From the Sign System to the Object System in Golshiri's Shazde Ehtejab

Semiotics, in a transformational process, moves from object-oriented semiotics to subject-oriented and then toward phenomenology, resulting in the formation of a relation in accordance with the challenge or adaptation among the subject, the object, and the world. In so doing, it influences objects and subjects. As a result of the object-subject entanglement, meaning is transferred from one to the other. Objects interact with or challenge each other in an inter-objective context, affecting the performance and cultural and social behavior of human subjects and determining the type of their interactions. In fact, with its legitimizing and authoritarian aspect, the object could reestablish or collapse the subject's presence. This article tries to understand how and through which features and discourses this process is completed. The present research investigates two central questions: what are the fundamental qualities and requirements in the transition from the sign system to the object system and its discourse functions in Golshiri's Shazde Ehtejab and what are the positions of the object’s semantic process and its role in the presence of the subject. The main goal of this article is to examine the transition from a sign system to an object system, its establishment, and its semantic processes. The result shows that in the transitional process from the sign system to the object system, the objects find an authoritarian, prosthetic, spatial, active, representational, ironic, referential, cultural, historical, and legitimizing position.
 
Extended Abstract
1.Introduction
In phenomenological semantics, we are witnessing the formation of an interactive or challenging relation between subject and object. This relation spreads toward the world of the objects, resulting in their challenges and interactions with each other. From another perspective, it makes its way toward the world of human subjects, controlling their actions and social and cultural behavior. The result of this process is to move beyond objectification and elevate the object to a cultural and symbolic order. The underlying question in this process as well as in the interaction among signs, objects, and subjects concerns the position and function of the object. Therefore, the following fundamental questions are posed in the present article regarding the novel in question: what are the positions of specific objects in the transition from the sign system to the object system? What role does this position play in the collapse or re-establishment of the presence of the novel’s referential subject? What is the relation between the legitimacy discourse and the object? What is the role of the object in legitimizing the discourse? What is the position of the object’s semantic process in the literary discourse? And what is its role in the suspension of conditions and the creation of a buffer and transactional space?
 
2.Theoretical Framework
One of the fundamental concepts in object semantics is the analysis of the role and position of the object’s semantic process in inter-subjective and inter-objective interactions. The object, through fusion and bodily contacts, enables the subject’s interaction with the world. In addition, due to the object’s modal capacity, it takes charge of the subject’s activities. as a stimulus, it provokes the subject to a specific direction, and triggers its action and potency. In the object system, the object serves as a medium to balance the relation between the subject and the world, creating certain actions in subjects, enabling them to balance their behavior and action in relation to the object. The object also takes prosthetic and legitimizer roles. In such a structure, the object takes over the subject’s position, thus collapsing the subject’s system of presence. On the other hand, through the object’s legitimizing function, the subject’s presence is restored. Therefore, the following functions are attributed to the objects: 1) Legitimization, 2) Value-system restoration, 3) Presence re-establishment, 4) Interaction, 5) Unification, 6) Identification, and 7) Persuasion.
 
3.Methodology
The present article is a qualitative and descriptive-analytical research; it uses library sources to analyze the position of the object’s semantic process, the transition from the sign system to the object system, the object’s placement in the authoritative and legitimizing position, and its discourse functions in Houshang Golshiri’s Shazde Ehtejab.
 
4.Discussion and Analysis
This article analyzes the transition from the sign system to the object system and its semantic process position in Houshang Golshiri’s Shazde Ehtejab. Among the objects in the story, the chair and glasses are given significant roles in the discourse system of the story. The subjective position, the prosthetic position, and the authoritative and legitimizing position are recognized as important object positions in the story. In this regard, objects take different forms: They can be subjects, objects, and even subjects in transformation into objects. They assume the position of agents or appear as patients and even take cultural and historical roles. They take authoritative and legitimizing roles, take aesthetic and social values, or attain an ontological position. The recurrent objects of the novel – the chair and glasses – are given an ontological function and readjust the relation and conditions of the subject’s presence and its interaction with the world. Also, the sign system resigns its place in favor of a object-dominance system.
 
5.Conclusion
In the novel, the chair, functioning as an agent subject, captures the subject and adapts to it through direct interaction. In their prosthetic aspect, the objects of the chair and glasses create a discourse in the processes of substitution, detachment, irony, manifestation, and identity. Also, they represent the lived experience. They provide belief and authority and expand the presence of the temporal, the spatial, and the subjective. In another function, the object performs as the referential subject and legitimizer of other subjects and objects. In this function, the object, through its causal links, transfers the lived experience of a historical era into the subject and gives significance to other objects in the process. Also, with its legitimizing and authoritative force, it leads to the collapse of the subject’s presence; on the other hand, it results in its re-establishment. To conclude, in the process of moving from sign to objectification in the novel, the objects of the chair and glasses find positions of the agent, the patient, authority, subjectivity, substitution, legitimization, irony, the prosthetic, the spatial, the referential, the cultural, and the historical.
 
Selected Bibliography
Chandler, D. 1387 [2008]. Mabani-e Neshaneh-shenasi. M. Parsa (trans.). Tehran: Soureh-e Mehr.
      (Semiotics: The Basics)
Greimas, A. J. 1389 [2010]. Noqsa’ne Ma‘na. H. Shaeiri (trans.). Tehran: Elm.
      (De l'imperfection)
Golshiri, H. 1348 [1969]. Shazde Ehtejab. Tehran: Niloufar.
      (Prince Ehtejab)
Halliday, M. and R, Hassan. 1393 [2014]. Zaban, Baft va Matn: Janbehayi az Zaban dar Chashm-andazi Ejtemaei-Neshane-shenakhti. M. Monshizadeh and T. Ishani (trans.). Tehran: Elmi.
      (Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective)
Harland, R. 1380 [2001]. Abar Sakht-garayi: Falsafe Sakht-garayi va Pasa Sakht-garayi. F. Sojoodi (trans.). Tehran: Sooreh Mehr.
      (Superstructuralism: The Philosophy of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism)
Kanani, E. 1398 [2019]. “Tahlil Kar-kardha-e Obje dar Revayat-e Khaneh Roshanan-e Golshiri“. Dofaslnameh Ravayat Shenasi. Year 3. No 5, 201-223.
      (“Analysis of the functions of the object in the narrative of the House of Atheists of Golshiri,“ Biannual Journal of Narrative Studies.)
Moein, M. B. 1396 [2017]. Ab’ad-e Gomshodeh-e Ma’na dar Neshaneh-shenasi-e Revayi-e Classic; Nezam-e Ma’nayi-e Tatbiq ya Raqs-e dar Ta’amol. Tehran: Elmi va Farhangi.
      (Missing Dimensions of Meaning in Classic Semiotics of Narrative)
Moein, M. B. 1394 [2015]. Ma’na be Masabeh-e Tajrobeh-zisteh: Gozar az Neshaneh-shenasi-e Classic be Neshaneh-shenasi ba Door-nama-e Padidar-shenakhti. Landovski, A (intro.). Tehran: Sokhan.
      (Meaning as Lived Experience; The Passage from Classic Semiotics toward Semiotics with Phenomenological Landscape)
Tohidloo, Y. and H. R. Shaeiri. 1396 [2017]. “Motaleye Protez-sazi-e Goftemani: Chera Dorooghe Ravayi Protez Ast?”. Pazoohesh Adabyiat Moaser Jahan. Cycle 22, No 1, 269-286.
      (“Study of making prostheses in discourse; why does narrative lie make prostheses?” Research in Contemporary World Literature.)
Zinna, A. I. (2009). A quelle point en sommes-nous avec la semiotique de l' object? Objects & communication. Me l No, 30-31. Paris: Harmattan.