Applying discourse analysis to the concepts of oppression (istiz āf) and arrogance (istikbār)

Discourse analysis attempts as methodology to discover the interactions of language with intellectual-social structures within written and oral texts, as well as to study the meaning formation in relation to intralingistic and cross-linguistic factors. In other words, the conditions of meaningfulness are called discourse. This method has been achieved as the outcome of studies conducted by scholars from different fields, including the linguistics. Some parts of the Holy Qur’an and the traditions have found meanings and functions in the contemporary era that are different from those at the original time of their applications. Such meanings and functions are only understandable through the consideration of a variety of backgrounds for their formation, ranging from the cultural, to the political and the social. The concepts of oppression (istiz‘āf) and arrogance (istikbār)
are as such. Because of being located in conditions such as the predominance of Marxist and anti-imperialist discourse in the years before and after the Islamic Revolution, these concepts have been understood in ways different from the conditions of meaningfulness in the context of the Holy Qur’an, and the same understandings have been assimilated in the contemporary interpretation. The present research applies the methodology of discourse analysis, examines the conditions for meaningfulness of the two concepts in Qur’anic verses and traditions, and compares them within the meaningfulness conditions of Marxist ideas prevailing in Iran during the 60s and 70s and the anti-authoritarian and anti-colonial thoughts predominant since the late 70s to the present time. We thus attempt to demonstrate the process of semantic changes and the functions of these concepts.