Functions of Story Titles in Iranian short stories (based on prominent Short story Writers Before the Islamic revolution)

The title of the story is the first path through which the writer and the reader communicate with each other. This type of short paratext, directly or indirectly implying the subject of the story, is the first factor that guides the reader to the world of the story, its meaning, and the selection of a specific approach to it. This is more evedent when it coms to the short story because of its shortness, each and every word is used sparingly and functionally from the very beginning. In the current research, the author seeks to examine the functions of the titles in a number of short stories by prominent Iranian fiction writers using a descriptive-analytical procedure. The results show that among the descriptive functions, the titles that are related to the content of the work have a much more significant use compared to the titles that address the form or format of the work. Also, among the thematic titles, metaphorical, thematic, ironic, and descriptive titles have been noticed more by authors. In terms of the evaluation function, referring to the author's moral and worldview, cultural issues such as the Iranians beliefs, political-social issues such as the westernization of Iranians, the domination of foreigners over them, and the failure and disappointment resulting from the August 28th</sup> coup, the issue of Intertextuality and finally, climateism are among the most prominent implicit and hidden values in the titles. They are provided in two opposite categories comprising; unfavorable situation against favorable situation and Westernism against nationalism. With respect to the function of attraction, content strategies such as universality, questioning, and norm-breaking have been worthy of special attention to story writers, and based on their appearance, strategies such as brevity, admonition, and rhetorical issues have been widely used.