Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Assistant Professor of Persian Language and Literature, Damghan University
2 Master of Linguistics, UPM University, Serdang, Malaysia
Abstract
The current research seeks to examine the discursive strategies employed by James Morier in the transformation and representation of Oriental-Iranian life, adopting Theon VanDijk's theory and critical approach. To do so, by examining Haji Baba Esfahani’s biography novel, the authors attempt to answer the following research questions: 1) How did Morier's ideology affect his speech? 2) How are the identity and life of the Eastern-Iranian represented in the speech of this Western and Christian writer? 3) What are the most practical methods and strategies to identify Morier's ideology in the text of the novel? To this end, the authors have critically examined the role of these representations in the production processes of colonial discourse. The data have been gathered from libraries, and the research methodology is descriptive-analytical. The findings demonstrate that Morier's discourse contains representations of the East as it has been conceived by Western Orientalists, which is seen as "other" in their ideology and connected to racism. On the basis of this ideology, Morier has attempted to present an unpleasant picture of Iranian society during the Qajar era by changing the negative image and giving himself identity by attributing negative traits to Iranians. It is important to note that ideological structures are expressed in several ways in the novel's discourse in terms of "meaning," "formal structures," and "rhetoric."
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