Critical discourse analysis of the Mahtumkulu Divan

Mahtumkulu Firakî, one of the important figures of Turkmen literature, made great contributions to the Turkmen people, language and literature with his works. In the 18th century, he provided a transition between the past, present and future with his poems and the ideas he expressed in his poems. The 18th century, which was a period full of troubles for the Turkmens and the Turkish World, was strikingly handled in Mahtumkulu's poems. In this century, the people, who experienced economic difficulties due to the difficulties brought by the settled life, tried to cope with the internal conflicts of the Turkmen tribes on the one hand and the pressure of the khans on the other. The poet, who tries to guide the Turkmen people with his poems, has become the national poet of the Turkmen's with his discourses that instill the idea of a single state with the Turkmen unity and the consciousness of being a nation. Language, which is a social practice rather than a simple definition or tool of communication, enables individuals in different social areas to produce different discourses. Discourse analysis, which basically examines the patterns of discourses, evolves into critical discourse analysis if it tries to perceive the ideology behind the discourse with a linguistic approach. In this study, a critical discourse analysis of Mahtumkulu Divan has been made using Norman Fairclough's dialectical approach. In line with this approach, it is aimed to show the dialectical relationship of linguistic qualities in poems with social relations, consciousness structures and social identities. The poems were interpreted by being subjected to a linguistic analysis and the ideological structure of the discourse or the effect of the ideological structure on the discourse were tried to be revealed by evaluating the social relations, change and transformation in the society.