The Role of Signs in Hafez Poems

Semiotics، for the first time، was introduced in the field of language studies by Ferdinand de Saussure. The goal of semiotics is to study the relation between signified and signifier. Semiotics is an approach rather than a science. Although Semiotics has been rooted in Saussure''s ideas and the relation between signified and signifier، it can also be extended to literary criticism and specifically to reader-response theory. It seems that Semiotics has other applications other than its linguistic function which is mainly based on Jacobson''s theory. Semiotics has other functions; for instance it can be used in reader–response theories for investigating the influence of signs on readers. This paper tries not only to investigate Hafiz''s poems from Semiotic point of view and to categorize its signs، but also to study the influence of each sign on the readers and also to distinguish different languages Hafiz employs in his sonnets.