Speech Acts in Taziye & Their Realizations in Performance

Act and movement may be regarded as fundamentals of plays. Here, language has its specific role in the multimodal or multilayered text of a play. In other respects, it, however, could be considered to be substituted by body and other elements of movement and act. This idea is clearly developed in speech act theory, and discourse studies on language. Thus, language is not merely representative of the truth and falseness of a speech, as it may itself entrust acts. This is especially significant in plays, significantly in minimal plays such as taziye, which has relatively few body movements. In this kind of play, language represents many movements and acts. Based on speech act theory, this paper, therefore, attempts to study acts made through language in the majles (episode) of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein (as). Finally, it compares these acts with their substituted movements so that it may determine how far verbal elements of the written text are represented in the performance. This comparison shows that in taziye as a confessionary, narrative and ceremonial play, verbal act is found more frequently than any other act.