An Analysis of Theosophical Prayers and Chants in Masnavi

Prayers and supplications to God are one of the most spiritual moments in the life of every theologian and religious person. The prayers and supplications of Masnavi have special verbal actions that indicate their secondary meaning. The theory of "speech action" as one of the most important topics in discourse analysis in the field of linguistics was first proposed by Austin, and after him, Searle proposed a fivefold classification for it. The basis of Searle's theory of speech action is based on the fact that the roles of the verb and the following sentence in the process of discourse can be divided into five categories: expressive, emotional, persuasive, obligatory and declarative actions. In the present study, an attempt has been made to analyze the prayers and supplications of Masnavi based on the method of content analysis, and Searle's theory of speech actions. The results of this research show that each of Rumi's prayers and supplications has a specific speech action among Searle's five categories. The results show that "persuasive action" has higher frequency than the others and "declarative action" is not used.