Foucault's reading of the functions of language: A new project to understand the functions of the Persian language from the beginning of the Abbasid rule to the fifth century

Subject Areas : Iran

Afshin Eshkevar kiaei ^{1 *}

1 - Researcher of Iranian identity

Received: 2023-04-20 Accepted : 2023-06-17 Published : 2023-01-21

Keywords: language, Persian language, Iranian Identity, genealogy, Abbasid,

Abstract :

The invasion of Muslim Arabs is one of the most influential identity events in the history of Iran, especially in the discussion of language; But there is a difference of opinion about how and how much, and to what extent this change is on Iranians, which has led to various research topics and various narratives of this historical period. In this study, while examining the essentialist and constructivist narratives about the effects of language on historical developments, we examine the various functions of language from the beginning of the Abbasid rule to the beginning of the fifth century with the help of Michel Foucault's method of historical genealogy.The finding of this study of language in this period is that, given the acceptance of the argument about language that, while language plays an important role in shaping the collective life of ethnic groups and nationalist beliefs, it is nevertheless inappropriate to consider language as the collective spirit of a nation. Although language is the builder of mentality, it should by no means be considered an unwritten whiteboard. Rather, language has different functions throughout history and it must be examined in its time frame.