A Study of Discourse-oriented Structures Based on Van Leeuwen's Model

Any text plays a significant role in the reproduction of its specific ideology provided that it can gain access to those discourses that make social actors hegemonic. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) discourse-oriented theory is one of the approaches to discourse analysis that aims at unraveling the hidden layers of language in written and oral texts by drawing on socio-semantic factors and with a focus on the importance of social actors. This approach to discourse analysis has the capacity to find a special position is Quranic studies since discoursal structures of the Quran and their mysterious features indicate that the hidden ideology behind all of them is more or less the same. Employing an analytical-descriptive method, and drawing on Van Leeuwen’s (2008) discourse-oriented model, the present study aimed at examining the discourse of Surah al-Qasas. This Surah was selected because it involves various social actors and speech acts due to concisely narrating the life history of Prophet Musa (UHBP). The results of the study indicate that discoursal elements based on candidness in comparison to those of secrecy were more frequent (with the frequency rate of 916 and 245, respectively). This finding suggests that using stylish creativity and innovation, this Surah has attempted to familiarize the audience with persons, groups, places, and times in which the social actors have active roles. Besides, role-designation method (with the frequency rate of 475), designation of allusion type (with the frequency rate of 353), and designation of nature (with the frequency rate of 88) has the highest representation among social actors’ types of statements and remarks.