Critical Analysis of Governmental Discourse in the First Chapter of Saadi's Bustan

Saadi’ s point of view about the establishment of a desirable society specially the role of the government and its members have been the center of attention in “Gulistan”, and “Bustan”. the topic has been addressed in the first chapter of these two books. Among the ten chapters of Bustan, the first chapter “On Justice, council and administration of government” was selected for the analysis of the governmental discourse because many stories and anecdotes mentioned in this chapter are about the administration of government and social relationships while in the other eight chapters just a few number of stories address government and relations between the essential elements of the society. The data gathered (stories in the first chapter of Bustan) is analyzed based on a critical discourse analysis approach. Among the critical discourse analysis theories, the methodology introduced by Norman Fairclough is chosen according to which the analysis of the three dimensions of text, discourse and society is based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. The results of this research can be summarized as follows: Although Saadi’s Bustan is considered a book written to support the government of that time, and it’s not an anti-government text, Saadi’s point of view towards the government which is accompanied by the emphasis on the welfare of the poor, and the development of the country is very interesting. This can be perceived by considering both the discourse analysis data and the social conditions of that era.