Metonymic Pole of Sufi Prose Language with Emphasis on Shams-e- Tabrizi’s Essays

Abstract

Among extant books of Sufis prose, the prose of Maqalat-e Shams-e Tabrizi has high and particular qualities. Its special language and the sensitivity that Shams shows in every point of his Maqalat regarding language makes us observe the dialectic between structure and meaning of language which is the results of forming a progressive prose compared to the prose of his contemporaries. Among the different functions of Shams’ language, metonymic function of prose has a special importance in Maqalat. Therefore, in order to discuss the form of Maqalat, in this article the metonymic language function is discussed, and in this way the theory of Roman Jakobson about metaphoric and metonymic pole of language has been used very much. Jakobson by accepting the theory of Saussure about the arbitrary aspects of language and also admitting two axes of replacing and companionship in language, adds that metonymy is formed by the relationship of proximity and companionship of words, but metaphor from the relationship of similarity in the replacement axis in language. By studying Maqalat we may conclude that its prose has used metonymy to present particular and special concepts.