Transitivity Analysis of Ferdowsi's Discourse based on Functional Approach: Evidence from Rostam's speech Facing Iran and Turan's Armies

This article studies the transitivity system of Ferdowsi's discourse while Rostam faces the armies of Iran and Turan based on systemic functional grammar of Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) to identify its style. In this regard, the analysis of 195 clauses derived from 155 couplets of Ferdowsi's Shahname revealed that types of processes, participants and circumstances and their frequencies in Ferdowsi,s discourse are different from each other while their type and frequencies in Rostam's speech that addresses Iranian army was not different from Turani's army. The relational process possessed the highest and the behavioral one held the least frequency. The representation of mental and material processes by relational process justifies the higher frequency of relational process compared to the others. Mental clauses showed that the perceptive type had higher frequency compare to cognitive, desiderative and emotive types. The nature similarity of behavior process with mental, material and verbal processes justifies the lower frequency of this process so that it is represented through these processes. Iran's army was addressed by neutral quoting process while the Turan's was addressed through indicating one. In addition, the type and frequency of identified, identifier, carrier, attribute, agent, sensor and sayer participants, as well as the type and frequency of the location and manner circumstantial elements are of other characteristics of this discourse. The concrete evidence of processes, participants, circumstances, using proper nouns and the higher frequency of processes accompanying with past form and the first person confirm the narrative-descriptive style of this discourse.