Reading and Assessing the City / Neighborhood FabricAs a Text. Case Study: Sar-Tapulah Historical Neighbourhood inSanandaj

From a linguistic point of view, the city can be seen as a text, consisting of different components and structures being related to each other beyond a sentence. Looking at the city from this point of view, what establishes a syntactic relationship and cohesion and coherence of the components of the city as a common language is called the syntax of the city. Linguistic study of the text of the city requires a branch of linguistics called text linguistics including linguistic rules and elements beyond the sentence. Every literary text arises from the joining of a set of sentences; the relation of these sentences is not just as random as the components of the city text, but the set of all elements and components in a regular relationship creates a structured and coherent whole and provides a harmonious continuum based on certain principles and rules. The combination of these sentences in the city follows both syntactic and semantic rules. Using the principles and rules of linguistics, this paper introduces a methodology for physical and content analysis of the city applying this method for the study of Sar-Tapulah neighborhood of Sanandaj, which is one of the most important neighborhoods of the historical core of this city, in order to evaluate and analyze the criteria of its textuality using urban design techniques and tools. Applying a pathological approach towards this area the paper aims to come up with the strengths and weaknesses of Sar-Tapulah neighborhood based on the textuality criteria. Therefore, the textuality test has been done in this neighborhood based on seven textuality criteria (cohesion, coherence, intertextuality, acceptability, informativity, intention, situationality) using selected urban design techniques and tools. The research findings show Sar-Tapulah neighborhood weak in terms of textuality criteria, and this weakness is due to the deterioration of the neighborhood fabric and lack of attention to the structure of the neighborhood and textuality criteria in its related renovations.