An Analysis of the Six Processes of the Ideational Metafunction in the Wills of Martyrs of Rafsanjan City

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran.

10.22103/jrl.2025.25182.3042

Abstract

Among the genres that, despite their considerable significance, have received relatively little attention in discourse studies within the field of resistance literature is the martyr’s will. Analyzing the will of each martyr may provide one of the best windows into the discourse, perspective, and worldview of the martyr concerning internal realities and the external world. Unfortunately, at times, martyrs have been discussed in a manner that portrays them as supernatural and unattainable figures. Therefore, employing a rigorous scientific theoretical framework for discourse analysis to study the written genre of martyrs’ wills, one that can bring us closer to understanding their genuine discourse and real-world outlook, becomes necessary. Accordingly, based on Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) Systemic Functional Linguistics model, the present study aimed to examine the types of process realizations in the wills of martyrs from Rafsanjan, Iran, through the lens of the ideational metafunction. The corpus of the study consisted of 200 wills, purposively sampled from a statistical population of 379 martyr wills from Rafsanjan. After analyzing the six types of processes within the corpus, a total of 11,707 clauses were identified. Of these, material processes were found in 4,673 clauses, relational processes in 2,958 clauses, mental processes in 2,469 clauses, verbal processes in 985 clauses, behavioral processes in 510 clauses, and existential processes in 112 clauses, respectively. In other words, the three primary processes, i.e., material, relational, and mental, were the most frequently employed. In comparison, the three secondary processes—verbal, behavioral, and existential—were less frequently utilized. These findings indicate that the martyrs, in representing their lived experiences, predominantly employed material processes to convey their most crucial messages and key recommendations in a tangible and affective manner. To depict their possessions and deprivations, personal transformations, and trajectories of life, they primarily drew upon relational processes. Mental processes, on the other hand, were mainly utilized to express remorse and a sense of shortcoming rather than to articulate faith-based emotions. Such a linguistic orientation, through the predominant use of major process types, has shaped the discourse of martyr wills into a form of expression that is intimate, unpretentious, and closely aligned with the texture of everyday language

Keywords

References

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Journal of Resistance Literature
Volume 17, Issue 32
September 2025
Pages 43-63

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