A Narrative analysis of semantic marking (literary balance) in the stories of Leilā Sabūhī

The aim of this article is to conduct a linguistic-rhetorical analysis of semantic marking in three long stories by Leilā Sabūhī in order to show the author’s esthetic from a linguistic perspective; i.e. how the author has used combination in the contiguity axis to convey her topic and content to the audience in a precise way. This study is a qualitative library research, which was carried out with analytical-descriptive and narratological methods. The results indicate that, in writing the stories, the author has given a poetic aspect to her work through rhetoric, simile and allegory. She has brought the signified of the language system closer to the examples of the outside world and in a special and innovative way invented novel similes. And, instead of using the elements of selection and substitution to create poetic words, she has described and imagined her words through the axis of contiguity by creating new similes, bringing her text closer to the world of poetry. This has caused the narrative beat to slow down the plot and affect the tone and atmosphere of the story. The tone and atmosphere are the same in all three works, and the reader feels that he is following the first work. Finally, the author’s narrative technique involves present and creative imagination and   focalizations through rhetorical marking (simile and allegory).