Question Types and Their Functions in Nasir-Khosrow’s Poetry

Abstract

In addition to possessing some rhetorical and linguistic characteristics, question is one of the elements in generating creative thinking. More notable objectives of asking questions in creative thinking are as follows: indirect control of audience, obtaining information from him, evaluating and testing him, provocation of the thought in audience, guiding the thoughts in a specific direction and understanding the idea of audience. The question is less likely to be asked in a non-dialogue context, but asking question is the most significant element in moving the conversation forward in a dialogue context. The aim of the present study is to investigate the methods of guiding thought through asking question in Nasir Khosrow’s poetry. By applying educational and linguistic pragmatics and considering a semantic approach, questions are divided into rhetorical and philosophical categories, consisting of analogy, induction, and deduction. Finally, by referring to rhetorical questions as close-ended or convergent and considering philosophical questions as open-ended or divergent ones, it was concluded that Nasir-Khosrow used questions to create “positive self-consciousness" in his audience. It means that by considering individual differences in his readers, he does not disvalue and nullifies their previous beliefs, but by highlighting the significance of dialogue, he makes the audience reconsider it or think about other aspects of it.