Power dynamics and pragma-cultural sources of unsourced evidentiality in Persian
This paper investigates participants’ reflections on power relations embedded in the cultural-pragmatics of
unsourced evidentials in Persian texts. Using
Fairclough’s (2013) critical discourse
analysis, we adopted
Hanks’ (2018) ethnography of referential practices and
Foucault’s (1980) power dynamics to analyse 16 Persian texts through follow up interviews
and focus group discussions on two opposing pairs of texts – one pair on Iranian national identity versus Persian literature, and
another on Iranian politics versus religion. Our analysis revealed that unsourced evidentials appear in Persian predominantly due
to censorship and sometimes due to deliberate use by authors (e.g., for winning an argument). Text consumers often overlook
unsourced evidentials while reflecting on politico-religious referents, such as inequalities and bigotry. This has roots in
Persian literature, religion, and politics of power embedded in the culture, and the participants’ attention to inequalities and
discriminations has roots in referential practices in current Iranian discourse.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Typology of evidentiality
- 3.Conceptual framework
- 4.Research process
- 5.Engagement with unsourced evidentiality
- 5.1Unidentified individuals
- 5.2Unidentified institution/organisation
- 6.The pragmatics of evidentiality
- 6.1The pragmatics of production
- 6.2The pragmatics of consumption
- 7.Summary, limitations, and suggestions
- Acknowledgments
-
References
References (45)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2015. “Evidentials: Their Links with
Other Grammatical Categories.” Linguistic
Typology 19 (2): 239–278. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Amanat, Abbas. 2012. “Introduction:
Iranian Identity Boundaries: A Historical Overview.” In Iran Facing
Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective, ed. by Abbas Amanat, and Farzin Vejdani, 1–33. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Asgharzadeh, Alireza. 2007. Iran
and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic Fundamentalism, Aryanist, Racism, and Democratic
Struggles. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ball, Stephen J. 2013. Foucault, Power and
Education. New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Boroumand, Ladan. 2020. “Iranians
Turn Away from the Islamic Republic.” Journal of
Democracy 31 (1): 169–181. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. “Evidentiality
in English Conversation and Academic Writing.” In Evidentiality: The
Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, ed. by Wallace Chafe, and Joanna Nichols, 261–272. New Jersey: Ablex Publication Corporation.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Collier, Stephen. 2009. “Topologies
of Power: Foucault’s Analysis of Political Government Beyond ‘Governmentality’.” Theory,
Culture &
Society 26 (6): 78–108. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cornillie, Bert. 2004. “The
Shift from Lexical to Subjective Readings of Spanish Prometer ‘to Promise’ and Amenazar ‘to Threaten’. A Corpus-Based
Account.” Pragmatics 14 (1): 1–30.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dabashi, Hamid. 2019. The
Shahnameh: The Persian Epic as World Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Davari, Shadi, and Mehrdad Naghzguy-Kohan. 2017. “The
Grammaticalization of Progressive Aspect in Persian.” In The
Grammaticalization of Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality, ed. by Volker Gast, 163–190. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dehkordi Ebrahimi, Mojdeh, and Allami Hamid. 2012. “Evidentiality
in Academic Writing.” Theory and Practice in Language
Studies 2 (9): 1895–1904. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fairclough, Norman. 2013. Critical
Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2nd
ed.). London: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The
Archaeology of
Knowledge. London: Tavistock.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline
and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The
History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1980. “Truth
and Power.” In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings 1972–197, ed. by Colin Gordon, 109–133. New York: Pantheon Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The
Subject and Power”. Critical
Inquiry 8 (4): 777–795. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1994a. “On
the Government of Living.” In Ethics: Subjectivity and
Truth, ed. by Paul Rabinow, 81–86. New York: The new Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 1994b. “The
Will to Knowledge.” In Ethics: Subjectivity and
Truth, ed. by Paul Rabinow, 11–16. New York: The New Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Foucault, Michel. 2003. “Society
Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–1976. New York: Picador.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Frankfurt, Harry G. 2005. On
Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goldman, Lisa. 2016. “Silence
one Story and Another is Born: Experience of Censorship in Iran and the UK in
2010.” In Global Insights on Theatre
Censorship, ed. by Catherine O’Leary, Diego Santos Sanchez, and Michael M. Thompson, 79–92. New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gu, Xiang. 2015. “Evidentiality,
Subjectivity and Ideology in the Japanese History Textbook.” Discourse &
Society 26 (1): 29–51. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hanks, William F. 2018. Language and Communicative
Practices. New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ifantidou, Elly. 2005. “Pragmatics,
Cognition and Asymmetrically Acquired
Evidentials.” Pragmatics 15 (4): 369–394.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jahani, Karina. 2000. “Expressions
of Indirectivity in Spoken Modern Persian.” In Evidentials: Turkic,
Iranian and Neighbouring Languages, ed. by Lars Johanson, and Bo Utas, 185–207. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Katouzian, Homa. 2010. The
Persians: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Iran. New Haven: Yale University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lazard, Gilbert. 2001. “On
the Grammaticalization of Evidentiality.” Journal of
Pragmatics 33 (3): 350–367. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lo, Adrienne. 2004. “Evidentiality
and Morality in a Korean Heritage Language
School.” Pragmatics 14 (2): 235–256.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Marsilli-Vargas, Xochitl. 2014. “Listening
Genres: The Emergence of Relevance Structures through the Reception of Sound.” Journal of
Pragmatics 691: 42–51. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Murray, Sarah E. 2017. The Semantics of
Evidentials. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nishi, Hironori. 2018. “An
Overview of the Japanese Quotative itta and itte
ita.” Pragmatics 28 (1): 93–111.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pirzadeh, Ali. 2016. Iran
Revisited: Exploring the Historical Roots of Culture, Economics, and
Society. Cham: Springer. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rahimifar, Mansour, Vali Rezai, and Rezvan Motavalian. 2017. “A
Functional Analysis of Present Perfect in Persian.” Theory and Practice in Language
Studies 7 (12): 1337–1349. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sadighi, Firooz, and Reza Mobashshernia. 2012. “A
Study of Lexical Evidentials in Modern Persian: Does Genre Matter?” Journal of Basic and
Applied Scientific
Research 21: 8853–8856.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Saldana, Johnny. 2016. The
Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (3rd
ed.). London: Sage.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shokouhi, Hossein, Clodagh Norwood, and Sadegh Soltani. 2015. “Evidential
in Persian Editorials.” Discourse
Studies 17 (4): 449–446. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shokouhi, Hossein, and Mehdi Latifi. 2019. “Empowerment
and Knowledge Transformation through Critical Reading and Thinking: A Case Study of Iranian University
Students.” In Transformation and Empowerment through Education:
Reconstructing our Relationship with Education, ed. by Raqib Chowdhury, 58–72. Milton: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Souleimanov, Emil. 2011. “The
Evolution of Azerbaijani Identity and the Prospects of Secessionism in Iranian
Azerbaijan.” Connections 11 (1): 77–84. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wiederhold, Anna. 2015. “Conducting
Fieldwork at and Away from Home: Shifting Researcher Positionality with Mobile Interviewing
Methods.” Qualitative
Researcher 15 (5): 600–615. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Zaini, Amin. 2018. “Word
Processors as Monarchs: Computer-Generated Feedback Can Exercise Power over and Influence EAL Learners’ Identity
Representations.” Computers and
Education 1201: 112–126. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Zaini, Amin, and Sue Ollerhead. 2019. “Reverse
Contrastive Rhetoric in Expository Writing: Transfer and Power Relations at Work.” Southern
African Linguistics and Applied Language
Studies 37 (1): 41–61. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Zaini, Amin & Hossein Shokouhi
2024.
Unsourced evidentiality and critical reading: the case of international postgraduates in Australia.
Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 21:1
► pp. 86 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Zaini, Amin
2022.
Ambivalent reading: Ambivalence as a reading practice in critical literacy.
Language Teaching Research ► pp. 136216882211267 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.