and the broad definition of some signs and, consequently, the attribution of some meanings to them, which should be considered from the pathology of future relations between Iran and Hezbollah. This issue regarding common counter-discourses such as Salafi-Takfiri, Liberal Democracy and the Akhavani is essential.

هر ساله کتاب های درسی دانشگاهی متعددی در زمینه مدیریت مدرسه در ایران منتشر می شود، اما تعداد کمی از آنها با استقبال خوب دانشگاهیان می شوند. که تا کنون 45 بار بازنشر است و «مبانی نظری و مبانی مدیریت آموزشی» که 25 بار باز شده است، از طریق قرائت علامت و تحلیل و تحلیل قرار گرفته است. نتایج نشان داد که روایت این دو کتاب بر پارادایم عقلانی است که مدارس را یکپارچه و هماهنگ می نگرد، اما از بازی قدرتی که همیشه همراه با تناقض و تنش بوده، غفلت می کند. زیرا برای حفظ لفاظی منطقی، کتاب های درسی بر اساس اصول تکیه و تنها برخی از نظریه ها در کتاب های منطقی مطرح شده اند که در مورد پویایی قدرت ساکت هستند. روایت علاق بند (نویسنده کتاب ها) همه چیز مربوط به «دینامیک قدرت» را ناگفته بگذارد. این روایت دو دسته از مخاطبان را به خود جذب می کند. دسته اول بازیگران مدارس و دیگر دست اندرکاران نظام آموزشی هستند که از تناقضات مدرسه و دنیای ناعادلانه آن خسته شده اند. بنابراین، پارادایم عقلانی که در بازی قدرت ناگفته باقی می ماند، مانند درمان و بی عدالتی عمل می کند. گروه دوم، برخی از پذیرندگان مربیان هستند که به آموزش دانش مدیریت آموزشی می پردازند. آنها باید مفاهیم را ساده کرده و پیچیدگی ها و ناراحتی های مدیریت آموزشی را بر این اساس زدایی کنند. روایت علاق بند (نویسنده کتاب ها) دارد همه چیز مربوط به «دینامیک قدرت» را ناگفته بگذارد. این روایت دو دسته از مخاطبان را به خود جذب می کند. دسته اول بازیگران مدارس و دیگر دست اندرکاران نظام آموزشی هستند که از تناقضات مدرسه و دنیای ناعادلانه آن خسته شده اند. بنابراین، پارادایم عقلانی که در بازی قدرت ناگفته باقی می ماند، مانند درمان و بی عدالتی عمل می کند. گروه دوم، برخی از پذیرندگان مربیان هستند که به آموزش دانش مدیریت آموزشی می پردازند. آنها باید مفاهیم را ساده کرده و پیچیدگی ها و ناراحتی های مدیریت آموزشی را بر این اساس زدایی کنند. روایت علاق بند (نویسنده کتاب ها) دارد همه چیز مربوط به «دینامیک قدرت» را ناگفته بگذارد. این روایت دو دسته از مخاطبان را به خود جذب می کند. دسته اول بازیگران مدارس و دیگر دست اندرکاران نظام آموزشی هستند که از تناقضات مدرسه و دنیای ناعادلانه آن خسته شده اند. بنابراین، پارادایم عقلانی که در بازی قدرت ناگفته باقی می ماند، مانند درمان و بی عدالتی عمل می کند. گروه دوم، برخی از پذیرندگان مربیان هستند که به آموزش دانش مدیریت آموزشی می پردازند. آنها باید مفاهیم را ساده کرده و پیچیدگی ها و ناراحتی های مدیریت آموزشی را بر این اساس زدایی کنند. دسته اول بازیگران مدارس و دیگر دست اندرکاران نظام آموزشی هستند که از تناقضات مدرسه و دنیای ناعادلانه آن خسته شده اند. بنابراین، پارادایم عقلانی که در بازی قدرت ناگفته باقی می ماند، مانند درمان و بی انصافی عمل می کند. گروه دوم، برخی از پذیرندگان مربیان هستند که به آموزش دانش مدیریت آموزشی می پردازند. آنها باید مفاهیم را ساده کرده و پیچیدگی ها و ناراحتی های مدیریت آموزشی را بر این اساس زدایی کنند. دسته اول بازیگران مدارس و دیگر دست اندرکاران نظام آموزشی هستند که از تناقضات مدرسه و دنیای ناعادلانه آن خسته شده اند. بنابراین، پارادایم عقلانی که در بازی قدرت ناگفته باقی می ماند، مانند درمان و بی انصافی عمل می کند. گروه دوم مربیان مربیان هستند که به آموزش دانش مدیریت آموزشی می پردازند. آنها باید مفاهیم را ساده کرده و پیچیدگی ها و ناراحتی های مدیریت آموزشی را بر این اساس شناسایی کنند.

The present tries to study and review the manner the discourse analysis method is being used in family studies. This method especially emphasizes the role of research in the social context. Considering the key role of the family and women and their place in ensuring the prosperity, this sacred institution should be researched upon in this so that we can reveal the structures and processes that are based on ideology and power. However, considering past researches in the field of women and family, a majority of researchers have paid little attention to the social context while investigating those problems. Therefore, it seems a research gap in this field and hence, this article aims to answer to this question: How can family and women's issues be investigated through the discourse analysis method? The influencing factors on this social phenomenon have been written with the aim of determining the type of linguistic strategies in representation, alienation, highlighting, etc. And in the meantime, we will also discuss the evolution of the discourse analysis method. In order to achieve this goal and to understand this matter more easily, we have used the movies Kitab Qanun (Book of Law), Abed and One Day (Forrever and One Day) as examples.

Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their roles in promoting international airlines’ profile and their host country, are mostly under-researched. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the application of different visual and semiotic strategies regarding social actors' race, age and social class and how people are represented in different international airlines’ inflight magazines. For this purpose, 16 international airlines’ inflight magazine issues were selected depending on the host country's geographical location and availability. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006 [1996]) and van Leeuwen’s (2008) visual grammar, the data were analyzed based on ideational, interpersonal and compositional levels. The results revealed that inflight magazine designers, content developers and advertisement agencies tend to apply certain visual and semiotic resources. They reinforce bias and false stereotypes towards certain groups of people in terms of their age, race and social class originating in political, historical and ideological perceptions and standpoints of higher institutions across the world. The findings also highlight the importance of visual literacy being promoted to the target audience, including air travelers and EFL learners.

One of the remarkable aspects of the holy Qur’an is the use of diverse linguistic methods to convey a particular idea. This study aims to evaluate the commissive act in the Qur’an using Searle's speech act theory, a theory useful in comprehending deeper semantic levels of holy scriptures. The study used a descriptive-analytical method, and the data were analyzed through a qualitative analysis of statistical results to answer the following questions: What linguistic forms does the Qur’an use to represent commissive speech acts? And what themes or topics are included in these commissive speech acts' utterances? First, employing a desk research approach, the Qur’anic verses containing the commissive speech acts were selected based on syntactic, lexical, and semantic criteria. The distinguishing characteristics of each case were then identified, including the discursive structure of the act, the committed person, and the theme of the commitment. Finally, the relationship between the linguistic form and the theme of the speech acts was examined. The findings reveal that the Qur’an expresses commissive speech acts through four linguistic structures: oath, promise (al-wa‘d), threat (al-wa‘īd), and pledge; each includes divine and non-divine conceptions, and each has a unique characteristic. The quantitative comparison of these four shows that “promise” is the most commonly cited sub-speech act, distinguishing it from other linguistic forms. “Threat”, “oath”, and “pledge” are the other most frequently cited sub-speech acts. Moreover, the evaluation of the speech agents and their status as aspects of the situational context reveals that the speech participants are not equal in terms of position and power, which is a decisive factor in the selection of linguistic forms. In all of these cases, the language structures and their intricacies, particularly modality (modal marking), illustrate the relationship between the linguistics style and power dynamics between the participants. The focus of the themes, domain, and frequency differ throughout the four categories mentioned above, with some overlap in certain instances.

It is not possible to get the desired thought of the text without considering the discourses of social actors. Using sociological-semantic categories, Van Leeuwen's discourse-oriented theory (2008) can explore the hidden layers of language in oral and written texts by stressing the importance of social actors of discourse. Hence, this theory can reveal the underlying relationships of each discourse. Due to the mysterious and discourse-oriented structures of the Holy Qur’an, one can find that the hidden ideology behind them is approximately the same. Therefore, discourse analysis can find a special status in Qur’anic studies. This study has examined the discourse system of the narrative of Prophet Solomon (AS) in Surah An-Naml with descriptive-analytical and statistical approaches using Van Leeuwen’s discourse-oriented model. The findings suggest that the inclusion components (134 cases) have a much higher frequency compared to the exclusion components (38 cases). On one hand, this means that God pays the most attention to the meaning, but on the other hand, in stylistic creativity, He introduces the audience, the names of individuals, groups, places, and times in which social actors play an active role. Besides, the components of reference allocation (98 cases), role allocation (20 cases), and type allocation (16 cases) have the most representation in all types of social actors included in this narrative, respectively.

Attention to the human environment is essential in an age when human with irregular exploitation try to destroy and waste it. In between, the methodical attention to indigenous thinker’s perspective can be useful and practical. In this paper by using the prominent Traditional thinker’s perspective at the present time, Dr Nasr, has been tried to answer “How should be the desirable interaction between man and nature?” which it is in the field of environment with a political approach to this topic. This study has allocated to the environmental issue by using the framework of Ferkellaf discourse analysis in three levels of description, interpretation and explanation. As described level in Nasr’s view, there are three signifies of meaning as the religious values, traditional values and values of human dignity which signifies traditional value has been as central signifier. In the interpretation level, three factors as de sanctity of nature and knowledge, rationalism and humanism has been affected on how to formulate Nasr’s ecological discourse. As well as on the explanation level on his social function view, we can cite his criticism on single discourse; also we can cite his criticism on flawed religious approach and revival of scared knowledge of nature.

This study takes a critical look at the purposive manipulation of discourse and rhetoric by the former Iranian President — Hassan Rouhani — when announcing the lockdown of holy sites during the COVID-19 crisis. A discourse analysis with a qualitative design was applied to study the political dimension of the discourse. This study is framed within the domain of systemic functional linguistics mood systems and the classical Aristotelian rhetoric trio — logos, ethos, and pathos. The results revealed that Rouhani mainly used the declarative mood in his speeches which performed three main functions: statements of opinion, statements of fact, and indirect directives. From a rhetorical perspective, Rouhani applied ethos considerably more than pathos and logos as a way to increase the credibility of his words while persuading the audience. Moreover, the researchers noticed that the former president employed multiple strategies to build pathos and ethos with the audience. These findings can suggest and encourage novel future research directions.