Studies on Arabic Language and Literature
Year:2018 | Volume:8 | Issue:26 |Papers Count:7

Cultural identity might be revealed in group features of human beings sharing many relationships like common history, social and religious descriptions. All cultures represent their identity through different tools and means. It is the representation that gives to any group a picture of itself and others. This process is so important that there a term associated with it, "narrative identity". In this respect, the postcolonial literature portrays the continuous relationship between the colonialist and the colonialized a relation based on submission and subjugation. This situation requires the removal and suppression of the identity, intentionally or unintentionally. The Arab writers who suffered this period creatively and aesthetically reacted to it. They tried through writing, thinking and imagination, to portray different faces of this experience in all its cruelty. These pictures have sought to separate the present identities from the past and be involved in a global race based on cultural competitions beyond, say, military and economic competitions. The novel Chicago by Ala al Aswani employs the phenomena of exile and diaspora, which the characters of the novel have lived or observed, as the embodiment of many of the postcolonial experiences. This novel narrate the moral contrasts between the western and eastern identities. That is, it describes the process through which the slavemaster relationship takes shape—how an independent agent becomes a passive entity.

Many studies have been conducted on the relation between Movashehat (light-hearted poetry) and the mainstream of Arabic poetry. They have expressed different attitudes toward this type of Andalusian poetry. Some studies do not exclude Mvashahat from Arabic poetry; while others regard this poetic type as breaking with mainstream poetry in meter, rhyme, and language. Movashahat, whether according to standard metrical patterns or general themes, is associated with Arabic language in two ways: 1) being related to the language of poetry and fluent Arabic, a point which all agree on, and 2) expressing the popular culture and local motifs in light-hearted manners, which seems against the standards and norms of Arabic poetry. But, this does not mean its complete break with poetry and Movashahat establish an independent tradition in poetry. It is only an experiment in poetic tradition, which wants to defamiliarize against the conventional metrical practices. It is a critical experiment to help development, not a subversive attempt. This research emphasizes the metrical aspects of Movashahat, which is effected through bringing about correspondence between the prosodic patterns of poems and the subject matter. The study also considers the effect of general and romantic themes and motifs upon which the light-hearted poem (Movashah) is based.

Cognitive linguistics is a modern linguistic approach which emerged during 1970s. This linguistic approach is closely related to philosophy, psychology, and other cognitive sciences. A number of scholars including Lakoff, Langaker, Talmy and Fauconnier are among the leading figures in this field. Cognitive linguistics discusses the relationship between language and human mind and the way words are created in mind. To achieve this goal, it focuses on topics including categorization, polysemy and image schema. This article aims at studying motion verbs in the Holy Quran from a cognitive perspective with a focus on the verb ata (to come). The results show that motion verbs have an important role in providing the semantic structure of the Quran and can help to reveal some fascinating aspects of meaning construction in this holy book. The study also reveals that the semantic network around the verb ata goes beyond the primary lexical meaning of the verb. Accordingly, besides the primary meaning of ata, the semantic network of this verb includes such meanings as "to commit a sinful act" and "to swear".

This research deals with the concept of Migration or literary journey (hijreh) in Sufi poetry, specifically in the seventh century after Hijreh. This research firstly emphasizes that literary journeys in Sufi or mystic poetry originates from an intellectual vision based on the belief that human life from beginning to the end is just a journey. This vision is presented in a poetic style which benefits from traditional poetry and borrows from it the metaphor of journey and semantically transforms its vocabulary. The research also highlights the motivation for journey, which is alienation and the feeling of loneliness because of being far from the original home. This idea is expressed by Sufis as either communication or separation. So, a mystic always feels that he is far from his origin and is exiled in his current state. This is the motive for his journey to alleviate the stress and the anxiety. Because of the nature of this cause, the journey itself becomes an aim. Due to the space limitations in this research, only one component of journey “the camel" will be explored and its new semantic features in the Sufi texts will be identified.

The Arabic concepts of Tebaq, Tazzad, Momathela, or Moqabela (comparison, antithesis, contrast) refer to a kind of literary or aesthetic device in Arabic rhetoric which juxtaposes two concepts, at two opposite poles, with each other. Concepts such as light and darkness, day and night, beginning and end, overt and covert are examples of contrast. However, the present study expresses a different viewpoint towards the issue of Tebaq or Antithesis in the Holy Quran. The basic claim of the present study is founded on the paleontological approach. Paleontology, like archeology, tries to excavate the foundations of concepts by getting to the depth of thoughts and ideas through the ages and centuries. The concept of Tebaq or binary oppositions constitutes the basis of eastern and western thoughts and is the governing spirit in Eastern Yin and Yang and some Western sciences such as psychology, philosophy, and literary criticism are founded on Tebaq or Antithesis. In addition, this binary view can be seen in the Holy Quran, but afer a careful analysis of this holy book, we can discern that the Quranic view toward binaries is totally different from those of western and eastern philosophers and scholars. An accurate analysis of Quranic concepts reveals three types of Tebaq: moderate Tebaq, synonymous Tebaq, and monotheistic Tebaq. The important issue which the present article is to emphasize is that Eastern and Western civilizations are founded on moderate binaries, while the foundations Quranic civilizations are based on monotheistic Tebaq. Accordingly, the present study is to investigate the Tebaq method in the Holy Quran from a paleontological point of view. The researchers in this study claim that social engineering based on monotheistic Tebaq is an important and valuable measure which can help the development of Quranic human sciences.

Communicative silence may reveal people’s inner meanings and transfer specific emotions or thoughts to the audience. However, the degree of the eloquence of silence depends on the power of eloquence which silence has chosen to bestow, its audience, and the sentences used before and after it. Therefore, it seems silence and its meanings are issues worth investigating. Taha Hussein has written his autobiography in a book entitled Al-Ayyam or the Days. His blindness has had a considerable effect on his introspection and silence. Silence can be observed with different meanings everywhere in this book. By thinking about the meanings of Taha Hussein’s silence, one can understand dimensions of his personality, emotions, and thoughts. In the present study, which uses a descriptive-analytical method, the application of silence in events occurring in Al-Ayyam (the Days) is investigated in order that its role in communicating meaning is revealed, as silence sometimes indicates issues which verbal signs are unable to convey. The results of the study indicate that Taha Hussein’s silence is not of secondary importance, after the verbal signs, in conveying meaning; in fact, it has the main role in transferring explicit and implicit meanings. In addition, his silence indicates his self-respect and self-esteem. Taha Hussein sometimes, using body language, expresses intended meanings and sometimes in silence, hides his pain. Sometimes, one way to know people is their silence because both language and silence are rooted in human intentionality.

This research aims to deal with the issue of Al-Bade'e or innovations by Ibnal Mu’taz its terms of its resort to the natural or artificial. Many researchers accused him that he is the first who contributed to the use of ornamental language in the Arabic literature. That's because he identified and elaborated the elements of "Al-Bade'e" or innovative ideology. The misunderstanding about "Al-Bade'e" principles at "Ibn-al Mu'taz" is because he didn't discriminate between "Al-Bade'e" as a critical technique which depend on the stylistics when comparing the literary texts and "Al-Bade'e" as a formal figurative device. "Al-Bade'e" has double functions as being a device for both creativity and critical evaluation. In fact, there is a big difference between the critical Bade'e and the creative one. The main goal of this research is to verify the hypothesis that innovations of "Ibn-al Mu'taz" helped the intensity and frequency of figures of speech and artificial language in the Arabic language? Did he give literary criticism a rhetorical edge? Could he add a flexible and academic dimension to literary criticism which can be critically analyzed and contribute to the identification of novel styles in Arabic literatre?