Critical Study of the Foreign Policy of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi Based on His Written and Spoken Texts

Discourse, as a system of signs, generally constructs individual and social behaviors. In every order of discourse, a collection of rules and conventions is stipulated in order to construct discourse principles. In regard to their ideological purposes, social actors tend to import signs into their discourse framework. Simultaneously, language as a significant constructive component appears and begins to establish the intended meaning of social actors in a soft manner. Thus Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at an international level, utilizes language facilities for representing political facts. According to sociopolitical events and governing atmosphere, he attempts to establish signs in his discourse framework. In a semiotic model of this discourse framework, axiomatic signs are set into the center while the others are around the central point. Accordingly, this research focuses mainly on how foregrounding and backgrounding function in foreign policy discourse of Shah. Then in this way, hegemonic and dominant signs have been specified. Moreover, according to dominant discourse features, five periods are determined as follows: first period: 1320-1324, second period: 1325-1332, third period: 1333-1344, fourth period: 1345-1352, and fifth period: 1353-1356; furthermore, a discourse framework is determined for each period. The results show that notorious incidents occurred at certain junctures not only stir "self" and "other" identities within the realm of otherization, but it will also lead to alteration of shah's framework as well as displacement of signs.