An Investigation of Typology of Political Discourse in the Time of Iranian Islamic Revolution: Explanation of Theoretical and Conceptual Components of Emergent Discourse Genre

The Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979 provided an impetus for the emergence of various political and social ideas and ideals in the form of texts so that today, researchers studying Islamic revolution are facing a welter of texts in the form of manifestos, speeches, reports, interviews, etc., that need to be categorized and analyzed in terms of content. One of the main challenges facing the Pahlavi regime was the legitimacy crisis following the regime from the date it was established to the date it collapsed. A group of political texts was created for representing and emphasizing such a legitimacy crisis, called the "emergent discourse genre" in this paper. This paper aims at explaining the theoretical and conceptual characteristics of this genre. By so doing, it becomes clear how revolutionists used language and different discourse mechanisms to cast light on the illegitimacy of the Pahlavi regime to fortify their position against Shah. In line with the purpose of the study, the discourse-historical approach was adopted and various texts were analyzed. One text is presented here as an example to explain the characteristics of the emergent discourse. The results of the analysis reveal that the emergent discourse genre is a type of political discourse that is capable of depriving oppressive tyrannies of legitimacy. This genre can forge a political identity based on the Islamic tradition that is compatible with the modern world; the producers of such a discourse genre have enormous religious, political, and social potentials.