A Survey of Critical Discourse Analysis in Auhaduddin Kermani’s Managheb

Abstract

Using Norman Fairclough's theory and method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this article seeks to reveal the hidden layers of discursive communication in Sufi language and to study textual structure of Auhaduddin Kermani’s Managheb, a Persian mystic and poet of the sixth and seventh centuries. In order to achieve this purpose, the linguistic elements (nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, plural nouns, adverbs, synonyms, numbers, syntax), the structural and contextual dimensions (context and position, inversion and suspension of reality, reject criticism and questioning) and their links with the dominant discourses (the prophets, the system of caliphate and the government, the mystic elders and other texts) have been examined in three steps of description, explanation and interpretation. Finally, by comparing a common anecdote in Auhaduddin Kermani’s Managheb, and Attar’s Tazkirat al-Awliya, critical and comparative structural analysis of the text is discussed.