Analyzing Semio-discursive Components of the Notion of Doubt in Literary Discourse: The Case Study of “ As You had Told Leyli” by Sepideh Shamlou

The current research aims to analyze and classify the semio-discursive components of Narrative “doubt” in the discursive system of “As you had told Leyli” – the novel by Sepideh shamloo- one of the writers of Persian fourth generation fictional generation. Research methodology is descriptive –analytical. In fact, the authors seeks to explain for the first time the underlying semio-discursive components of “doubt “in literary discourse by relying on the theoretical framework of post –Gremassian semiotics in order to show how the notion of “doubt “ emerges in the literary discourse and affects the process of meaning production and perception. To this end, the main objective of the present research is to answer the following questions: 1. what are the main semio-discursive components of “doubt” in literary discourse? 2. What are the major narrative and semio-discursive functions of “doubt” in the whole discursive system of the novel? It can conclude that in semiotic analysis of “As you had told Leyli” two main actants of the novel (Mastaneh –Sharareh) enter in competition with each other for the concept of love. This competition results in the interplay of negation and affirmation at the heart of semio-discursive system of the novel. As seen throughout the current research, by highlighting the Leyli’s scheme, the writer tries to challenge the narrators / enunciators affective states throughout the history of the novel. The main thematic of this story which is doubt is the central and main narrative program of the novel. Neither Mastaneh nor Sharareh can approach to Leyli’s scheme. In fact, in this work discursive tension sometimes leads to discursive action (here Mastaneh’s suicide) and sometimes to negate it. It is worth mentioning that the marginalized narrative action casts doubt on Leyli’s scheme and in this step Sharareh loses her modal competence and is concerned with modal verbs turbulence. The enunciator who has the virtual semiotic presence till the end of narrative. Undoubtedly, this novel presents a semio-discursive paradigm whose main feature is “doubt”. In this novel, discursive action has the secondary function and is based on thymic (the interaction, multiplication and turbulence of modal constituents), tensive and existential components of discourse which are highly under the influence of negative functions. Consequently, none of the enunciators/ narrators can never retrieve their actual presence. The results showed that narrative doubt is as a result of tensive and existential components of discourse which marginalizes in its own turn the narrative action and has the close relationship with all the styles of semiotic presence whose meaning is based on negation and fall and affects the process of meaning production and perception.