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Article published In: The Politics of Sound: Intersections of Music, Discourse and Political Communication
Edited by Lyndon C.S. Way
[Journal of Language and Politics 18:4] 2019
► pp. 617–633

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From religious performances to martial themes

Discourses of Shi’a musical eulogies, war and politics in Iran

ORCiD logo with link | Newcastle University
Published online: 27 June 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.18059.gha
Abstract
This paper deconstructs how religious musical eulogies, as the most important discursive practices of Shi’a rituals (. 2019. Identity, Social Media and Religion; (De)Legitimization of Identity Construction Through the Language of Religion. In Participatory Digital Cultures and Contemporary Discourse of (De)Legitimisation. Ed. by A. Ross and D. Rivers, 326–344. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), were used as “war songs” serving to construct the Iranian national identity during the 1980–1988 Iraq-Iran war. These musical practices (in)formed the wider ideological and persuasive rhetoric of Iranians. In this paper, I analyse the textual and musical features of the audio-recorded versions of ten well-known war songs. The Discourse-Historical Approach (. 2016. “The discourse-historical approach (DHA)”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by R. Wodak and M. Meyer, (2nd ed.), 87–121. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) is used to analyse the discursive strategies and persuasive rhetorical tools within the lyrics. I draw on . 2010. Analysing Popular Music. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Machin, David, and John E. Richardson. 2012. “Discourses of Unity and Purpose in the Sounds of Fascist Music: A Multimodal Approach.” Critical Discourse Studies, 9 (4): 329–345. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and . 1999. Speech, Music, Sound. London: MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar to analyse various features of voice and the modality of sounds. This paper concludes that, by reflecting the power of religious discourse in the non-religious and highly nationalistic occasion of war, Iranian war songs were inspired by the religious eulogies in encouraging the Iranian nation to attend the war fronts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.War, religious eulogies and identity
  • 3.Approach to analysis
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Musical analysis of war songs
    • 4.2Textual analysis of lyrics
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (68)
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