ARABIC LITERATURE (FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES)
Year:2020 | Volume:12 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:9

Semiotics which emerged in the early twentieth century by Saussure and Pierce is a science that examines linguistic signs. Semiotics is a broad and pervasive branch of divergent and convergent schools that analyzes the signs of semantic production. One of the most important branches of semiotics is social semiotics, which is based on the linguistic role of Michael Halliday and emphasizes the context of the text. The present study, which is written in an analytical descriptive manner, seeks to analyze the context of the poem “ Al-Asha al-akhir” which is one of the most important poems of Amal Donqol, a contemporary Egyptian poet (1940-1983), based on the principles of social semiotics. The poem is the result of the years following the Six-Day War which was fought between Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in 1967. It depicts the turmoil and bitterness of the Arabs’ defeat and its consequences, as well as the corruption in the governments of Egypt and the other Arab countries. In this poem, the poet recounts the historical and mythological past and condemns the current situation in order to call for a change. With the aim of inducing his readers to act toward this change, the poet uses historical, religious, and mythological personalities in order to give a clear picture of his ideologies and of the situation in Egypt. The article argues that Amal Donqol, using his lingual strategies and influential power, creates an integrated critical discourse system against the domination of tyranny. He addresses social evils such as poverty, passivity, and the lack of freedom in the society, emphasizing the important role of the intellectuals in making changes in the structure of the society. In his discourse, along with the reflection of the unhealthy situation in Egypt and, in general, the Arab society, he always delegitimizes the ruling government.

The present article seeks to analyze the contents of an Arabic newspaper based on the linguistic principles of text and discourse. The importance and necessity of this work is that it explains and reveals the linguistic techniques that journalists use to engage in media warfare against a country. Since Iran is a regional power in the Middle East, the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat was selected from a country with an opposing discourse, namely Saudi Arabia, to show the various forms of use of ideology in the press. Asharq Al-Awsat has the important feature (important to this study) of writing ideological news against Iran. So the texts studied in this article are deliberately selected from a newspaper whose hostility to Iran is clear, despite claims of neutrality. The reason for this choice is to be able to perform a precise analysis of a discourse against Iran. The purpose of the article is to analyze the semantic discourse constructs of Asharq Al-Awsat with the aim of explaining the representational patterns in it. To do so, the critical discourse analysis model of Theo Van Leeuwen is used, which discusses representation in political texts, and the selected texts are examined qualitatively. According to Van Leeuwen’ s theories — according to, for instance, what he calls role allocation — several factors show the ideological interferences of the authors with the discourse structures of the text. In many case, this newspaper, through various textual and linguistic strategies such as identification and classification, represents Iran as an influential actor with negative performance. In all such cases, on the contrary, the authors have represented Saudi Arabia positively. Thus, the article argues that the primary strategy of the text on which its structural discourses are based is to portray the negative and interfering role of Iran in opposition to the positive activism of Saudi Arabia.

Time is one of the important topics in narratology. Gé rard Genette, a French theorist of structuralism, has provided the most comprehensive theorization of time in narration, especially the discrepancy between the time of the narration and the time of the story. The present research tries to examine Ghada al-Samman’ s “ The Fire of that Summer, ” published in her 1973 collection of short stories The Departure of Old Ports, based on Genette’ s theorization of time order so as to determine the extent to which anachronism is used in two retrospective and prospective modes in this story. The main hypothesis of this study is that Samman’ s short story, since it has many temporal inconsistencies so that the past, present and future intrude into one another, can be analyzed by Genette’ s theories. The research, adopting an analytical-descriptive method, analyzes the inconsistencies between the time of the story and the time of the text to demonstrate that the author, using retrospective anachronism (in three forms: diegetic, non-diegetic, and a combination of these two) and prospective anachronism (diegetic and non-diegetic), breaks the linear time of the story. The story begins at a moment when the internal and subjective conflicts of the main character (the narrator) are highlighted. By exposing the inner world and the chaos of the protagonist, Samman invites the audience to read a moving, complex, and, sometimes, highly engaging story. She uses retrospective diegetic anachronism to depict the protagonist’ s bitter memories of the fall of the West Bank and the defeat of 1967, while she uses non-diegetic anachronism to portray the Arab community’ s negligence of the suffering of Palestinian people. Prospective anachronism is used to portray the predictions of the protagonist about the future of Arab societies. Since the story is based on the portrayal of the reminiscences of the protagonist, retrospective diegesis is highlighted.

Critical discourse analysis, as a modern interdisciplinary approach, attempts to read the text beyond words, sentences, and the text itself. It deems the context necessary to understand the semantics of a text from a critical point of view. Its aim is to clarify the structures of power, domination, and political, social, and cultural inequalities. These structures are criticized through rhetoric, syntax, pragmatics, and intertextuality. This paper adopts a descriptive-analytical method to examine the tenth letter of Nahj al-Balagha, which is addressed to Muawiyah, based on Norman Fairclough’ s critical discourse pattern. This model, theorized in the book Language and Power, redefines asymmetrical social relations. It considers three layers for discourse analysis: description, interpretation, and explanation. In Fairclough’ s opinion, the social action is shaped by the interaction of these layers. This essay, on the layer of description, studies the text from a formalistic point of view. On the layer of interpretation, it deals with the interaction of text and its context, and explores the elements of power and ideology. It is noteworthy that these elements are reflected in the use of pronouns. The pronoun I, for instance, indicates professional and social responsibility while the pronoun you indicates the differences between Imam Ali’ s personality and that of his counterparts, namely the Umayyads. The letter mentions the same motives that troubled the Islamic society from the first battle to the Battle of Siffin. Critical discourse analysis reveals the ideological differences between Imam Ali and the Umayyads reflected in its use of elements such as metaphors and pronouns. Furthermore, the article tries to demonstrate that in this letter, the purpose of Imam Ali as the religious and legitimate ruler of the Islamic world was to disrupt the domination and inequality in the structure of tribalism of the Umayyad Caliphate, for otherwise Muslims would face grave difficulties.

The Algerian Trilogy by Mohammed Dib, a renowned Algerian writer, is one of the most recognized literary works of the contemporary literature of his country. It provides the reader with an objective perspective of the Algerian society in the years leading up to the Independence. In each of the novels, the writer focuses on one aspect of the life in the society. He gives the reader a viewpoint of the consequences of the French colonialism in everyday living status of the Algerians in cities, the countryside, and the industrial section in The Big House, The Fire, and The Loom respectively. In order to answer the critical questions pertaining to the postcolonial elements of the novels, this research extracts and analyzes the key concepts of postcolonial theory and criticism reflected in them. Furthermore, it attempts to evaluate the specific mechanisms used by the author to develop a postcolonial image. Thus, the article sets to study the novels’ multiple narrative and its impact on the embodiment of colonial and postcolonial atmosphere in Algeria, the power relations between the master and the slave under French colonialism, the colonial double-standard policies, resistance, and internalized racism. By doing so, it demonstrates that The Algerian Trilogy, with its multi-level narrative and naturalistic approach, challenges the false, superficial message of colonialism as to bringing civilization and modernity to Algeria, and reveals the true negative side of French colonialism. It argues that the master/ slave dichotomy is present in many scenes of all three novels, categorizing the characters into two groups: the dominant and the subaltern. Yet, some of the characters show conscious resistance by their focus on local elements of the Algerian culture and by their display of interest in Arabic language. In other words, the writer goes beyond the stereotype of sheer defiance and portrays cultural and linguistic resistance.

The discourse of literary texts can be viewed from a variety of perspectives and all the dimensions of their various levels can be evaluated. Discourse analysis provides an opportunity for a deep understanding of the text. It helps highlight the author’ s discourse and linguistic interactions with ideological structures. The parodies of Jerir and Akhtal are among the texts of Arabic literature based on foregrounding and backgrounsing. These two poets use specific discursive tools in most of their parodies, seeking to foreground their own identity and to background the identity of their rival. This paper discusses some principles of critical discourse analysis, such as the explicit socio-political stance of discourse analysts, and focuses on the dominance of the elite and institutions as they are enacted, legitimated, or reproduced by text and speech. One of the crucial elements of this analysis of the relations between power and discourse is the patterns of access to (public) discourse for different social groups. This article argues that in order to be able to relate power and discourse in an explicit way, we need the “ cognitive interface” of models, knowledge, attitudes, ideologies and other social representations of the social mind, which also relate the individual and the social, and the micro-and the macro-levels of social structure. This argument is illustrated with an analysis of parliamentary debates about ethnic affairs. The article attempts to refer to the “ ideological square” of van Dijk in order to check out the discursive levels of two parodies by Akhtal and Jerir. The results demonstrate that highlighting negative aspects of the other is of a very high frequency in both texts (66 percent in Jerir’ s and 71 percent in Akhtal’ s). The difference is that Jerir has been more successful in the use of discursive levels of meaning, formal structures, and grammar.

Intertextuality is one of the most commonly used terms in the field of language and literature. It deals with the interaction of texts with each other. According to the theories of intertextuality, no text is independent and each text is a combination of different texts that consciously or unconsciously utilize each other’ s literary and intellectual sources. Religious intertextuality is one of the critical approaches used to investigate correlations and interactions between religious texts. The Quran is one of the most valuable and influential sources of inspiration used by writes. Ibn al-Arandas al-Hilly is a poet and literary icon from the ninth century AH. He was fascinated by the Quran and the teachings of Ahl al-Bayt. His poetry, especially his famous poem “ Raeeyeh” which is in praise of Imam Hussein, reflects Quranic themes. This article studies two kinds of intertextuality between this poem and Quranic verses: lexical and personality (summoning Quranic characters). Our analysis of the poem shows that Quranic verses and themes are present in the majority of its verses and this indicates the poet’ s deep appreciation of Quran and religious texts and his respect for and admiration of Ahl al-Bayt and, in particular, Imam Hussein. The abundance of intertextuality between Ibn al-Arandas’ poems and the Quran is a prominent characteristic of his poetry and an indication of the intentional use of Quranic verses in order to convey his message in a more accurate and effective way. The present research is descriptive-analytical and therefore, after presenting theoretical discussions, analyzes the intertextuality between this poem and the Quran. The findings of this study demonstrate that the intertextual relations between the two texts are mostly in the form of partial negation (17 cases) and there is only one case in the form of complete negation. The poet, in this one case, has made little modification so that the meanings of words and sentences are in agreement with the Quran’ text.

Diachronic semantics focuses on the change and development of words during a period of time. The change of Quranic words in pre-and post-Quranic eras helps scholars reread their denotations and connotations. One of the essential words in the Quran is “ yagheen” which is frequent in the terminology of ideas such as God, man, the unseen world, and intuition. This article follows the change of this word from ancient Semitic up to the Abbasid era in order to find the exact meaning of this word in Quranic definition system. The article contends that Semitic borrowed “ yagheen” from Greek through Aramaic. This word had a wide range of applications in Semitic, but upon entering Arabic, it was assigned a specific and developed meaning. Then, it took a religious background in the Quran and entered human’ s ideologies and thoughts. This word primarily meant “ image, ” “ like” and “ similar” and then it changed into a verb meaning “ to draw” and “ to display. ” It was semantically narrowed after entering Arabic, losing the meanings “ similarity” and “ image” and being used as “ removal of doubt. ” Moreover, it acquired new derivatives in Arabic, which can be interpreted as semantic widening. The examination of the poetry of the Age of Ignorance shows that this word was rarely used, being only utilized as meaning “ much awareness” which of course led to doubt. According to the books on “ Vojouh and Nazaer, ” “ yagheen” is used as meaning “ to affirm, ” “ death, ” “ observation, ” “ science” and “ verity” in the Quran. However, considering of the context of Quranic verses, it can be concluded that it has only one meaning in the Quran and that is “ removal of doubt, ” and that its other meanings are either the result of yagheen or its causes. This word is more commonly used in post-Quranic eras as in many Arabic poems in which it has a religious usage and is expressive of people’ s worldview.

Eulogy is one of the oldest and most frequent themes of poetry in Persian literature. Indeed, it can be considered as a fundamental theme that arose at the beginning of the formation of poetry. Originally, it comes from Arabic literature. In eulogy, the purpose of the poet is to praise a person to expresses his or her request to that person. Eulogy is a literary genre that, due to exaggerated descriptions of some poets, is criticized for exploiting literature. However, it should be noted that it has goals other than receiving rewards, gaining reputation, and so on in the works of some poets. Anvari is one of the most outstanding Persian poets who is considered as one of the prophets of Persian poetry. Anvari’ s divan (poetry collection) consists of two volumes and the first volume includes eulogies. Abu Tayyeb Mutanabbi is one of the most renowned Arabic poets and, like Anvari, is considered as one of the prophets of Arabic poetry. He has written odes in praise of Seif-o-Doleh. This article, which is a descriptive-analytical study, aims at comparing the first volume of Anvari’ s divan with Mutanabbi’ s odes in the framework of American comparative literature. It tries to compare them in terms of their purpose of praise and their rhetoric. The findings reveal that there are similar themes such as bravery and generosity in their poetry. However, they differ from each other in that Anvari praises the appearance, the estate, and other worldly belongings of the object of his praise, while such praise is cannot be found in Mutanabbi’ s poetry. Besides, has a high self-respect and shows great arrogance in the major parts of his poetry. Thus, the most important difference between them is Mutanabbi’ s narcissism. The analysis of these commonalities and differences is one of the objectives of this comparative research.