An Analysis of Meaning Generation Processes through Discourse Semiotic Systems in the Story of Zal and Roudabeh

Discourse semiotics is a discipline that carries out a process study of language. This discipline considers the sign as the source and meaning as the goal of its work. Semiotics chooses discourse as its field of work. Since literature is one of the examples of dynamic discourses, discourse semiotics aims to discover hidden semantic spaces by examining the elements involved in these discourses and the relationships between these elements. This research used the discourse-semiotic approach to investigate the process of meaning generation in the narrative elements of Zal and Rudabeh of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The results indicated that the actional subject wants to have a child in order to gain value and eliminate the disadvantage. However, amending this shortcoming causes the first tension and challenge in the course of the narrative. The subject tries to solve the challenge by abandoning the albino baby, which is incompatible with social norms, but the abandonment of the child poses more challenges to the main character and even other narrative actors. The abandonment of the child in this narrative provides the possibility of the degeneration of meaning. In the meantime, what keeps the process of meaning-making going is the transformation of the actional subject into a sensible subject and the change of the narrative space into a sensory-perceptive space. Thus, Ferdowsi continues the meaning-making flow by using emotional solutions and applying semantic systems such as action, sensation, existence, imagination, and myth.