The critical analysis of the master signifier and the interaction of the floating signifiers in the discourse of "Cloud Years" novel based on Laclau’s Approach and Van Dijk's ideological square

This study aimed to measure the articulation of the floating signifiers considering the master signifier of the discourse of "Cloud Years" novel using Ernesto Laclau’s and Theon Van Dijk's theories based on structuralist perspective. This novel written by Ali Ashraf Darvishian is a meaningful collection of linguistic and metalinguistic signs. Considering this issue, in order to explain the discourse of this novel, the authors analyze its components and described the relationship between the floating signifiers and the master signifier; then examined the transformation of "social inequality" into the master signifier and consequently the growth of socialism discourse. The main question of the present study is that how the floating signifiers of the discourse have been formed based on the master signifier with the aim of stabilizing and giving meaning to it? Based on the descriptive-analytical method, the authors have examined the novel in question at three levels.  The findings show that in this work, social inequality is considered as a master signifier in the formation of its discourse elements. Also, the floating signifiers, that the discourse of this novel is filled with, are articulated in the form of concepts such as "Social equality", all of which serve the master signifier. According to Theon Van Dijk's theory, polarization, irony, implication, metaphor, modality, comparison, agent, dramatization, explanation, repetition, and distancing are the most salient categories of ideological analysis in this discourse.