Analyzing Semiotic Functions in Two Poems by Hafez Mousavi and Wadī’ Sa’ādah: From Umberto Eco’s Semiotics

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Arabic language and literature, Persian Gulf University, Bushehr, Iran

10.22059/jor.2022.335244.2250

Abstract

As Umberto Eco (1932-2016), the Italian semiotician, believes, semiotic functions correlate with expression and content, emerging in a cultural context based on codes derived from encyclopedic knowledge. Replacing the typology of signs with the methods of producing Semiotic function is one of the most apparent initiatives of eco semiotics. The poems “Absentee Conversation” by Hafez Mousavi (1954), a contemporary Iranian poet, and “These are the last words ... and know that I will leave them” by Wadī’ Sa’ādah (1984), a contemporary Lebanese poet, have rich cultural and discourse layers drawing their intentions with visual language. Given the diversity of contractual correlations between the poets’ expression and content, a descriptive-analytical method and the American School of Comparative Literature were employed to probe the typology of methods for producing semiotic functions in the poems based on Umberto Eco’s semiotics. The research results indicate that these two poets, relying on literary, social, and cultural codes, have developed semiotic functions of their poems in two under-coded and over-coded types

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Main Subjects

References

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Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 28, Issue 2
December 2023
Pages 643-668

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