naghmeh samini

Abstract Some critics believe that for analyzing a text we should rely only on the text and there is no need to go far from it to the social condition and historical events. But Michel Foucault is the agent of those who consider the text as a result of social powers. Critical discourse analysis is a method by which we can conceive social and ideological aspect of texts of all types that never can be understand in other ways. The “Discursive order” or the “orders of discourse” is a critical term presented by Norman Fairclough means the contiguity of different discourses even opposed or paradoxical. Discursive order embodies different discourses in similar fields. The theory of critical discourse analysis (CDA) is based on Michel Foucault, the French philosopher. He believed that there is a relationship between the power and ideology with language and it can be found even in advertisements, essays, clinical recipe and artistic texts like poems, stories and literature as a whole. Fairclough expanded this idea and established a practical and systematic framework based on linguistic by which we can understand the juncture between power and ideological analogy with the language. In this essay we have chosen an Iranian play named “the death of Yazdgerd” written by Bahram Beizaee for analyzing in this method. This play is about “Yazdgerd”, the king of Sasani dynasty who escapes because of Arab’s assaulting and refuges to a mill and is killed by the miller. This is the historical narration about Yazdgerd, but we see many different possibilities about the end of Yazdgerd in the play. The miller, his wife and his daughter plays different stories about the king which we cannot distinguish which one is true. The idea about the splendid history of the Iranian kings and also the opposite opinion of this which is about the injustice of those kings configures two discourses: the discourse of royalty and majesty of the past history of kings and the discourse of opposing with the past and welcoming to the changes. The play is written in 1967 which is simultaneous with the Islamic revolution in Iran. We try to compare the most dominant discourses of the play with the political and social situation of the time in which the play has been written and focus about the “change” which is seen both in the play and in 1967 and falling down of the kings in the both period. The reason of this similarity in two different historical periods is the huge gap between people and the kings. So we first explains Fairclough’s theory in CDA and his frameworks, then we choose the most important questions of this framework about the play and try to answer them relying some facts in the play. To find the most dominant discourses in the text which is called order of discourses and interpreting the relationships between those discourses and the main discourses in the society which are determined by the ideology and power, is our next attempt.

Students of Theatre mostly share many habits and interests within their "Educational Field", although sometimes we may witness clashes in them, too. The educational system hopes to lead these acts according to its own legitimacy, which is usually interpreted as "positive act". This legitimization creates a "cultural capital" and a tremendous change in the university and among the students, which may also affect the outer spaces as the "social fields". The present study aims to check whether the School of Performing Arts and Music at the University of Tehran has kept its traditional legitimacy, or has lost its symbolic power. In order to do so, the habits and interests of the students should be analyzed. This research shows that the newly created "subfields" in the "academic field" of the university, has defined some rules and concerns of its own. It seems that this new field requires the students to move towards anticulturalism and absence of act, in which the agents (the students) tend to eliminate themselves from the field, and choose "silence" as value to gain credit. This research has done on the basis of a questionnaire with 63 questions, all on the basis of Pierre Bourdieu's ideas, which was distributed among 115 BA students of Theatre. The results of the data analysis prove some new problems, for which the present article has provided its suggestions to solve them.

Every character type may change as time goes by, based on the social conditions which make him different and sometimes opposite of what it used to be. The clown of the Iranian traditional plays –Siyâh- in Siâh Bâzi and Mobârak in Kheyme Shab Bâzi (The Iranian marionette play)- have been funny and instructive. Different types of their characteristics can be sorted out in 4 groups: Physical characteristics, moral and behavioral characteristics, confrontation with the holders of the upper hands, and finally and making others aware and conscious. But this character type has undergone some general changes as an Iranian dramatic element, to the extent that its study requires a sample pattern. This pattern can demonstrate the course in which this character type has been changed. The changing ‘Ayyâr Character group to Luti and after that to Lumpin can be regarded as an appropriate pattern for the study of this changing character, which is influenced by the social conditions. In this changing course a character with good function and traits who is helper for people (‘Ayyâr) make to a character with negative functions and traits in society (Lumpin). According to this sample course a kind of changed clown is designed and introduced which shares some characteristics and functions of the traditional clown, but in a revere direction. Therefore he is referred to as a “reverse clown” in this article. In This changed clown frankness converts to giving orders, rebelliousness converts to rudeness, and mockery converts to insult and contempt. In the study of the tradition clown, we notice a confrontation between the clown as slave and a representative of the lower class with the master as a representative of the higher class. However, with respect to the reverse clown, this confrontation sometimes changes, and the master humiliates the lower class people. This changed kind can be noticed in the play The magnificent smile of Mr. Gil by Akbar Radi, in which Davud Gil is introduced as a reverse Clown. He has clownish characteristics in an inverted direction, like giving ridiculous names to others but he is distinctively a reverse clown against Tuti, the house maid, who belongs to the lower class of the society. Davud is a hunter and gambler who considers Tuti as his property, and believes that he can sacrifice her for the good health of his father Mr. Gil. Just like the court ester who makes the king happy and entertained, Davud as a reverse clown offers Tuti for Mr. Gil’s satisfaction; an action which leads to her destruction. As a reverse clown, Davud has two character sides. He is a happy clown on one hand, who mocks everybody, and on the other hand, he is a hopeless and self-destructive person. After his father’s death, he shows his brutal character against Tuti, and leads her to her suicide. This self-destruction also shows his inverted trait in comparison with the clown in traditional theatre, who wakens the conscious of the society, and is therefore an effective and useful character. Generally, the characteristics and functions of this reverse clown in comparison with the traditional clown can be classified in 8 cases: ridiculous naming, giving orders like the master, humiliating sarcasms, rudeness, buffoonish, self- admiration, making happy with scarifying the other and self-destruction.

Unlike the early years of 20th century، in which، most theories sought the roots of theatre in rituals، and based on this notion were busy analyzing for stage texts and on stage events، contemporary theories overview this phenomenon in relation with other performance genres such as play and their interactions. According to this fact، based-on-origin theories have lost their primary reputation، and so theatre is no more considered as an evolved performing form but just as a manner of expressing، parallel with other performance genres. On the other hand، a thorough cognition of play، its structure، the way that it is performed and its moodsare functional prerequisites for examining theatre and theatrical text in relation with this phenomenon. Regarding two facts that the concept of play can be traced from pre-Socratic philosophers to contemporary postmodern thinkers and different anthropological and sociological studies have brought forward a vast range of possibilities for understanding the world of play، the onto-phenomenological approach seems to be the most appropriate one in dealing with play world. This approach strongly depends on both conceptual and structural achievements، which not only are of great help in interpretation of conventional stage texts and events، but also provide more innovative and complicated forms such as dark play، which can be beneficial in new theatrical recognition، expression and creation. Johan Huizinga’s HumoLudens- The study of play-element in culture، has been a key source in play studies during last seventy years، and therefore we base our study on his notions. But، despite his genuine idea and significant approach، Huizinga seems to fail to present a thorough comprehension of play which can fully satisfy our demands in order to examine play and performance in relation with each other. In other words، the essential playfulness of play may be considered as the main obstacle to handing in such precise understanding. However، Huizinga’s insistence on culture’s birth in play still has its own supporters، but many outstanding reviewers have pointed to some paradoxical parts of his work and therefor depicted some concealed dimensions of play، many of them depending on the way the play is performed. We also are going to، next to reviewing a locanic introduction on the relation between play and theatre، shift our way to exploration of the concepts and structures of play by which we mean examining the notions of Huizinga and its limitations. By barrowing Huizinga’s ideas and based on them، we would find appropriate materials in order to confidently develop our exploration toward the very complicated structures، concepts، manifestations and moods of play. Anthony Scheffer’s play، Sleuth، as a typical case of manipulating plays and games in order to create theatrical text، will carefully go under study and by this we carefully take a step forward to have a comprehensive construction of play during its performance. Actually، play manifestation through performance reveals sophisticated notions of play such as frame، meta-communication and the message، complicated forms like dark play and deep play and amusing moods like flow.

This article is an attempt to depict how cross-dressing, as a theatrical affairm is able to challenge signs which are stabilized by Ideology. For this goal cross-dressing has been understudied in Azerbaijani oral literature. Firstly, in order to use a relevant method and a basic theory, Althusser’s concept of Ideology and the process of Naturalization have been adopted as useful guides. The writers have shown that Ideology, Subject, Myth, Power and semiotic orders grow in a non-hierarchical relation and try to signify each other. Althusser’s idea of happening reactions against Ideology has been traced in oral literature and cross-dressing, as one of these reactions, has been analyzed in Azerbaijani tales. Actually, cross-dressing, by creating a category crisis, reveals new structures that are denied by Ideology for Power’s sake. It must be noticed that in this collection of tales, cross-dressing happens in three different genres which are: gender cross-dressing, Bald-dressing and Dervish-dressing and by each of them a category crisis- in Marjorie Garber’s terms- is created. Gender cross-dressing is tacitly correlated to the understanding of sex and gender. When the attributed clothes to a sex can be changed, then the naturalized meaning of gender can be brought under question. In this state Judith Butler’s arguments of sex and gender can be the key to a way out and Marjorie Garber’s studies of cross-dressing depict that category crisis shows how human-made are natural-being-thought structures. Bald-dressing, i.e. wearing a sheep’s or goat’s bowl, is a repeatedly used act in Persian and other ethnic-related tales. The point is that we are rarely face with characters in tales, and binary types such as Good-forever and Bad-forever has been usually exposure. But in the other hand, Bald is a mélange of antagonistic characteristics’ like being clever and being lazy. And not only the Bald-dressed person acquires these characteristics such as being cunning and penetrates to his/her goal, but also almost always the Bald-dressed person is a girl in these tales. For this reason Bald-dressing besides being a mean to create new narrative forms, can be a special type of gender cross-dressing. In a same way, Dervish-dressing happens when a king decides to enter the public by wearing Dervish’s clothes who is a socially popular person. This type of cross-dressing in juxtaposition with having a category crisis in social castes brings to mind the wishes of that class of the society that oral literature is created and continuously repeated by them, the wish of having the king beside themselves and dressed by their own cloths. However, the king always goes back to his palace and the total order of society remains stable. Finally, it must be noted that cross-dressing isn’t going to destroy old structures but is an attempt to present new structures and this question can be brought forward that does a cross-dresser turns into a new sign or by remaining the previous sign acquires a new signified? What does the process of indication?

Studying the dialogue properties in Rigveda and Avesta indicates a type of dialogue called “philosophical dialogue” that is the synonym of “nonviolence”. According to the author, the initial root of forming the dramatic dialogue is based on philosophical dialogue, i.e. a type of fluidity and flow of meaning between two sides of the relation and by such relation it will be made a new concept. Thus, fluid space of dialogue conduces to multiple tons, and efforts to perceive the others will produce a new landscape in dialogue that displaces mind with power. In this style, using mutual question and answer, the subject is converted to word and dialogue is formed. In this process, a kind of active comprehension is appeared that is not based on initial agreement, but it is the result of mixture of different conceptions and is converted to understanding and causes speech improvement and mutual confirmation. Such duality of relation and stating the visions results in sharing for information making forming the basis of dramatic dialogue. In philosophical dialogue, conversational political space result in making multiple voices and attempting for finding another perception has made new perspective in the conversation and there will be appeared a type of concept resulted from mix of different insights. In Avesta, there is less new perspective and sense making and comparing with fluid boundaries of Rigveda, it has determined and absolute boundaries. The reason for the selection of this topic is to introduce another concept and dimension of dialogue and to emphasize the importance of the concept of dialogue in an era in which human being has noticed the power of communication and is trying to establish a better communication with his environment and familiarity with other insights. Modern human being has come to the conclusion that better communication will not be possible unless geographical and racial borders fade into insignificance. Developing and creating common meaning, paying attention to others’ views, coincidence of views, suspending meanings and thoughts, and discourse instead of exerting power are the concepts that we will try to find their roots in Rig Veda’s and Avesta’s songs. In Avesta’s, we encounter conversation. A new style will not be created in this style and semantics will not occur. Avesta’s language is a strategic and ideology-maker one, and is concluded from monologue system, namely a distinguishable system between friend and enemy, which has exact and definite borders despite of fluid borders of Rig Veda. Here, two songs of Yasneh-hat 29 Gahan and Tiryasht from Avesta’s; songs 183, from tenth Mandala; songs 125 and 165 from first Mandala of Rig Veda are studied. This study proves that while there is little capability in Avesta’s for dramatic dialogue, but philosophical dialogue is impossible in it, and this is while Rig Veda has philosophical dialogue capability plus dramatic dialogue. In fact, roots of formation of modern dialogue should be searched in Rig Veda. In this study we follow up the roots of formation of modern conversation and dramatic dialogue based on philosophical dialogue.