Low Chronotopic Clarity and Marginal Entrapment: Spatiotemporal Analysis of Class Identity in the Kurdish Narrative Gulî Reş (Black Flower)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This study analyzes time and place in the Kurdish short story “Gulî Reş” (Black Flower) by Shirzad Hassan, examining the connection between time, place, and symbolic marginalization. The research uses a qualitative approach based on social semiotics. Data were collected through multiple readings of the story. The analytical unit was “clauses with temporal or spatial references,” and a total of 247 cases were coded based on criteria including time type, place, verb aspect, repetitions, and silence. The theoretical framework consists of Blommaert and De Fina’s (2017) contemporary rereading of the time-space continuum and its novel applications by Karimzad and Catedral (2018, 2021, 2022). Findings show that the narrator oscillates among the childhood continuum, which is linked to an idealized past, courage, and the act of stealing flowers; the present continuum, which is marked by shame, fear, and waiting for the window to open; and the idealized future continuum, in which he dreams of planting black flowers to frighten the wealthy. These three continua exist within a hierarchy of power whose center is the “closed balcony” continuum of the affluent class, which determines not only space and time but also the ideology of naming and silence. The narrator’s constant shifts reflect his “low spatiotemporal clarity.” Consequently, he cannot choose any single continuum and remains trapped among them. His attempt to escape the dominant continuum toward the past and the future isn’t realizable. The story ends with the cry “Maletawa” (Goodby), an acknowledgment of spatiotemporal defeat and remaining in the margins.

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References

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Journal of Linguistics & Iranian Languages
Volume 10, Issue 4
February 2026
Pages 97-115

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History

  • Receive Date: 24 May 2026
  • Revise Date: 30 June 2026
  • Accept Date: 08 July 2026

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