The Function of Language in Characterization as Applied in SadeqHedayat’s Short Stories

One of the touchstones to appraise the value and the durability of literary fiction is the appropriateness between the function of language and its users, i.e. fictional characters. Language has a close relationship with the paralinguistic and social propositions such as social status, age, gender, education, environment, job and hierarchy of authority. Sadeq Hedayat’s works are the inherent part of Iranian contemporary fiction. As the title of this paper may suggest, his works are worth to be studied in that sense. This paper explores, through an analytic-descriptive approach, the relationship between the function of language and Hedayat’s characters while considering the paralinguistic and social propositions. It also argues that Hedayat has been aware of the paralinguistic and social propositions and successful in applying them in characterization of his stories.