انجمن زبان شناسی ایران زبان و زبان‌شناسی 23223847 21 41 2025 12 22 A Discourse Analysis of Dispatch Advertisements in Iranian Newspapers: A Sociolinguistics Perspective تحلیل گفتمانی آگهی‌های درگذشت در روزنامه‌های ایران از دیدگاه جامعه‌شناسی زبان 1 29 10467 10.30465/lsi.2025.51689.1801 FA مهرداد امیری استادیارگروه زبان انگلیسی، دانشگاه فرهنگیان تهران، ایران 0000-0003-0737-7655 Journal Article 2025 04 18 The present study was an attempt to run a discourse analysis of the dispatch advertisements appearing in the Iranian newspapers. Irrespective of the sub-cultural differences, religious diversity, and variations in beliefs, Iranians have traditionally paid special attention to their deceased and the funerals. Obituaries have always been an indispensable part of funerals and ceremonies and are usually used to announce the death of the deceased dears passing away through the press and other media in attempt to release the news to almost all the relatives and friends and then take the measures related to the funeral and burial. To do the study, following a thorough review of the related literature, fifty frequently appearing obituaries in three famous Iranian newspapers were selected in two consecutive weeks in August, 2024.The discourse analysis criterion was based on Wiśniewski (2006), and various discourse features along with lexical, syntactic, semantic, and stylistic analyses were taken into consideration. The results revealed that dispatch advertisements appearing in the Iranian newspapers enjoy syntactic diversity, phonological harmony, and a rhythmic language, to which is added the taste of Persian literature and religious beliefs. Cultural, social, familial, and other personal features of the deceased is discernable thorough analyzing the published and printed advertisements. This discourse which represents a carefully designed communication between the advertisers and the audience employs both direct and indirect ways of exchanging a lot of information in an almost limited number of words, a limited space, and in a reader-friendly manner enjoying a simple language. The findings of the present study might be employed in the cross-cultural studies, discourse analysis research, and linguistic surveys in general and studies on Iranian culture of funerals, ceremonies, and obituaries in particular. 1. Introduction Including different text types and attracting a large audience (such as advertisements and death notices), “newspaper effectively mirror the contemporary language and culture” (Rademann, 1998, p. 49). Some studies of linguistic variables also note how they can organize text types (auf dem Keller, 2004; Fries, 1990; Gieszinger, 2000; Makinen, & Raisamo (2008). Corpus-based studies of particular linguistic features often help to characterize newspaper text types: Marzol (2006, p. 79) found that ''modality correlated with specific news contexts''. Different scholars have attended to the development of newspaper text classes (Fries, 2001) e.g. death notices (Fries, 1990, 2006). According to Chaudhry et al. (2014), ''obituary announcements are community oriented social texts authored according to certain accepted and established social and, in many cases, religious conventions'' (p. 29). The existing literature reveals that obituary and death announcements (DAs) constitute a fertile ground for the use of linguistic and literary devices (Bressler, 2009; Fernandez, 2006, 2007; Nelson, 2009; Rubinstein, 2007). Thus, the present study makes an attempt to analyze the specific discourse connected to death notices (or obituaries) in the Iranian context. Research Question(s) What are the prominent discourse features of dispatch advertisements in Iranian newspapers? 2. Literature Review Obituaries are presented in a way to create grief in the audience and appreciate the deceased (Askildson, 2007; Bryant & Peck, 2009; Fernandez, 2007). Obituary announcements belong to what Enkvist (1987) calls the family of ''template texts'' which are defined by him (Enkvist, 1987, quoted in Nwoye, 1992, p. 18) as texts ''whose macro structure is set in advance, and where the text producer, so to say, enters new data into pre-existing gaps, as when filling a hotel registration card or an income-tax return''. Diverse studies have been carried out on death announcements (DAs). While some scholars like Al-Ali (2005), Fernandez (2006, 2007), and Marzol (2006) investigated their figurative language, others like Eid (2000), Booth (2002), and Nwoye (2007) concentrated on the structure of the DA genre and factors that influence its language. For example, Kachru (1992) examines the linguistic features of the use of peculiar traditional references to death in Indian English. He observes that the context of the culture necessitates the use of indirectness in reference to death in Indian Obituary announcements. From another point of view, many existing analyses use obituaries to understand other social processes that involve living in the social world as opposed to leaving it upon death (Phillips, 2007). With attention to length, thematic, editorial, and journalistic considerations, researchers have illuminated issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, class, ethnicity, and professional status and image (Eid, 2002; Kastenbaum, Peyton, & Kastenbaum, 1977; Kearl, 1986; Knutson, 1981; Marks & Piggee, 1998; Maybury, 1995; Moremen & Cradduck, 1999; Moses & Marelli, 2003; Spilka, Lacey, & Gelb, 1980; Williams, 1997). Ergin (2009) also suggested that death announcements in the Turkish context reflect attitudes toward gender, ethnic/religious minority status and cultural capital, and echoing the aggregate efforts of privileged groups to maintain a particular self-image. Obituaries are products of the values of the societies in which they originate (Durkheim, 1912 [1995]). Starck’s (2005) comparative analysis shows how the obituary, as ritual, is constructed differently in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Those analyses also deal with issues of discrimination, inequality, and marginalized identities (Halbur & Vandagriff, 1987; Hume, 2000; Moremen & Cradduck, 1998). In other cases, researchers have considered the effects of epidemiological concerns—often AIDS or cancer—to determine how society appraises the individual characteristics of a particular class of decedent (Alali, 1994; Cameron, Playfair, & Wellum, 1994). Todua (2014) also believes that ''the very middle class is the main promoter of change, both social and linguistic, with their inclination to move upwards towards the upper class. Hence, the middle class sees in obituaries patterns of achievement, accomplishments, and success stories'' (p. 64). The important research available dealing with the gender-sensitive issue belongs to Kastenbaum et al. (1976), Spilka et al. (1980), Kearl (1986), Halbur and Vandagriff (1987), Maybury (1995), Eid (2002), Rodler et al. (2002) and Ogletree et al. (2005). The studies of these researchers mainly intend to gauge the representation and projection of both genders in obituarial discourses under the assumption that gender-based partialities perpetuate after death. Chaudhry, Christopher, and Krishnasamy (2014) suggested that males not only get more obituaries in Pakistan but also get added projection when compared to females. However, the qualitative interviews revealed that the observed differences in the death reportage of both genders did not purely fall in the line of gender discrimination. Males got situational advantage due to the factors like familial traditions, religious beliefs, cultural traditions and socioeconomic environments. 3. Methodology To answer the research question above both, discourse analysis and content analysis of 50 dispatch advertisements appearing in two consecutive weeks in August 2019 in the Iranian newspapers, namely Keyhan, Etelaat, and Hamshari, which are among the most famous Iranian newspapers and rich enough in obituaries, were taken into consideration. As discourse analysis based on Carter (1997, p.23), “is a primarily linguistic study examining the use of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing”, the present study mainly focused on the discourse of dispatch advertisements considering various lexical, syntactic, semantic, and stylistic discourse features presented by Wiśniewski (2006) as the main criteria for discourse analysis in discourse studies. In line with the main discourse features mentioned, cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativeness, situationality, and intertextuality features were also taken into consideration. 4. Results The data collected were put into discourse analysis and the following syntactic, lexical, semantic, and stylistic discourse features were presented: A. Syntactic Features and Cohesion Considering syntactic features, obituaries analyzed are of two types; syntactically cohesive and syntactically non-cohesive: The first group mostly includes complete sentences enjoying verbs, they are unmarked, and follow the standard structure of the Persian language. Such advertisements represent syntactic normality. The following obituaries of which the dates and names have been deliberately omitted represent syntactically firm, cohesive, and acceptable structures. The first part of each table shows the original Persian version of the obituary and the second part represents its translation in English. Table1. Dispatch Advertisement in Keyhan News (Wed, 20 August, 2024) Bāzgashte hame be sūye oost bā nahāyate ta’asof va ta’asor, dargozashte shādravān……...rā beh etelā’e koliye-ye dūstān, bastegān va āshenāyān miresānad. beh hamin monāsebat majlese tarhime ān marhūm, rūz-e seh shenbeh…..., dar………......, bargozār migardad. sherkat-e shomā sarvarān-e moa’zam mowjeb-e tasali-ye khāter-e bāzmāndegān khāhad būd. Khanevādehay-e………...va sāyer-e bastegān Everybody Returns to Him While being full of sorrows and sadness, we announce the death of the lamented……….and inform all the relatives, friends, those familiar, and the like of his/ her passing away. To remember him/her a ceremony will be held on ……(date)….in……(place)…...Your attending the ceremony will surely show your sympathy with the mourning ones and those losing him. ……………………families and other relatives Table 2. Advertisement in Hamshahri News (Tuesday, 19 August, 2024) Dear Mr.……. Hereby, we pay our deep condolence and sympathy to you and your dear family for your dear father’s passing away, and would ask God, the Almighty to place him in the heaven and provide you with enough patience to tolerate his death. Signed and named by co-workers. Jenāb-e āghāy-e ………… Dargozasht-e pedar-e gerāmiyetān rā beh jenābeāli va khānevādey-e mohtaram tasliat arz nemūdeh va az khodāy-e mota’āl barāy-e ān marhūm talab-e maghafarat va barāy-e shomā sabr va shakibā’i mas’alat minemāím. az taraf-e hamkārān dar ......................... The second group of obituaries includes non-cohesive syntactic structures; such advertisements include incomplete sentences, pieces of poems, and extracts of literary works. They also represent a sort of syntactic deviation from the norms. The following example best shows such an advertisement. Table 3. Advertisement in Hamshahri News (Thursday, 28 August, 2024) Oh, My Dear …… Alas, Alas, ….. So pretty a spring fades away, So nice a flower falls on the earth, So sympathetic a heart fades in blooming. Hereby, I remember your first year of leaving and sorrowful passing… Your sister……. azizam............ darīghā, darīghā, ... cheh bāghcheí pazhmord cheh goli oftād bar khāk, cheh deli raft beh bād! barādram, gerāmi midāram yekomin sāl-e dargozasht-e ghamangizt rā khāharat....................... It is worth mentioning that in both cohesive and non-cohesive types of obituaries a sort of syntactic harmony could be found. Such a harmony represents a morpho-syntactic feature as relies on the phonological, prosodic, and melodic sounds of the Persian language; expressions such as ‘ensāni vārasteh and delkhasteh, goli pajmordeh, marhūme-ye maqhfiūreh, and mādary āshegh and hamsari lāyegh’ represent a melodic, rhythmic, and prosodic based verbal language. B. Lexical Features and Coherence The lexicon used in the Persian obituaries is in line with the standard language and shows no deviation from the norms. Throughout the advertisements one can see a sort of lexical cohesion or coherence as different words used in the obituaries show a united form, something which shapes a meaningful whole. Using the words death, sorrow, sadness, passing away, patience, tolerance, remnants, feel upset, God gives and takes back”, and the like best show the coherence of such advertisements. C. Semantic Features One of the prominent features of funeral ads and condolences in Iranian newspapers is that despite the relatively large number of words and phrases formally used in them, they almost represent the same semantic value. For example, words such as deceased, late, late lamented, passed away, and the one who left us, equal to the deceased person who has died there. The following words and phrases that are derived from these advertisements best show synonymy of the words and expressions used in Farsi: “Be didare hagh raftan, be malakoute aala peivastan, raftan, mordan, parvaz kardan, orouje malakouti and didare haghtalaa”, which might be cautiously translated into English as, adhering to God, ascension, flight, demise, lover arrival, the trip to go to, sleep forever, going to the divine mercy, and join to the majority. D. Stylistic Features Two different but related stylistic features are observed in the Iranian obituaries: formal and literacy. The former includes the formal language written in contemporary Persian, while the latter is full of literary work extracts, poems, innovations, informal talks and the like. Table 3 above is best likely to show these two styles. E. Final Discourse Analysis It seems that dispatch advertisements in Iranian newspapers create a discourse between the advertisers and the audience who are parties to this debate. The audience notices the funeral and condolences and could be of two individual groups; specific audience who either keeps a relation to the deceased or is a friend to them and the general public who just read the advertisement. The purpose of obituary is informing, paying condolences to the relatives and acquaintances, sympathizing with the deceased family member, and notifying the funeral. F. Direct and Indirect Modes and Informativeness The notification and exchange of information in such advertisements is both direct (explicit) and indirect (implicit). The following sentences are taken from various ads, and best show this notion: Table 4. Advertisement in Etelaat Newspaper (Wednesday, 27 August, 2024) Type English Translation Persian Direct Hereby it is announced that ………. has passed away. This is to inform his relatives, family members, and acquaintances. badinvasileh dargozasht-e shādarvan.................rā beh etelā’-e dūstān, āshnāyān va bastegān miresānad . Direct Being full of sorrows and feeling highly regretful, we say condolence to our friend’s family for his passing. bā ta’asof va ta’asor-e farāvān dargozasht-e dūst va hamkār-e azizemān...............rā beh khānevāde-ye mohtaramash tasliyat arz minamā’im. Indirect The robber of the times took away our unique diamond and robbed us of his presence. daste jafā pishe-yeh rūzgār, gouhari kamyāb rā az mahfel-e mā beh tārāj bord . Indirect The destroying hand of death caught my discerned friend, there is no way, his sad flying made us feel regretted. …. dast-e virāngar-e marg, dūst va hamkār-e farzāneh’am rā robūd. az taqdīr garīzi nīst. Parvāz-e ghamangizash rā beh hamsar-e arjmand va farzandān-e gerāmi-yeshān tasliyat migūím va feghdānash rā beh sūg mineshinim. The difference between these two modes in the advertisements can be sought in the local tastes and the deceased’s relatives’ interest in using these two different methods. The purpose, however, is to respect and protect the dignity of the survivors and relatives. The indirect form is more prevalent in showing such a respect, though the direct form shows no offence to the deceased or his/her relatives and is frequently used in the dispatch advertisements. 5. Discussion Considering what was mentioned, the readers can come to know that funeral notices and condolences, with the use of verbal and nonverbal signs affect the audience and provide him/her with a lot of information about the individual who has passed away. Among other components, such as goals, attitudes and views of the participant advertisers and audiences, cultural, social, familial, and religious features are represented through the dispatch advertisements. Obituaries appearing in the Iranian newspapers and consequently in the Iranian social context create a special discourse which is worth researching and introducing. Funeral ads condolences include and convey explicit and implicit information in addition to verbal and nonverbal cues to the audience by offering the total customs related to death, such as holding funerals and mourning, condolences as well as sympathy and bereavement. To a non-native covering Persian obituaries, the obituary discourse is a discourse based on very complex language features, which is intensified by the non-verbal signs like photos and colors. Though this language is not far different from ordinary language of the people living in contemporary Iran, its special use and specific application has formed a discourse which needs recognition and understanding. Using all elements of communication, along with normal language and special getaways of language, this special discourse creates an atmosphere the analysis of which requires the analysis of all components and elements of advertising, such as language, image, color, meta-language, role, status, etc. 6. Conclusion Dispatch advertisements appearing in the Iranian newspapers enjoy syntactic diversity, phonological harmony, and a rhythmic language, to which is added the taste of Persian literature and religious beliefs. Cultural, social, familial, and other personal features of the deceased is discernable thorough analyzing the published and printed advertisements. This discourse which represents a carefully designed communication between the advertisers and the audience employs both direct and indirect ways of exchanging a lot of information in an almost limited number of words, a limited space, and in a reader-friendly manner enjoying a simple language. The findings of the present study might be employed in the cross-cultural studies, discourse analysis research, and linguistic surveys in general and studies on Iranian culture of funerals, ceremonies, and obituaries in particular. پژوهش حاضر تلاشی است در راستای تحلیل گفتمانی آگهی‌های درگذشت منتشر شده در روزنامه‌های ایران. صرف نظر از تفاوت‌های خرده‌فرهنگی، تنوع مذهبی و تفاوت‌های اعتقادی، ایرانیان به‌طور سنتی توجه ویژه‌ای به متوفیان و مراسم تدفین خود داشته‌اند. آگهی های ترحیم همیشه جزء لاینفک مراسم پرسه و تشییع جنازه بوده است و معمولاً برای اعلام خبر فوت عزیزان متوفی از طریق مطبوعات و رسانه های دیگر، به منظور انتشار اخبار تقریباً به همه بستگان و دوستان و سپس انجام اقدامات مربوط به تشییع و تدفین استفاده می شود. برای انجام این پژوهش، پس از بررسی کامل ادبیات پژوهشی مربوطه، پنجاه آگهی درگذشت در سه روزنامه معروف ایران (همشهری، کیهان و اطلاعات) در دو هفته متوالی در مرداد ۱۴۰۳ انتخاب شد. معیار تحلیل گفتمان بر اساس رویکرد تحلیلی ویشنفسکی (۲۰۰۶) بود و ویژگی های مختلف گفتمان همراه با تحلیل های لغوی، نحوی، معنایی و سبکی مورد توجه قرار گرفت. نتایج نشان داد که آگهی‌های درگذشت در روزنامه‌های ایران از تنوع نحوی، هماهنگی واج‌شناختی و زبان موزون برخوردار است که چاشنی ادبیات فارسی و باورهای دینی را نیز به آن اضافه می‌کند.همچنین به واسطه تحلیل آگهی های درگذشت منتشر شده و چاپی، ویژگی های فرهنگی، اجتماعی، خانوادگی و سایر ویژگی های فردی متوفی قابل تشخیص است. این گفتمان که بیانگر ارتباط دقیق طراحی‌شده بین آگهی دهندگان و مخاطبان است، از راه‌های مستقیم و غیرمستقیم برای تبادل اطلاعات فراوان در تعداد کلمات تقریباً محدود، فضای محدود و به شیوه‌ای خواننده پسند و با بهره جستن از زبانی ساده استفاده می‌کند. یافته‌های پژوهش حاضر می‌تواند در مطالعات میان فرهنگی، پژوهش تحلیل گفتمان، و بررسی‌های زبان‌شناختی به‌طور کلی و مطالعات فرهنگ ایرانی تدفین، مراسم و ترحیم به‌طور خاص مورد استفاده قرار گیرد.

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