Literary Arts (Sep 2020)
Explaining the place of adjectives in the praise discourse
Abstract
Abstract One of the important concepts in the development of the language of a text is how to use linguistic tools to express the subject and achieve the author's purpose. A text is an interconnected set of different linguistic components influenced by each other. Vocabulary, syntactic and rhetorical combinations and structures are among the constituent, textual elements. The word as the smallest meaningful unit of language is one of the main components of a text on which the text’s structure and meaning depend. The choice of words in each text according to its type, structure, and goals is one of the most important linguistic issues. One of the components of a text, which is considered as a type of word in grammar books, is the adjective. An adjective category is a sub-element that has different types based on the concept, structure, and grammatical classification. What makes adjectives worthy of being considered as beyond these divisions is their place in influencing the structure, content, and characterization of the language of a text. Adjectives, based on their content and form, are considered effective elements in expanding the meaning, praise, condemnation, rhetorical and syntactic feature in the text. This issue can be examined in any text according to its linguistic structure and content. In ideological texts, the adjective according to the context and its political attitude toward the institution of government finds a place beyond a sub-element. It also consistently presents in the linguistic structure and purposeful context of the text. Persian poems, especially eulogy poems, are the most prominent types of ideological classic texts that have a strong connection with the prevailing political thought in the era of every eulogist poet. What is accepted by default is the use of language by the eulogist poets to form the discourse of power in the text in favor of the institution of government. Accordingly, the category of adjectives in the poems of six prominent poets belonging to the flourishing periods of praise poetry, from the beginning to the end of the sixth century, was studied. These poets are Farrokhi, Manouchehri, Anvari, Sanai, Khaghani, and Kamal Ismail, from whom twenty poems of praise were selected and analyzed. The reason for the selection was that the format of the ode is the best one for composing praise poems. Poems were also selected from among the selected poems of poets. Accordingly, the focus of this research is on the morphological, syntactic, rhetorical, and semantic position of the adjective in the praise poetry and its application for the text and the author. The research questions are the followings: 1. How much attention have the eulogist poets paid to the role of the adjective in highlighting the discourse of praise? 2. What meanings, identities, and actions have been described through the adjectives highlighted in the text of praise? To answer the questions above, adjectives were examined in terms of subjectivity and objectivity, ideological role, syntactic position including predicative combination, normally with the mention of the adjective or the inverted adjective compounds, attributive and addressed form, inclusion, and generalist attitudes by the use of ambiguous and multiple counting attributes. Rhetorical semantics was the other field of study in terms of normative deviation. To the purpose of this research, the main factors determined were as follows: rhyme construction, adjective repetition, pun, alliteration, coherence, collocation, and regularization using similes and metaphors. Praise poetry, as the most obvious example of government poetry in classical literature, is an ideological poem in that the government is reflected and stabilized. The poet praises the adjective, the discourse of power, through linguistic propositions and in this research, specifically, the adjective, and the discourse of power. Praising acclaim with a completely positive semantic load is the most important function of attributes in praise; the traits that internally represent the praised with the scope of the religious and worldly rule and a set of characteristics such as courage, forgiveness, and patience in his personality. The totalitarianism of the government is embodied in the eulogy by praising the praised and issuing general rulings about him, using vague generalist traits and numerous counting traits. Emphasis on praiseworthy action as the main reason for praise, using actual attributes, emphasis on moral and esoteric attributes instead of outward ones, is another part of the poets' performance in the field of attribution. The position of adjectives in literary illustration networks has turned adjectives into tools of the verbal and spiritual art of praise; a tool that, in addition to creating musical images and expressive semantics, has overshadowed the ideological conceptualization of the text. The polarization between the praised and his opponents, by attributing positive traits to the praised and negative traits to the opposition, leads to the consolidation of the internal force and the repulsion of the non-internal force, which is one of the ideological functions of the institution of power.
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