The Communicative Structure of the Various Types of Dialogue in Tazkirat al-Awliya (Describing and Interpreting the Features of Speech Events)

Due to their written characteristics, mystic biographies are subject to the restrictions of recorded discourse. However, conversational features like turn-taking, participant’s tone and turn sequences, which are inserted in biographical dialogues, reproduce some spoken language rituals. These dialogues contain some implicit information that can be described and interpreted through a systematic approach to conversation. Tazkirat al-Awliya is the most remarkable mystic biography whose dialogues are organized by following several procedures of spoken language. However, its conversational potentials have not been examined through Conversation Analysis. Therefore, in the following paper, by applying Hymes’ conversational analysis model — known as SPEAKING model — we distinguish and analyze its most frequent speech events in descriptive and interpretive levels. The results indicate that despite the previous findings about dialogue in Tazkirat al-Awliya, which were limited to analyzing dialogue content, the conversational features are produced and formulated in such a way that they can reinforce the intended meaning the author/narrator was trying to convey. This phenomenon can be perceived by studying the author/narrator’s attempts in creating contextualized dialogues with classified and purposeful participants whose tones, conversational sequences, and turn-taking dynamics are profoundly articulated. Such features not only reveal the hierarchal structures of episteme among different groups of mystics, but also cross-examine their loyalty to this hierarchal system.