A semiotic approach to Selçuk Baran's novels

Literary criticism methods, that accord paralel with the scientific, technological and social developments in the world, gain variety with the beginning of the twentieth century. Before the twentieth century, when it comes to criticism, a literary work was evaluted in terms of the factors such as the creator of the work, the neighbourhood of the author, education - not focusing on the work itself. In the twentieth century, modernists, who have rational thinking their ways, begin to evaluate the work in the light of linguistics and grammar terms rather than external factors like the other art critics. This perspective disclose methodologies like structuralism and post-structuralism. However, semiotics which has structural origin displays its own methodology starting to examine and criticise using signs as a base.Semiotics, the most significant and premier theory of the twentieth century, finds a field of application for itself in a wide area which ranges from architecture to cinema, advertisement to television, anthropology to linguistics and also begins to be a method used in understanding literary works within the time. The main aim of the semiotics examinations, with whichever method they are made, is to conceive the world of meanings that surrounds man and the producing process of these meanings in this world.In the first part of our study consisting of two main parts, the basic principles of criticism methods are explained and additionally you are informed about the works and the life of Selçuk Baran. And in the second part, the semiotic criticism method is applied to the novels of Selçuk Baran?s called Before Fall, Steppe Flowers and A Pale Man.Key words: Semiotics, Selçuk Baran, A Pale Man, Steppe Flowers, Before Fall.