The Methods of Representing Social Activists in the Publications of Mashroutiyat period from a Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective Regarding Socio-Semantic Discoursal Features

The research considers the methods of representing social actors in the publications of the early Mashroutiyat from critical discourse analysis point of view. The critical discourse analysis is a new approach in analysing discourse and text. The approach is based on the idea that discourse holds ideology and the relationship of power and dominance in the upper levels of text، but in lower levels it holds structures of discoursal features. These structures and features are in mutual relationship with covert ideology in the lower levels of text. Using particular research methods، critical discourse analyst considers these structures to discover the hidden ideology behind the text. While most of the critical discourse analysts take the most notice on linguistic aspects، Van. Leeuven (1996) believes that socio-semantic discoursal features present a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the text. Using Van. Leeuven’s method in this research، 41 issues of eight publications of the early years of Mashroute (Sour Esrafil، Hablolmatin، Mosavat، Nedaye Vatan، Majles، Rahnama، Sobhe Sadegh، Ayineye Gheybnama) were studied. All of these texts held socio-semantic features، more or less. Social agents were mainly represented through the following features: personification، activation، depersonification، deletion، passivization. In addition to qualitative analysis، the quantitative calculation of the frequencies of the features as statistical analysis of Chi-square and Relation formula has been used in doing the research.