Wedding Invitation Genre: Communicating Sociocultural Identities of Iraqi Society

Nassier Abbas Ghubin Al-Zubaidi

Abstract


The present study examined the genre of Iraqi wedding invitation cards (WICs) in terms of its textual and visual components, and the impact of the social norms and assumptions on the articulation of these components. Drawing upon three analytic tools, namely, genre analysis proposed by Swales (1990) and Bhatia (2004), semiotic analysis suggested by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), and critical discourse analysis advocated by Fairclough (2010), a sample of 250 WICs was selected to be considered for analysis. Corpus analysis showed that Iraqi WICs varied in terms of their non-linguistic features like printed forms, colors, layouts, calligraphy, graphics, and paper materials. On the other hand, the underlying schematic organization of Iraqi WICs was built around seven component moves. Furthermore, Islamic religious beliefs and Iraqi socio-cultural system were clearly encoded in these wedding invitation texts affecting their organization structure.

Keywords


wedding invitation cards; genre analysis; semiotic analysis; socio-cultural practices

Full Text:

PDF

References


Al-Ali, N. (2006). Religious affiliations and masculine power in Jordanian wedding invitation genre. Discourse & Society, 17 (6), 691-714.

Al-Omari, J. (2008). Understanding the Arab culture. 2nd edition. Oxford: How to Books Ltd.

Allison, D. & Ruiying, Y. (2004). Research articles in applied linguistics: structures from a functional perspective. English for Specific Purposes, 23 (2), 264-279.

Bhatia, V.K., 2010. Interdiscursivity in professional communication. Discourse and Communication, 21 (1), 32-50.

Bhatia, K. (2004). Worlds of written discourse: A genre-based view. New York: Continuum.

Clynes A. & Henry A. (2004). Introducing genre analysis using Brunei Malay wedding invitations. Language Awareness, 13(4):225-242.

Davidson, N. (2015, June 19). Muslim wedding cards. [Online ] Available:http://www.articlesbase.com/gifts-articles/muslim-wedding-cards-4789432.html.

Devitt, A., Reiff, M. & Bawarshi , A. (2004). Scenes of writing: Strategies for composing with genres. New York: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Pearson Education Limited.

Faramarzi, S., Elekaei, A. & Tabrizi, H. (2015). Genre-based discourse analysis of wedding invitation cards in Iran. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 6 (3): 662-668

Fei, V. (2004). Developing an integrative multi-semiotic model. In O'Halloran, K. (Ed.). Multimodal Discourse Analysis, pp. 220-246. London: Continuum.

Hill, O. (2015, August 15). Muslim wedding invitation. [Online ] Available:http://www.articlesbase.com/weddings-articles/muslim-wedding-invitation-5386378.html.

Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Holmes R. (1997). Genre analysis and the social sciences: An investigation of the structure of research article discussion sections in three disciplines. English for Specific Purposes, 16(4):321-337.

Johns, A. (1997). Text, role, and context: Developing academic literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. New York: Routledge.

Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd Ed.). New York: Routledge.

Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (2002). Wedding as text: Communicating cultural identities through rituals. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Miller, C. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70 (1), 151-67.

Mirzaei, A. & Eslami, Z. (2013). Exploring the variability dynamics of wedding invitation discourse in Iran. Journal of Pragmatics, 55 (1), 103-118

Momani, R. & Al-Refaei, F. (2010). A socio-textual analysis of written wedding invitations in Jordanian society. LSP Journal, 1 (1), 61-80.

Monger , G. ( 2004 ). Marriage customs of the world: From henna to honeymoons. California: ABC-CLIO, Inc.

Nasir, J. (1990). The Islamic law of personal status. London: Graham & Trotman Ltd.

Nydell, M. (2006). Understanding Arabs: A guide for modern times (4th Ed.). Boston: Intercultural Press, Inc.

O'Halloran, K. (Ed.). (2004). Multimodal discourse analysis. London: Continuum.

Sadri, E. (2014). Iranian wedding invitations in the shifting sands of time. RALs, 5(1), 91-108.

Sharif, M., & Yarmohammadi, L. (2013). On the Persian wedding invitation genre. SAGE, 3(3), 1-9.

Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research setting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tol, A. (2005). The bride's handbook: A spiritual and practical guide for planning your wedding. Miami: Fleming H. Revell Publishing.

Van Dijk, T. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. London: Sage.

Worsley, P. (1970). Introducing sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2017.41.1.129
Date of publication: 2017-07-04 09:02:35
Date of submission: 2016-08-03 18:07:56


Statistics


Total abstract view - 1951
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 407

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2017 Nassier Abbas Ghubin Al-Zubaidi

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.