Religious Discourse in the Novel “The Daughter of Souslov”: An Approach in Socio-Semiotic Criticism of Discourse.

Abstract

The novel, in general, is a fictional prose narrative, often realistic, revolving around characters involved in significant events. It serves as a representation of life, experience, and the acquisition of knowledge. Characters interact, develop, and fulfill their functions through a network known as the narrative character. The novel depicts these characters, their roles within the text, their relationships with one another, and their pursuit of goals, along with their success or failure in achieving them. Mikhail Bakhtin views the novel as an open repository that absorbs and stores the experiences of the world—a world made up of memories, trials, and voices expressed through words, utterances, and discourses. Pierre Zima defines it as “a set of syntactic and semantic structures that interact with social and economic issues at the level of language,” based on his assertion that “literature has a verbal function in relation to social life.”