Semiotics of the Title of the Ode (Hoffaron alla yaghut e al-arsh) Written by Mohammad Ali Shams al-Din

Statement of the ProblemContemporary critical studies are largely interested in the title as it is a prominent gateway to the original text the reader may pass through to enter the text. The title is the key to the text and the mechanism through which the reader reads the text, uncovers hidden layers and unpacks it. Therefore, if the reader, in the contemporary text reading enters the original text ignoring the title, a great amount of text knowledge is lost. Since contemporary poetry is not readily available to the reader, it requires mechanisms that the title is the most important of which. Hence, the present research intended to analyze semiotics of the title of the ode “Hoffaron Alla Yaghut e al-Arsh” focusing on Quran intertextuality.
Theoretical FrameworkTitle semiotics in a poetic text consists of some concepts that theoretical literature makes this method. The concepts include:a. Sign and Semiotics: Everything that implies and indicates something else is called a sign. Semiology deals with three concepts of signifier, signified (referent), and signification. The signifier is a sound representing a word; the signified is the meaning passed along by the signifier; and finally, the relationship between signifier and the signified is signification.
Ferdinand de Saussure asserts that there may be a knowledge pondering signs contribution in the life of the society; this knowledge is part of social psychology, and consequently, a part of general psychology. It is called semiotics.
Roland Barth, the structuralist and post-structuralist semiotician, claims that linguistics embraces semiotics; although, he has been largely touched by Saussure. He adds that the signs enjoy language and speech patterns even in a non-linguistic context.
b) Title: It is a linguistic sign placed the work by which the work is named. In other words, it specifies the work contextuality. The title is a fundamental means an analyst is equipped with to discover and paraphrase (interpret) the text for diving into the underlying layers. It may clarify text ambiguities through uncovering semantic and coded structures.
c) Intertextuality: Each text is an intertextual one as no text is created in vacuum. A reader interprets a text by the aid of intertextuality. Consider a text is generated in vacuum, if any possible, the reader is disconnected of the text such that it would have never found the opportunity of being read.
Research MethodologyThis is a descriptive-analytical study focused on title semiotics. In semiology analysis of the intended ode title, some mechanisms including collocation and substitution, the relationship between signifier and signified, lexical (descriptive) systems, differential relationships, as well as functions like intertextuality, have been used in the ode as means of meaningfulness. In the ode title analysis, the title morphological, syntactic, and lexical implications were initially specified; next, the findings were essentially considered as the foundation for title analysis respecting text. In semiotics analysis of text and title, also concentrated on the prior findings, the implications, various functions, and poet meaningfulness tactics were determined.
Research Results• The title (Hoffaron alla yaghut e al-arsh) is not only an independent text parallel to the original text, but also, original text reading is impossible without understanding the title and the implications.
• The Quranic intertextuality in the title has conveyed the poet dedication to his late friend to addressee from the onset. In addition, the Quranic semantic signification in the title as a set of "present" concepts calls for a set of "absent" concepts contrasting the title implications such that the text is basically founded on such contrast. Morphological, syntactical, descriptive, and motivational functions in addition to intertextuality are of the most important title functions in the ode studied here.
• The relationship between the title and the original text, lexical contrast between the great universe (as described in the title) and the earth, intertextuality, selecting signed words and putting them together based on collocation and substitution are the remarkable mechanisms of Shams al-Din in meaning production.