Narrative Discourse Analysis of “Hojarat” Surah: A Faircloughian Study

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a significant sub-discipline of Discourse Analysis. This approach takes its lead from the philosophical ideas propounded by Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. Norman Fairclough, an eminent theorist of CDA, attempts to link linguistic features to social issues so that linguists find it necessary to engage with social problems. According to Fairclough, discourse analysis can be performed at three levels: description, explanation, and interpretation. In the holy Quran and Surahs like “Hojarat”, there are abundant conceptual signs which are used to modify social norms. The interpretation level in CDA deals with the relationship between dominant social discourse with different social discourses. Drawing on the description and explanation levels of CDA, this study attempt to develop a critical framework to analyze social discourses in “Hojarat” Surah. It is proposed that the narrative discourse at the education axis in “Hojarat” Surah is in line with social discourses which seek to define Islamic value system