A Discursive Representation of the Politicians: The Case of ‘Iran Sanctions’

Abstract

Language is used to communicate and convey information from one person to another. Understanding the world of others depends on understanding their language. In other words, language is ideology. The present study aims at analyzing the ideological import of news stories. It aims at exploring the ways in which language is employed differently by different people based on their ideologies of the political parties they belong to. To do this, Hodge and Kress’ (1993) framework for Critical Discourse Analysis was used to reveal the underlying ideology. Two Iranian and American politicians’ statements and speeches related to the issue of ‘Iran Sanctions’ were analyzed. This analysis was based on three important features of texts, namely, grammar, modality and vocabulary. The results showed that there was a direct relationship between language and ideology and to convey meaning through language, different structures were employed in the service of ideological considerations.