Abstract

Irrespective of the oral culture of ethnicity, ‘text-creating’ emphasizes identity and cultural self-definition. At the same time that the mass media; radio and TV were providing and transmitting some Islamic programs in their own ethnic languages, ethnic writers commenced inscribing religious texts in rare written sources such as ethnic journals. Consequently the gap between governmental and intellectual literature was eliminated due to the adaptation of ethnic discourse to Islamic discourse. In other words, a religious ethnic text could be considered as a strategy to preserve ethnic identity by legitimizing the vernacular in Islamic social discourse. Since the main concerns of ethnic intellectuals has been the spread of some global trends which cause the disappearance of ethnic features, applying religious translation in Gilaki might be another motivation for them to record their language. It should also be noted that the Islamic discourse of society is constituted mainly by Shiite.Thus religion can be seen as one of the main features specifically maintaining ethnic identity in traditional societies. This in turn has resulted in use of the religious texts in Gilaki as a powerful means for ethnic intellectuals to increase the use of the ethnic language.