A Study of the Relationship between Narrative Structure and the Process of Value Production in Discourse Case Study: Persian and Arabic Risalat al-Tayrs

Each narrative structure includes some actions. These actions are in connection with values. Now, as to how these actions can create value in Persian and Arabic Risalat al-Tayrs, it seems that in these texts, different values are created under the influence of different actions and are adapted to the narrative structure. Investigations using a descriptive-analytical method and the structuralist approach (Todorov’s theory of syntactic representation) as well as semio-semantics (the system of values) show that actors make a contract before entering the status of disequilibrium. Then the actors enter competence 1 and obtain virtual values. In the next step, action happens. After that, actors enter competence 2 and obtain potential values. Then the actors enter a situation which entails emotional tension and can be the force to create a new balanced position and also lead to ethical value. In the next stage, actors enter a position of renewed equilibrium and obtain ethical value.  Finally, the birds reach the object or get separated from it in the following manner: connection with the object, eternal destruction of and disunity with the object, conditional connection with the object, unknown unity or disunity and the transformation of subjects into the object. Accordingly, the basic grammar of Risalat al-Tayrs is as follows: Journey – negotiation/sermon/warning – gaining knowledge – union.

Extended Abstract
 
1. Introduction
Todorov believed that small chunks of narrative can create the feeling of a complete narrative. From the perspective of semio-semantics, narratives, depending on the actions of characters, can be connected to some values. In a narratological study of a collection of Risalat al-Tayrs attempt should be made to find out how the actions of such a structure can produce value. It seems that in these texts, values have fully adapted themselves to the narrative structure of the treatises. The case studies here include Ibn Sina’s Risalat al-Tayr and Qasideyeh Ayniyeh, the treatises by Mohammad and Ahmad Ghazzali, Suhrawardi’s Aql-e Sorkh, Attar’s Mantiq al-Tayr, Moqaddasi’s Kashf al-Asrar and the treatises by Chachi and Ain al-Quzat.
 
2. Theoretical Framework
Todorov explains how the feeling of a complete narrative can develop and highlights its most important elements. Semio-semantics stresses that the affirmative narrative structure tries to appropriate values. In structuralism, a different form of abstract values exists, which is based on concepts within a semantic logic. Greimas locates values within a semiotic square. The ideas of these scholars are used here to study the ways in which values are produced and how they are related to narrative structure.
 
3. Methodology
The present study adopts the descriptive-analytical methodology to use Todorov’s system of representations to examine the relationship between narrative structures and value production. First, the structures of treatises are identified and then the relationship between these structures and the system of values is examined.
 
4. Findings
In the Risalat al-Tayrs the initial situations are as follows: 1. The subject is in initial equilibrium, 2. The subject is disconnected from the object, 3. Connection or disconnection with the object is not clear. The first situation is in agreement with Todorov’s idea and the second situation is in line with Greimas’s view. The third situation disagrees with the ideas of both Todorov and Greimas. In all the three treatises the equilibrium changes into imbalance.
 
5. Conclusion
In the process of changes in narrative, Todorov, unlike Greimas, does not highlight the transformation of the system of values. Thus, the ideas of these two thinkers seem to complement each other in some ways. In Risalat al-Tayrs, the actors, before entering the imbalanced situation, conclude a contract to finally acquire competence and virtual values. At the next stage, after doing actions, they enter the second stage of competence and develop potential values. Then, they enter a place where they face emotional tensions and gain the power to develop a state of equilibrium and acquire ethical values. As the next step, the actors enter a new state of equilibrium and gain ethical values.
 
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