Religious Landscape Empowered by the Language of Revolution: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini Speeches

Abstract

This paper explores the linguistic strategies employed in the revolutionary speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini to integrate religious landscape and disintegrate liberalism in Iran. It is explicated in this study that religious ideologies embedded in the language of revolution, i.e. revolutionary speeches, are not primarily persuasive because they are right or true, instead, how coherently intense the arguments appear to masses evoking their emotions. Revolution is not between two people but between two ideologies represented by two parties, which in the speeches by Ayatollah Khomeini are Islamist and Liberals. For the purpose of this research, we have selected two speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini with special reference of the Iranian revolution. By drawing on the theoretical framework of Norman Fairclough’s structure of critical discourse analysis, this study demonstrates the power of language to translate ideologies into revolution. It is analyzed that the language of Khomeini’s speeches depicts an Islamic ideology both implicitly and explicitly, therefore creating a Religious Landscape in Iran at the time of revolution. Khomeini inculcated Islamic ideologies among Iranians through his speeches and challenged the status quo by overthrowing Shah’s liberalism.