Nominalization as Grammatical Metaphor and Ideological Representation in Political Discourse of JCPOA

The present study intends to examine how political discourse employs nominalization to describe events and occurrences and for what specific purposes. The research aims to explore how actions and reactions are foregrounded and backgrounded in the ideological representation of texts. To achieve this goal, the speeches of the ex-presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, subsequent to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, have been selected for critical discourse analysis.The first stage of data analysis involves identifying and analyzing 508 clauses. The second phase examines the use of nominalization metaphors in the coverage of developments surrounding the nuclear agreement during the period from the US withdrawal from the agreement to Iran's fifth step in reducing its JCPOA commitments. To demonstrate the role of nominalization in the various representations of a single event in rival discourse media, two domestic and two foreign media outlets are examined. The data in this section also includes eight news titles from the above-mentioned media outlets in five specific time periods, in which a significant development surrounding the JCPOA has taken place. The results indicate that nominalization metaphors are not used to eliminate the agent from the center of attention, but rather to highlight their own actions. Rival discourses use these highlights to elicit their own desired meaning to the audience, both in the arrangement of the speeches of the two presidents and in the coverage of political developments surrounding the nuclear agreement by the media.