A Survey on Application of Quotations: A Stylistic Study of the Travelogues of Sir John Chardin
Islamic Azad University, Iran
ABSTRACT
One of the cultural contributions of France to Iran in Safavid dynasty was writing the book of travel. Sir John Chardin'sthe book of travel is the most reliable books of travel in this period. This book is not only a vast and valuable resource of historical and geographical information, its style of writing is so notable that the book has subsistedand read till now. It can also be a great outline for book of travel writers. One of the most important stylistic features in this book is frequent use of quotations and references that are used in various ways. The frequent use of quotations is considered as a Chardin’spersonal or stylistic method of writing. This paper aims at classifying and interpreting the content and rhetoric of the text. To do so, the first volume of the book was selected for this study. Since the stylistic features of an author is recurrently repeated in his text, the other volumes of the book would have the same stylistic feature for sure and the results and findings can be generalized to other volumes of this book. In almost all parts of the book, Chardin has used quotations deliberately to document and authenticate of information, events and observations. This study proves that Chardin's deliberate use of quotation and references is a mean to introduce the characters and narrators of the quotes, provide a reliable sources of his account, reflect the general opinion of people, to name a few. This paper has tried to analyze and study the content and structure of Chardin’s book of travel to determine the methods and techniques of stating his account. Keyword: Chardin’s book of travel, Stylistic features, Quotation, Documentation.