Critical Discourse Analysis of the Interpellation of Science Minister by the Representatives of the 9th Tenure of Islamic Parliament of Iran: Van Dijk s Approach

In this research, the interpellation of the science minister, Reza Faraji Dana, by four representatives of the Islamic Parliament of Iran (with two representatives in favour of interpellation and two against it), has been analyzed ased on Van Dijk s notion of Ideological Square. With regard to Van Dijk s Ideological Square, the positive characteristics and social actions of the insider were magnified while their negative social actions were trivialized. By contrast, the positive characteristics and social actions of the other were deemphasized and their negative characteristics and social actions were more highlighted (Richardson, 2007: 5.). Based on this approach, those who are against the interpellation of the science minister are regarded as the insider, but those who support it are considered as the other. The data of this research was collected through a library-documental method from the archive of the reports of parliament sessions available in parliament library. The qualitative method applied to analyze the negotiations of members of the parliament is descriptive-analytical. The research results suggested that the representatives always tended to emphasize the positive points of their insider while describing the other negatively in their speech. To achieve this aim, the representatives adopted various ideological strategies such as example, argumentation, repetition, metaphor, ambiguity, explanation, generalization, irony, warning, implication, categorization, legal positivism, violation of values, evidentiality, statistics, consistency, resorting to great and trustworthy people and attributing the problems to the other in order to influence and persuade the audience. Among these rhetorical devices, metaphor and ambiguity were more commonly applied.

Keywords:

:Critical Discourse Analysis , Van Dijk s Ideological Square , interpellation of minister