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Abstract
This study focuses on the exploration and evaluation of discursive power (Fairclough's concept of power in and behind discourse, 1989) in KhaledHosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. It aims at studying discourses on power from feminist critical discourse studies perspective (Lazar, 2007; Lehtonen, 2007). Fairclough's (1989, 1992) three-dimensional model (namely Critical Discourse Analysis) is applied on the selected discourses of the novel under study for analysis. Power is discursively exercised and challenged at the agency and institutional levels. It is omnipresent in asymmetrical social relations, and it works in manifolds and multidimensions. It is exercised and challenged through control, decisions, force, weapons and domination, but language is symbolically and rhetorically a unique site and medium for power exercise and challenge. Linguistic and interactional structures and strategies serve as powerful means for power. The novel under study contains a number of dialogues which indicate that power is exercised and resisted for multiple ends, like interests, social identity, social status, image and supremacy. It is a discursive site for the novelist who has revealed how patriarchal power is discursively exercised and challenged by characters in dialogues. As power is highly context-sensitive and as the analysis of context in relation to text is the fundamental and integral part of critical discourse analysis, therefore, discursive power in the novel under study is critically analyzed in the socio-political and cultural context of Afghanistan where the Afghans, especially women and children, are subject to power abuse.
Keywords: discourse, power, feminist critical discourse studies
Introduction
The prime aim of this study is to explore and evaluate the interplay between discourse and power. So the discourse-oriented power can be explored and critically evaluated either in various forms of communication and interaction (e.g. conversation, dialogue, etc.) or other discursive constructions. It has many forms and uses in different contexts. As this study attempts to explore and critically analyze the discourse-oriented power, therefore, it specifically focuses on "power in discourse" and "power behind discourse" (Fairclough, 1989). Power in discourse simply refers to power as control and constraint over the contributions of other participant/character used in the asymmetrical relationships between individuals in various forms of discourse (conversation or dialogue).Power behind discourse is hidden power (not apparent to the participant/speaker/writer) which affects, constrains and controls speaker's...