Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

American mass media’s relation with the US government in foreign policy decision-making has been the subject of numerous studies in the interdisciplinary field of political communication. This paper reexamines the interaction between the media and the government in the US foreign policy decision-making process, analyzing the possible congruity and/or incongruity between The Washington Post’s commentaries and former US President Barack Obama’s anti-terrorism campaign. A Critical Discourse Analysis of two Obama statements on counterterrorism, one Washington Post Op-Ed and one editorial suggest that there is an agreement between Obama’s speeches and the corresponding newspaper articles in topics such as choosing defense over offense, changing the conventional war trend, deploying troops, closing down GTMO, avoiding torture and the violation of American citizens' privacy, freedom of press, avoiding giving too much importance to terrorists, and increasing air marshals on flights. Hence, this study confirms the theory of Robinson, which argues that the mediastate relation, i.e. the relationship between The Washington Post’s commentaries and President Barack Obama’s statements, is a bidirectional process in which both American elite media and the US government are involved in attempting to influence the other party under certain conditions.

The present study was an evaluation attempt to investigate the practicality of interpretation procedures proposed by Fairclough (1989) in the critical analysis of Persian texts. The evaluation was implemented on the basis of a goodness criterion, analytical induction (AI) framework developed by Silverman (1993). In so doing, we went about the interpretation of the inaugural speech made by the president of Iran, Dr. Rohani to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2013. The interpretation was done according to the Fairclough’s interpretation model in light of AI theoretical framework. The outcome of the study supported the practicality of the overall interpretation model in the Iranian context. However, considering Iranian special sociolinguistic context, the study also put forward some suggestions with respect to the interpretation of local coherence and text structure in the lower section of the model as well as situational context and intertextual context in upper section.  

The main objective of this study is to examine different layers of power relations between characters of Persian novels as represented by Afsoone Sabz utilizing Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis framework (1996) which paves the way for decoding social structures that cause verbal abuse in Iran. To this end, Afsoone Sabz novel, written by Takin Hamzeloo, is chosen as the case study. It can be maintained that social structures like gender inequality, socioeconomic status differences, and class struggle determine verbal abuses in Persian. It is reasonable to argue that Hamzeloo uses her text to influence the audience (Iranians in general and Iranian women in particular) to be aware of social practices (gender inequality, socioeconomic status differences, class struggle and power relations) in an attempt to change, if not subvert, power relations (obtain gender equality and remove socio-economic inequality in Iran). The paper suggests that Hamzeloo uses othering strategy, as a powerful rhetorical tool, to portray the pessimistic outlook Iranian men hold about women through verbal abuse.

The Meccan Surah al-Ghāshīyah in the Qur’an, with its cohesive structure, constructs a multi-layered discourse through descriptions of the Day of Judgment, invitations to reflect on creation, and an emphasis on the Prophet’s guiding role, promoting monotheistic faith and challenging the polytheistic hegemony of Mecca. This study examines how the surah represents theological concepts such as monotheism, resurrection, human responsibility, and social concepts including justice, faithful identity, and a critique of polytheism, while confronting the power structures of the Quraysh. Utilizing Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis framework, which views language as a social practice for reproducing or transforming power relations, the study is conducted at three levels: textual, discursive process, and social practice. Findings indicate that the surah employs contrastive vocabulary, concise grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices such as antithesis, repetition, and rhetorical questions to represent the dichotomy between faith and disbelief. These tools, by reinforcing the process of othering, promote faithful identity as a legitimate and ethical alternative, undermining polytheistic hegemony. The surah also proposes a social order based on justice and spiritual equality through intertextuality and the integration of warning, argumentative, and persuasive discourses. This analysis elucidates the role of religious texts in social transformations and contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay between language and power in the historical context of Mecca.