Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:42:38.857Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vehicle Writings in an Iranian Context: The Interplay of Habitus and Field

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mostafa Hasrati ,
Brian Street  and
Saba Habibi
Mostafa Hasrati
Affiliation:
Department of English Language and Linguistics at Razi University of Kermanshah in Iran
Brian Street
Affiliation:
King's College London, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
Saba Habibi
Affiliation:
Department of English Language and Linguistics at Razi University of Kermanshah in Iran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to problematize writings on vehicles in an Iranian context. Previous studies have indicated that vehicle stickers can be employed to express emotions and social status, political views, ideology and identity, and religious beliefs. However, very little has been done on this discursive practice in Iran. This study is the result of the content analysis of 122 vehicle writings collected from April 2011 to March 2012. This paper will draw on six of the most frequent themes: religion, humor, playing pessimism, didactic expressions, ethnic-geographic identification, and love. Employing Bourdieu's conceptual frameworks of “habitus,” “field,” and “doxa,” and Heath and Street's social practice perspective on literacy, it will be argued that vehicle writings in this study can be regarded as situated literacy practices reflecting the dominant undisputed discourses in the context, but at the same time displaying the dynamic interplay of power relations, the relationship of cultural structures and individual customized versions of those structures in vehicle writings.

Keywords

Bumper StickersVehicle WritingBourdieuLiteracy as Social PracticeIranCustomized Social Structures
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of this paper. They would also like to thank Negar Hasrati for kindly preparing the sketches used in this paper. Any shortcoming will remain the authors'.

References

Barton, D. Hamilton, M. and Ivanic, R., eds. Situated Literacies: Reading and Writing in Context. London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Bloch, L. R. “Mobile Discourse: Political Bumper Stickers as a Communication Event in Israel.” Journal of Communication 50, no. 2 (2000a): 48–76. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02841.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, L. R. “Setting the Publish Sphere in Motion: The Rhetoric of Political Bumper Stickers in Israel.” Political Communication 17 (2000b): 433–456. doi: 10.1080/10584600050179059CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. The Logic of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Oxford: Polity (Le sens pratique. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit), 1990/1980.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Translated by Nice, R. London: Sage, 1990.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (with L. Wacquant). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Translated by Wacquant, L. Oxford: Polity Press (Responses. Pour une anthropologie reflexive. Paris: Seuil), 1992.Google Scholar
Case, C. E. “Bumper Stickers and Car Signs Ideology and Identity.” Journal of Popular Culture 26 (1992): 107–119. doi: 10.1111/j.0022-3840.1992.2603_107.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiluwa, I. (2008). “Religious Vehicle Stickers in Nigeria: A Discourse of Identity, Faith and Social Vision.” Discourse and Communication 2, no. 4 (2008): 371–387. doi: 10.1177/1750481308091909CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endersby, J. W. and Towle, M. J. “Tailgate Partnership: Political and Social Expression Through Bumper Stickers.” The Social and Science Journal 33, no. 3 (1996): 307–319. doi: 10.1016/S0362-3319(96)90026-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gee, J. P. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Grenfell, M. “Bourdieu, Language, and Education.” In Language, Ethnography and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu, edited by Grenfell, M. Bloome, D. Hardy, C. Pahl, K. Rowsell, J. and Street, B. 50–70. New York: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Grenfell, M. Bloome, D. Hardy, C. Pahl, K. Rowsell, J. and Street, B., eds. Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar
Heath, S. B. Ways with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, S. B. Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Heath, S. B. and Street, B. V. “On Ethnography: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research.” Paper presented at National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy; Teachers College Columbia 2007.Google Scholar
Holland, D. Lachicotte, W. Jr., Skinner, D. and Cain, C. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Lang, A. Dhillon, K. and Dong, Q. “The Effects of Emotional Arousal and Valence on Television Viewers’ Cognitive Capacity and Memory.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 39 (1995): 313–327. doi: 10.1080/08838159509364309CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newhagen, J. E. and Ancell, M. “The Expression of Emotion and Social Statue in the Language of Bumper Stickers.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14 (1995): 312–323. doi: 10.1177/0261927X95143004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, M. and Wodak, R. Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Anti-Semitism. London: Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Salamon, H. “Political Bumper Stickers in Contemporary Israel: Folklore as an Emotional Battleground.” The Journal of American Folklore 114, no. 453 (2001): 277–308.Google Scholar
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, P. N. “Grounded Theory Methodology: Its Uses and Processes.” In More Grounded Theory Methodology, edited by Glaser, B. G. 116–126. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Street, B. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Street, B., ed. Literacies across Educational Contexts. Philadelphia: Caslon Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Vigso, O. “Extremist Stickers: Epideictic Rhetoric, Political Marketing, and Tribal Demarcation.” Journal of Visual Literacy 29, no. 1 (2010): 28–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, R. “The Discourse-Historical Approach.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, edited by Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. 63–94. London: Sage, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar