The role of conversational patterns and turn-taking organization in the combat between Rostam and Esfandyar

Based on the turn-taking processes which is one of the study fields in Applied Stylistics, the quality of starting the conversation, the quantity and number of turn takings of the participants, time and duration of turn for every speaker, leading the subject matter of conversation by the participants and meanwhile the impact of all the aforementioned factors on the degree of command and the authority of the speakers to organize the subject of speech are dealt with in this study. The general aim of this research is to study the conversational acts on the basis of turn-taking and addressing system in the combat between Rostam and Esfandyar. The results obtained show that the alternating turns in this epic narrative coincides with the analytic literature of conversation. It seems that apart from the influence of narrator in moving the story forward, the strength and dominance of these two epic figures have significant role in assessing and predicting the outcome of the tale. In dialogues, the organization of turns taken by each speaker, type of addressing the other party on behalf of each participant, are influenced by the heroic and regal circumstances so that the narrator is often with respect to these aspects selects suitable discourse for Rostam and Esfandyar. Discourse indicative of physical strength for the former, and the one emphasizing the spiritual strength and Divine Farr for the latter.