The Textual Arrangement of "Request" Speeches in Ferdowsi's Shāhnāmeh

This study tried to explore how a competent speaker chooses a special arrangement for his/her text with his/her presupposed knowledge of the audience in his/her social and cultural contexts and how the structure of the text or, in other words, arrangement of its components plays an important role in the meanings received by the audience. With this purpose in mind, several stretches of speech with the topic of "request" were extracted out of the Shāhnāmeh to see what Ferdowsi's textual tactics were for arranging the structures of different types of requests with regard to the topic of "request", as well as the interlocutors involved. The results showed that such versified requests followed different types of patterns of arrangement. The following sequences of moves were found: "praise" (to God and the audience), "introduction" (variable), "the very request" (a story and a request), and "closing" (variable). These moves with minor variable arrangements and/or omissions showed that Ferdowsi paid attention to the cultural and social contexts of his own time. Therefore, the move patterns of "request" texts in the Shāhnāmeh were predictable, leading to a better understanding of the text by the audience. The moves of "introduction" and "closing", including different steps (sub-moves) with varied arrangements according to the subject and the context, played an important role in persuading the audience and providing the rhetoric of the request too.