semiotics

Criticism of semiotics is one of the systematic approaches of the second half of the 20th century, which played a role in explaining the nature and function of literary texts. In The Semiotics of Poetry (1978), French-American critic Michael Rifater proposed a semiotic framework for reading poetry that has been widely used. The present article first introduces Rifater's theoretical approach and then, based on it, reads the poem "My heart burns for the garden" from the collection of poems "Let's believe in the beginning of the cold season" by Forough Farrokhzad. The purpose of this research is to try for a more detailed and deeper reading of the desired poem based on the framework proposed by Rifater.

The method of carrying out this research is theoretical and of descriptive-analytical type. In its definition, they said that it is a kind of fundamental research that uses rational reasoning and analysis methods and is carried out on the basis of library studies.

After the exploratory reading, the researchers have read the poem retroactively by using their literary ability. Accumulations with the meaning of "garden" and "fish pond" showed the dominant thought of the poem. From the examination of descriptive systems with the cores of "despair" and "loneliness" and the relationship of these fundamental ideas with accumulations, conjectural sentences in the form of hypograms were obtained.

The structural matrix of the poem, which includes the special characteristics of the society in this poem, is as follows: the destruction and death of the garden; The indifference of different classes of people towards the fate of the society; The loneliness of the poet in concern for the society; And the future is hopeless. Finally, the characteristics of Forough Farrokhzad's society (thirties and forties) in the poem "My heart burns for the garden" can be listed as follows through semiotic analysis: facing destruction; engaged in war and enmity; And the indifference and passivity of the people towards its fate.

Semiotic signs in the discourse process lead to the reconstruction of semantic operations. From semiotics point of view, signs are in interaction, opposition, adaptation and competition with each other, and during that, they form performance, state, tensive and existential discourse systems. Relying on semiotics approach, the present study tries to analyze existential signs in Ashbah sermon. Existence or the existential object is in the position between Dasein and Transcendence, and according to the context of the sermon, it achieves its perfection by passing through different Daseins. The goal of this research is to achieve the process of transferring meaning and passing semiotic signs from a negative state to a positive one. The results of this research are as follows: Simultaneously with the operation of discursive attachment or connection, the "I of the speaker" is placed in opposition between imperfection and perfection with the phenomenal presence of " انتت = God" and semantic transformation occurs; Borders and distances between Creator and creature are eliminated, and as a result, the negative state reaches the positive one, namely the transcendence of presence. In this discourse, the subject passes through tension-oriented semiotic signs in order to pass from the negative state to the positive state of Dasein. In the discourses related to the creation of the heavens, angels, and the earth, the intense and extent dimensions of meaning fluctuate and form increasing, decreasing, and ascending schemas that lead to semantic operations. Therefore; The functions of discursive detachment and connection and tension-centered signs in the Ashbah sermon, provide the process of transferring meaning to a positive state.

Sohrevardi’s (1154-1191 CE) Resāla fi ḥaqīqat al-ʿishq while the mystical manifestations of love and its states in the two stories of the creation of Adam and Joseph, provides an opportunity for analysis and interpretation through Roland Barthes’s five-code system. The stories’ inherent symbolism and amenability to interpretation make this analytical framework a methodologically sound and creative approach. Barthes considers every text to be generative, dynamic,, believing that texts are distinguished from each other through fluid nature. Sohrevardi, while explaining the secrets of the creation of beauty, love, and sorrow in a Neoplatonic style, and drawing upon Magian thought and Quranic subtleties, addresses their place within an Illuminationist cosmology and epistemology. Mystics like Ghazali and Baqli Shirazi consider beauty, love, and sorrow as essential pillars of the spiritual journey, seeing love as the result of the manifestation of beauty and sorrow as a result of fear. This article employs a descriptive-analytical method to investigate the hidden voices within Sohrevardi’s Resāla fi ḥaqīqat al-ʿishq, revealing aspects of its codes to the reader. Given its vast use of symbols and allegories, the Resāla is of the type of writable (or open) texts where the reader is not passive. Rather, they use their creativity, and in each attempt to fix a meaning, they employ their own innovative method. Barthes’s suggestion for this type of reading is the creation of a method through which the text is fragmented and scattered, and the reader is present as a producer of the text.

Semiotics, also referred to as semiotics or semiology, is the science of investigating signs and uncovering their meanings within a text. It was established in modern times by the Swiss linguist and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. From this theory, various methodologies have emerged, providing critics with tools to understand and interpret the essence of texts. One of the most important methodologies derived from this field is Michael Riffaterre's approach, which examines a text through two readings: The Exploratory Reading: This focuses on issues related to the surface of the text. The Retroactive Reading: This involves decoding the text's symbols and ambiguities to clearly determine its meaning. In this second reading, concepts such as descriptive systems, cumulative expressions, the hypogram, and the structural matrix are analyzed .This study, using a descriptive-analytical approach and relying on Riffaterre's methodology, examines the poem (Elegy to the Sun of June) by the poet Abdul Wahab Al-Bayati. The poem is characterized by its heavy use of satire, exposing the hypocrisy of rulers and deceivers .Key findings include the following: In the exploratory reading, the poet employs techniques like inversion to highlight the significance of certain meanings. He also uses both metonymy and metaphor to create excitement and evoke enthusiasm in the text .In the retroactive reading, the accumulations focus on themes such as (displacement and destruction), (conflict and animosity), (empty claims), and (hypocrisy and complacency). The descriptive systems address themes such as (verbal warfare) and (responsibility). These themes ultimately lead to the hypogram and the structural matrix, which form the semantic network of the text.

In deconstructive approach, meaning takes a multi-dimensional transformed and sometimes contradictory nature, due to contradictory conflicts between present and absent signifiers within the text. The text forum becomes open to new readings as a cause of getting rid of focusing on a particular meaning. In journey to Heading 270 Degrees bitterness and failures of the holy defense are linked into other substrates in a realistic setting, a process to which some critics attributing realistic components, believe that emphasizing on scenes of death, violation, poverty, etc., made the writer ignore the concepts and values of the holy defense. The present research is a different reading via borrowing the components of deconstructive approach in sign recognition and use of descriptive-analytic method to answer the question that what are the most significant codified components and acting agents in meaning processing all over the novel, what is the result or product of combining the foresaid components and agents? In exploring the text, the active presence of three sets of codes is mentioned, Socio-cultural codes (families, tricks, sub-cultures, names), war-related codes (generals, specials, harsh substrates, honorable substrates), and technical codes (symbols, short sentences, special words, types). Finally, identity-building, semantics, and style-creation have been mentioned as three important achievements in articulating the components of the novel, by rejecting naturalistic mentalities. Therefore, the novel, regarding its sets of actors, can be considered as a dynamic and diverse text in the field of holy defense.

The present article represents the view of women writers on the phenomenon of war in contemporary Iranian short stories. The short story 70 choices , among 262 stories, which were published in books and periodicals during four decades, provides an opportunity to present a comprehensive analysis of the subject using a theoretical method (the result of the combination of phenomenological and semiotic ideas).The author intends, by introducing the semiotic-phenomenological method, to explore stories as a phenomenon (text) and allows the text to reveal itself to the reader as a “phenomenon”, regardless of the presuppositions and hegemonies ruling the socio-political space of this era. In this article, while scrutinizing women's existential and ontological view of the entire violent issue of war, the themes of their narratives about the war and their effectiveness, as well as the story structure, the language, and tone of the stories in the sign system of this era are analyzed. Undoubtedly, women by being influenced by the society and culture prevailing in their time, reveal their unique worldview in these stories and reveal the hidden and obvious aspects of Iranian women's identity in this narration. The unique perspective of women on fundamental issues such as the meaning of life, love and death in these stories is thought provoking. Examining women’s cosmology and finding their common narrative patterns and themes, the sign system of stories in the structure and language are points worthy of attention in this article and shows the existential interaction of Iranian women with the event of war in that particular period.

This study aims to conduct a semiotic analysis of the poetry of Shams Langroudi, examining how identity crises are represented through social and historical metaphors and symbols. Shams Langroudi, by employing these elements as tools to reflect social, cultural, and historical realities, conveys collective and individual identity crises within Iranian society. Using semiotic theoretical frameworks, including the theories of Roland Barthes, Charles Peirce, and Jacques Lacan, this research explores metaphors such as “soil,” “home,” “sword,” and “sky” in Langroudi’s poems, which encapsulate profound meanings related to collective and individual identities. Findings reveal that Langroudi, through these metaphors, effectively represents societal contradictions and complexities, illustrating the struggles associated with the rapid social changes and historical transformations impacting Iranian identity. Furthermore, this study underscores the efficacy of a semiotic approach in unveiling hidden meanings within Langroudi’s poetry, offering a deeper understanding of identity crises and societal challenges in contemporary Iran. The article also compares these findings with previous studies and suggests avenues for future research on semiotic analysis in modern Persian literature.

Riffaterre's theory is one of the most important modern critical methods that seeks to clarify the concepts of literary works, especially contemporary poetry, and tries to discover mysterious literary concepts and convey them to the readers of these works.  This theory is based on two types of reading;  The first reading is exploratory reading and the second reading is post-active reading, which is used to separate the basic concepts of the text in order to understand its most basic meaning. The authors of this research analyzed two odes from the poetry collection of Jassim al-Sahih, a contemporary and outstanding poet of the Arab world, which in a way represents his poetic style and circumstances by applying this theory of semiotics, in a descriptive and analytical way. One of the results obtained in this research is that the poet has borrowed a lot from the homeland, nature and living creatures in writing his poems and identified with them in order to convey many great poetic concepts to his audience.  Although most of his poetic concepts are discoverable for the readers, their complete understanding depends on the reader himself and his analytical method, which the use of Riffaterre's critical method helps significantly in this matter.  Despite the fact that he has hidden a part of his existence and history in the shadow of his verses, his poetry is alive and dynamic in the passage of time in sync with nature for the use of humans

Our body is diverse and scattered. Controlled by our body, we move within time and space. As the border between us and the other, our body differentiates us from the other. It also functions as a veil that hinders our connection with the qualitative and pure worlds. Now, suppose the body wishes to move beyond quantitative and material limitations. In that case, the body must transcend beyond itself and achieve a form of existence that has no spatio-temporal constraints. The transcended body connects with the essence of existence, which, in turn, results in the creation of a presence that Rumi calls “Jān” or metabody. The metabody, according to Rumi, can reach a higher order and become one and the same with “Jānān.” How can the body move beyond itself and fuse with the metabody? Informed by Rumi’s thoughts and worldview, this study aims to investigate the semiotics of the body and metabody. The findings of this study suggest that by moving beyond the material, temporal, and spatial constraints, the action-body turns into an event-body and achieves a higher order in existence. The event-body is a Hādith-body that elevates the subject by fusing it with the metabody. The metabody moves beyond spatio-temporal constraints and reflects the essence of the presence.

The elements in “Malakh” which is a pseudo-travel story, are generally parallel in structure both in terms of perspective and image, and this study intends to explain the structure of these parallel meanings by examining the signs in the story. To achieve this, the codes have been used that were classified and presented by Daniel Chandler. The predominant technique in the textual coding section has been to look at the imagery parallels of the story, and under the social coding of folk elements and references to the geography, history and culture of the narrative event area have been considered. As the results from analyzing the superstructure of the story have indicated, the selection of the plural first-person perspective along with the parallel images throughout the story, have formed the apparent contrasts of the narrative that are in complete harmony with the content and in the hypertext section. There was a reflection of the homogenization of the nomads, which disrupted their order of life, have become current and visible in all parts of the narrative from the beginning to the end.

Semiotics refers to the conditions of receiving and producing meaning in narrative discursive regimes. In the field of narrative, we can mention Greimas and Landowski, two researchers of the Paris School, who have classified various types of narrative and its discourses into four categories: Action, Interaction, Accommodation, and Fusion. “Time” is one of the elements of narrative which plays an important role in the semantic chains of the narrative systems. It appears in the action systems on the basis of physical and temporal conventions, and in the modern narrative systems, it appears as sensible/stative times, such as ecstasy, circular, etc. In this article, by examining the framework of semiotics on the subject of narrative discourse and its various types, and also relying on each of the narrative models and their associated times, we answer the following questions: How do the dominant systems in a literary-dramatic work change, and how do these transformations of discourse systems lead to changes in the types of time in the narrative. According to the Discursive semiotic approach, the main issue is how the narrative systems and their times are able to change and enter the domains of each other. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the various types of narrative systems in the Semio-Semantics discourse and their transfer to each other, and consequently, the types of times that have a narrative function in these regimes. To achieve this goal, the focus is on the narrative in the play Afrā by Bahram Beyzai.

Today, paisley is a symbol found in Iran’s and some other countries’ artistic discourse.There are controversies about the origin of this symbol. It has been said that it is derived from cedar, pine, fire, etc. Now paisley has gone to culture and has produced discourse and identity there.Today, this symbol has penetrated the borders and has been drawn from the national discourse to the international one. Paisley belongs to cultural and mythological experiences and when it is studied from the narrative point of view, it is clear that it has a mythological origin and creates a narration and a discourse. The research questions are: how does paisley maintain its narrative position within the discourses? How does it develop its discourse role and function? How has it been able to reach from the national discourse to the international one? In other words, how has it gained its discourse legitimacy to transfer itself to other cultures? In order to answer the questions the semiotic approach of discourse was chosen to show the value position of paisley, as well as analyzing the conditions of its narrative development within multiple discourses. The results indicated that paisley in artistic social systems preserves its value in addition to transforming it through producing movement. Paisley achieves its identity not by change but by stability. By producing imagination paisley forms a dialogue between nature and culture, so it links its value with myth and imagination. As a result, it moves from a national position to an international one.

Semiotics expresses the study of signs and connotations in literary texts. It is also “one of the modern sciences that emerged in the twentieth century and its primary goal is based on the study of signs and their relationships in the universe and their functions and effectiveness” (Rababah, 2011, p. 7). In this regard, there are several different trends that study the types of signs. Among these trends, one can point to communicative semiotics, semantic semiotics, cultural semiotics, and pragmatic semiotics. In view of the great interest of modern curricula in the literary text, these curricula have attempted to provide the critic with procedural tools that enable one to explore the depths of the text and reveal the truth of its meanings in order to reach the main position of the poet and the writer. Semiotics, in general, is a modern critical approach that seeks to address the understanding of text through careful consideration of the system of textual signs. There are many theories in this field, but the methodology of Riffaterre is one of the most important and prominent ones. It is concerned with studying the literary text to reveal the beauty and creativity behind the signs through the interpretation of suggestions and decoding codes that a reader who is not familiar with the language may overlook.In Riffaterre’s methodology, there are two types of reading to reproduce the text and involve the recipient in finding it. The first is linear or exploratory reading, which is concerned with shapes, contrasts, and words. In the second reading, textual elements are studied, such as departures from the norm, the familiar, descriptive systems, and metrical expressions. The importance of this topic is due to the fact that this poem is one of the sources of contemporary Arab poetry, which spreads in a society, time after time. It provides any society with morale, which makes it fight injustice and reject the oppressor as if it were an extended voice that resonates in the conscience of the nation to awaken it from its slumber and neglect, which has long been subjected to calamities. In addition, despite the importance of Rifattere’s methodology in analyzing poetic texts, there has been no attempt before this study to analyze this poem according to this methodology.Based on this, the present study attempts to answer the following two research questions: 1) What are the most important characteristics of semiotics in the linear reading of this poem according to Riffaterre’s methodology? And 2) What are the most prominent semiotic characteristics in the retrospective reading of this poem according to Riffaterre’s methodology? This approach, through its adoption of an analytical-descriptive approach, aims to study the poem ‘If the People One Day Wanted to Live’ by Abi Al-Qasim Al-Shabi according to the theory of Michael Riffaterre. After studying the poem and conducting an exploratory and retrospective reading of it, the research reached the following results In the semiotics of morphology, the poet tries, by repeating some passages that carry connotations and a unified meaning, to demonstrate the consistency of the text, remove ambiguity from it, and expand its meaning, which clearly reflects the poet’s psychology to the reader. His interest in these meanings is what prompted him to this repetition, as it is an echo of what is going on in his mind and inside him. Another issue is that the poet used the semiotics of contrast extensively in his poem, and this feature contributed to embroidering the text and adding a charming color of beauty and clarity to it. The three descriptive systems in this poem revolve around the axis of idleness, determination, and toil in life. The accumulated expressions in this poem are elements of nature, rejection of fear, and love of life.

Poets use color symbolism to express feelings and narrow thoughts that may take a long time to describe. They are rarely used explicitly and often implicitly and in the form of innovative and expressive arts in various poetic formats, especially sonnets. Semiotics is among the methods of linguistic criticism, including new scientific perspectives, which are closely related to literary texts due to their linguistic nature, and therefore can be a worthy choice for researchers in literary analysis and criticism. In this research, the color symbolism of Hafez's sonnets, one of the most distinguished sonnets of the Iraqi period, based on the two approaches of Peirce and Saussure as the basic models of semiotics. This research has been done in a descriptive-analytical method and its purpose is to answer the question that what are the differences and similarities of the results obtained from the application of the two mentioned approaches in the analysis of the color words of Hafez's sonnets? Findings indicated that two approaches follow a similar path to achieve the research objectives. Although the verses extracted in both patterns are basically the same in the use of color words; But in the final stage in Saussure's model, the color remains indirectly and in the form of implicit color words; But in Peirce's model, color is extracted from the lower layers of the meaning of the word due to the unlimited cycle of interpretation.

This research focuses on the analysis of a certain poem titled "Your lost Joseph will return to Canaan, do not grieve". The objective of this study is to explore, present, and analyze the fundamental principles of the codes that strengthen them. Additionally, it aims to examine the connections between signifiers and signifieds and provide explanations for their meanings. Furthermore, it seeks to investigate the factors that trigger the activation of signifiers and highlight the impact of the interplay between signs and multidimensional images in the formation of layered meanings. The research focuses on exploring the significance of symbolic elements in the formation of poetic imagination and the utilization of various chains of meaning, such as symmetry and congruency. The primary aspect of the research examines these elements, extracting and presenting the findings aligned with each of these axes. We have also achieved a cohesive understanding of Ghazal.

With the increasing role and strengthened position of advertisements in the personal, commercial, and socio-cultural life of a society, studying it as a phenomenon becomes essential. Among various types of advertisements, those in the field of tourism can better represent the host society's culture. This research, adopting a comparative approach and relying on Lutman's semantic sphere theory, investigates and compares the layers of this phenomenon in the tourist advertisements of Iran and England. The research data were collected from various specialized tourism sources, such as tourism websites and posters shared on social networks. The results showed that action systems in the form of architectural layers bring the discourse in tourism advertisements in Iran and England closer. However, the presence of religious layers in Iranian ads and their absence in English ads highlight the differences in discourse in this category of ads. Thus, while non-cultural elements of architecture and buildings have become a kind of semantic universality in this sphere and are present in all advertisements, non-cultural elements such as special clothing, recreational tools, daily life, and national symbols play a prominent role in the semantic sphere of English advertisements but are absent in Iranian advertisements.

Reading semiotics is a kind of aesthetic activity of texts that creates a work along historical horizons and is influenced by the change of culture and individual experiences of the reader. Literary reading is designed to deepen literary studies and language and literature education. The refatur reading model is one of the new literary approaches that plays a significant role in the field of re-creation, explanation of the function of texts and analysis of meaning. The free perception of the reader in identifying the small kernels and reaching the macrotext as well as the interpretation of the meaning he presents after it forms the basis of this theory. Since the nature of the poem is ungrammatical, these signs are understood through several readings and by discovering the meanings among the signs. Therefore, the present study based on Rifater's semiotics approach has examined two odes called "Hein al-Hussein Nawi al-Salat" and "Reflections on the Night of Ashura" by Jassim Al-Sahih, a contemporary poet of Saudi Arabia, in which more reflection of Ashura culture can be seen. From the findings of the research, it can be concluded that these poems reflect abundantly the teachings of the Ashura uprising. Among the signs of this culture found in the reading of the ode, one can see the permanence of the memory of Imam Hussein (AS) throughout history, the hope of the Imam at the height of despair and difficult circumstances, the expression of the greatness and high position of the Imam,.

Semiotics is an approach that analyzes the symbolic system and studies the mechanisms of production, transfer and reception of meaning. Ancient customs and rituals as a cultural sign/representation of human thought and thinking with symbolic meaning, provide an interpretation of the world and human worldview and play an important role in social cohesion. Semiotics was founded in the late 19th century by American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Saussure, semiotics is an approach in the dual field of signifier and signified and semantic implications, but according to Peirce, every sign has three components: representation, interpretation and subject. This research, using analytical-descriptive method, deals with the reading of intertextual elements in prominent socio-cultural codes of Nowruz ritual in the temporal axis. The ancient custom of Nowruz as a cultural sign/representation with iconic, indexical and mostly symbolic signs offers an interpretation of the world and human worldview, which are fading in the contemporary world due to the dominance of virtual communication, and the possibility of exploiting the deep meanings hidden in these Ritual customs in various dimensions of development has been the goal of this research. Therefore, the results of this reading in the axis of companionship and substitution and in the implicit meaning : peace and balance, blessing, happiness and order in the individual axis, justice and justice and peace and friendship has been the social axis and the practical meaning of sustainable development through the development of cultural tourism.

The semiotic approach to literature entails deciphering a literary work through its embedded signs, wherein the language of poetry constructs a sign system, with each sign comprising an indivisible duality: the signifier and the signified. This analytical framework originates from the intellectual contributions of figures such as Charles Sanders Peirce, an American philosopher, and Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist. Semiotic linguistic studies endeavor to dissect and fathom the multifaceted layers of language, unearthing the latent content within. These studies delve into the dynamics between signifiers and signifieds as they manifest across diverse sign systems. The current analysis scrutinizes Badr Shakir al-Sayyab's poem “Madinat al-Sandbad” through a semiotic lens, concentrating on its title, musicality, language, and structure. The objective is to elucidate the signifiers and signifieds within the poem, thereby exposing the underlying social and political nuances concealed within its innovative poetic framework. The poet employs a repertoire of signs to communicate with the reader, signs that transcend their literal interpretations and imbue the text with novel significance. Interpretive analysis allows for the identification of signs at various levels, including the title, sound, word choice, and structure. The semiotic examination of the title suggests that the poem metaphorically references Baghdad, employing ambiguous language to evade the scrutiny of authorities. Through an exploratory reading, the reader can glean insights into the societal milieu of al-Sayyab's era from the poem's overt discourse, replete with themes of sorrow, despair, and hopelessness, despite occasional semantic dissonance within certain phrases. The linguistic elements of the poem serve as a unique set of signs that subtly convey meaning. On a grammatical level, the signs within sentences and phrases diverge from their conventional meanings, a phenomenon facilitated by the axes of substitution and addition, which collectively articulate the text's intrinsic meaning. Through interpretive reading, which relies on signs and scrutinizes syntactic and rhetorical constructs, the myths and symbols encountered in exploratory reading contribute to the generation of semantic associations and intricacies within the text, ultimately captivating the reader's attention with profound meanings and signs.