Hossein Mohtadi

The language communication theory has recently achieved a significant foothold in critical studies. Roman Jakobson, a member of Prague school, has propounded influential linguistic “functions” and “factors” to examine poetic texts particularly. According to him, effective verbal communication should have the following factors: (1) context, (2) addresser (sender), (3) addressee (receiver), (4) contact, (5) common code, and (6) message. He has also proposed six distinct functions of language: referential, poetic, emotive, conative, phatic, and metalingual. Literary critics and scholars have paid particular attention to the narrative and dialogue nuances of modern novels. This study draws on Jakobson’s factors and functions in order to examine Rousha Dakhaz’s The Remnants by adopting an analytical-descriptive approach and referring to the American School of Comparative Literature. It identifies that cultural, political, and social references are the most utilized linguistic functions in the novel because it revolves around the events and incidents of war and political changes. With regard to the referential function, the author uses the first-person narrator to verbalize the characters’ emotions. With regard to the emotive function, the novelist has used second-person pronouns as well as imperative and interrogative pronouns in order to engage readers. The poetic and metalingual functions are the least used ones throughout the novel.