Analyzing the Stylistic Features of Theatrical Songs

Theatrical songs are a part folkloric literature and are usually accompanied by traditional music in comic performances. They reproduce cultural and social identity of Iranian people and, with a linguistic simplicity, reflect the lower class life. The present study is a descriptive-analytic reading of theatrical songs in terms of phonological, lexical, lexical, syntactic, and rhetoric layers. It aims at revealing originality, simplicity and commonplaceness of these songs which are overshadowed by new literary trends. Results indicated that theatrical songs predominantly stimulate emotions and were essentially lyric and sentimental in nature and seek to please. Use of emotional, commonplace and even rude words with linguistic trans normativity is typical of theatrical songs which are initially to delight the audience and ease the process of communication. These songs make use of rhetorical components with social origins that are natural and lucid as they are associated with external layers of language.