This study tried to explore how a competent speaker chooses a special ARRANGEMENT for his/her text with his/her presupposed knowledge of the audience in his/her social and cultural contexts and how the structure of the text or, in other words, ARRANGEMENT of its components plays an important role in the meanings received by the audience. With this purpose in mind, several stretches of speech with the topic of "request" were extracted out of the Shāhnāmeh to see what Ferdowsi's textual tactics were for arranging the structures of different types of requests with regard to the topic of "request", as well as the interlocutors involved. The results showed that such versified requests followed different types of patterns of ARRANGEMENT. The following sequences of moves were found: "praise" (to God and the audience), "introduction" (variable), "the very request" (a story and a request), and "closing" (variable). These moves with minor variable ARRANGEMENTs and/or omissions showed that Ferdowsi paid attention to the cultural and social contexts of his own time. Therefore, the move patterns of "request" texts in the Shāhnāmeh were predictable, leading to a better understanding of the text by the audience. The moves of "introduction" and "closing", including different steps (sub-moves) with varied ARRANGEMENTs according to the subject and the context, played an important role in persuading the audience and providing the rhetoric of the request too.
Introduction
The characters’ monologues or speeches in the stories are one of the important text types in the Shāhnāmeh. By examining the subject matters and situational contexts of such speeches or monologues, it is possible both to identify Ferdowsi's tricks in representing the non-verbal context and social status at different levels of language and find out his specific methods of influencing on his audience. Just as the type of word ARRANGEMENT is effective in understanding the meaning of a single utterance, ARRANGEMENT of different parts of a text and their sequence type could create special semantic relationships that can affect the audience's understanding of the text as well. The textual structures of different types of speeches in the Shāhnāmeh have not yet been studied thoroughly and duly. Examining the textual ARRANGEMENTs of varied types of poetry and prose texts that have received less attention in traditional rhetoric and stylistic studies, in addition to identifying the rhetoric of a text and individual style and period, could reveal good cultural and social information hidden in the different layers of language.
Materials & Methods
In this study, 10 stretches of speeches with the topic of "request" were selected from the text of Shāhnāmeh edited by Khaleghi Motlagh based on Sarami's approach (1994). Every story containing the speeches was summarized. Then, using Halliday and Hasan's approach (Halliday and Hasan, 1976, 1985) to study the texture, their contexts were described. Finally, based on Sasani and Yazdani's method of analyzing the text ARRANGEMENT (Sasani and Yazdani, 2011), we found and labeled different parts of the speeches, including gāms (moves) and gāmaks (steps). We then analyzed the functions of gāms and gāmaks in producing the main meaning of the text in the desired context with their rhetorical and cognitive aspects. Since the subjects and contexts of the selected requests were different, the analysis was of a qualitative-quantitative type.
Discussion of Results & Conclusions
In some of the speeches examined, the request began with the move of "praise", which included the two steps of "praising God" and "praising the audience". The existence of this move showed Ferdowsi's adherence to the writing traditions of his own time.
The second move was the "introduction", which included different steps depending on the texture. In this move, Ferdowsi provided the necessary grounds for preparing the audience to express the request and how it differed from the textual composition of each speech. The brevity of this move also had a lot to do with the context of the situation. In a speech where the position of the audience was higher and the subject was more important, this move was expressed longer.
The third move was the "request" that was present in all the speeches and included the two steps of "description" and "request". In the step of "description", the reason for the request was stated. In the step of "request", which contained only 8% of the text on the average according to these 3 texts, the characters’ language in the story were mentioned. This section could be considered as the main step in which the subject of the text was determined. In this step, a few points affected by the non-verbal texture were visible. In the speeches where the audience's position was higher, this step was longer and the request was direct and vice versa.
The fourth move was "concluding", which had a persuasive aspect in all the speeches. What caused the step of "request" (8% of the text) to find its original and rhetorical meaning was the existence of pre- and post-small steps by which many points were stated.