Text Linguistics of Qur'anic Discourse

An Analysis

Hussein Abdul-Raof

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317368649
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Text Linguistics of Qur'anic Discourse is an in-depth investigation of the fabric of Qur'anic Discourse. It unravels the texture of the macro Qur'anic text; its cohesion and coherence systems; the notions of intertextuality, semantic relatedness, and thematic sequentiality; the macro textual features of ellipsis, repetition, and argumentation structure; and the contextual, co-textual, grammatical, and semantic factors involved in the macro Qur'anic text. This book is a valuable and methodologically consistent learning and teaching academic resource for universities worldwide in this intriguing new discipline. Through its methodologically coherent discussion and in-depth analysis that is hinged upon modern European text linguistics, Text Linguistics of Qur'anic Discourse provides an insight into the newly established discipline of text linguistics, and explores the different layers of the macro Qur'anic text as an academic requirement.

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Text linguistics

1.1 Introduction

This is an account of what text linguistics is concerned with. The discussion provides the major notions of text linguistics such as the text, the qualities of the text, its macro functions, the different types of text, the text’s pragmatic function, the relationship between the text producer (writer/speaker) and the text receiver (reader/listener), the relationship between the text and its context, the role of coherence and cohesion in the creation of a text, the cohesive ties involved in the text such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. This chapter also deals with the standards of textuality, how the text progresses, and what Qur’anic text linguistics is about.

1.2 What is text linguistics?

Text linguistics emerged during the 1970s as a new discipline but has remained a branch of mainstream linguistics. It is concerned with the description and analysis of macro spoken and written texts. In other words, the text is the major and largest linguistic sign/unit which is worthy of analysis rather than its constituent single words, phrases, or sentences. Text linguistics studies the communicative relationship through texts between the text producer (writer/speaker) and the text receiver (reader/hearer). It studies the communicative employment of cohesive devices in the construction of a given text. Text linguistics is concerned with the flow of information intra-sententially (within the same sentence) and inter-sententially (among different sentences) by looking at text linguistic features of the text like coherence, cohesion, the organization of old/given/known (unmarked) information and new/unknown (marked) information which are constituents of the text structure. In text linguistics, we focus on the linguistic processes of text cohesion and text coherence.

In text linguistics, the text is a communication system and has a communication function. In the view of Dirven and Vespoor (2004:180), text linguistics is concerned with the study of how a writer/speaker and a reader/hearer manage to communicate through texts. In other words, how the text producer and the text receiver can go beyond the text, i.e., how they effectively employ cohesive devices (adawāt al-rabṭ), such as (wa – and), (bisabab – because), (thumma – then), and (walākin – but), in order to construct sentential and paragraph relations within a given text.

Text linguistics is different from traditional structural linguistics. The latter focuses on sentence grammar, i.e., sentence structure, and is concerned primarily with the sentence as the largest linguistic unit in linguistic analysis. However, text linguistics views the sentence as a micro unit of language and is concerned with the text structure and textuality. Linguistic analysis should be carried out at the macro level, the text, and the sentence is only a part of the macro text.

For more details, see Dressler (1978:21); Trask (1997:219); Beaugrande and Dressler (1981:ii, 3); Crystal (2003:234–235, 462); and Hatim and Munday (2004:350).

1.3 Major notions in text linguistics

The major notions in text linguistics include: text, subtext, context of situation, texture, cohesive ties, standards of textuality, and macro functions of text (field, tenor, and mode), and text types. These are discussed in what follows.

1.3.1 Text

The word ‘text’ is derived from the Latin verb (texere) meaning to weave, to compose, or to contrive. In other words, the words are woven together in a text. A text enjoys inherent lexicogrammatical and stylistic hallmarks which reflect the social and cultural context in which a specific text occurs. A text should constitute a congruent discourse (kalām mutalā’im). A text should be well formed (faṣīḥ) and be free from rhetorical deficiency (^cuyūb balāghiyyah) and sluggish sentences (jumal mutanāfirah). A text should also enjoy continuity and progression. On the lexical, grammatical, and stylistic levels, the text is influenced by its social event. Thus, the context of situation is the womb of the text. On the stylistic level, the text should avoid distasteful style and unnaturalness (^cadam al-istirsāl, al-takalluf). A text should enjoy grammatical, semantic, and stylistic congruity. On the rhetorical level, a text should avoid verbosity (al-iṭnāb) to elevate its illocutionary force and not to undermine informativity.

A text is the linguistic outcome of a specific interaction, such as a particular speech (or part of a speech), a book (or a chapter or a paragraph from a book) (McCabe 2011:390). According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:1–2), a text has the following prototypical features:

1. It is any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that forms a unified whole.
2. It is a unit of language in use.
3. It is any form of a communicative or meaningful event.
4. It is not a grammatical unit like a sentence or a clause.
5. It is a semantic unit (a unit of meaning).
6. It does not consist of sentences but is realized by (encoded in) sentences.
7. It is not defined by its size.
8. It has texture which distinguishes it from something that is not a text.
9. It is coherent and cohesive.
10. A text has cohesive properties through which it can be analyzed, and that some items within the text function cohesively (Halliday and Hasan 1976:3–4).
11. A text is a communicative occurrence which should meet seven standards of textuality: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality (Beaugrande and Dressler 1981:3).
12. Texts are seen as vehicles for the expression of a range of socio-cultural meanings (Hatim and Munday 2004:86).
13. A text must be relevant to other texts in the same discourse and not just to participants’ intentions and to the situational setting (Beaugrande and Dressler 1981:188).

The notion of ‘text’ has been discussed further by linguists. For Halliday and Hasan (1976:23), a text is a passage of discourse which is coherent with respect to the context of a situation, and it is coherent with respect to itself and therefore cohesive. In general, any unit which is structured hangs together so as to form text. All grammatical units – sentences, clauses, groups, words – are internally ‘cohesive’ simply because they are structured. A text is realized in the form of related sentences as a semantic unit, i.e., a unit of meaning, and its semantic unity lies in the cohesion among its constituent sentences (ibid:1, 2, 293). In other words, a text is not a unit of form and, therefore, it is not a grammatical unit. However, for van Dijk (1977:3), a text is a grammatical unit. It is a larger unit of reconstructed utterances which can be assigned textual structure and are acceptable discourses of the language, i.e., are well formed and interpretable (ibid).

For McCabe (2011:82), a text is the linguistic outcome of a specific interaction. According to Brown and Yule (1996:190), a text is the verbal record of a communicative event. For Trask (1997:219), the text is a continuous stretch of spoken or written language, but particularly one which forms a discrete unit by itself and has some recognizable internal structure.

Thus, we can argue that the major components of a communicative text are coherence and cohesion. The text should be cohesive in terms of grammatical patterns. The text should also be logically presented, i.e., its sentences are linked coherently. The notion of ‘text’ is also related to the notion of ‘text processing’, i.e., the use of a text in communication with the minimum expenditure of effort by the addressee (text receiver, hearer/reader). For an efficient textual communicationy, the text producer needs to make his/her text processed (thoroughly understood) by the text receiver (the reader/listener).

In terms of sentence structure, some texts favour short and simple sentences with coordination conjunctive particles. Such sentences are paratactic. However, other texts favour long and complex sentences with subordination conjunctive particles. Such sentences are hypotactic. For more details, see Section 1.3.10. For Barthes (1973:31), the text can, if it wants, attack the canonical structures of the language itself: lexicon, syntax. Then it becomes language. This applies to Qur’anic discourse in terms of foregrounding for saliency reasons. For more details, see Chapter 5, Section 5.7. However, in terms of text types and cross-cultural communication, Hatim and Munday (2004:303) argue that texts, genres, and discourses are macro-signs within which we do things with words. Words, thus, become instruments of power and ideology. For Barthes (1973:13, 14, 31), the text transcends prattle, comes from culture and does not break with it, and the text can, if it wants, attack the canonical structures of the language itself: lexicon, syntax. Then it becomes language.

Based on Qur’anic discourse, a text dovetails with another text in the same discourse to attain sequentiality (connectivity) of themes (leitmotifs). Thus, coherence is achieved. This is evident in Qur’anic discourse where the tenets of faith dovetail with each other in a sequential manner. For more details, see Chapter 5, Section 5.10.1.2.

1.3.1.1 Text illocutionary force

Each text is produced for a perlocutionary force on the reader/hearer. Perlocution is concerned with the impact of the text upon its receivers. The impact of the text is achieved through its words. Thus, the text involves an illocutionary force. In other words, we can say the following:

Text Producer → Text → Illocutionary Force → Perlocutionary Effect → Audience.

Although the text receiver is expected to possess acute discernment (nafādh baṣ ī rah), a pragmatically (communicatively) effective text should enjoy specific rhetorical characteristics so that the text’s illocutionary act (the impact of words) is employed to the maximum. We believe that the text’s illocutionary force is fortified by the following rhetorical characteristics, which can elevate the illocutionary force of the text, i.e., raise the text’s influence upon the text receivers and achieve the text producer’s desired perlocutionary force:

1. the minimum use of allusion (hidden meaning),
2. the minimum use of structural and semantic ambiguity,
3. the minimum use of amphigouri (periphrasis) and bombast (pointless, redundant discourse – kalām ajwaf malī’ bil-ḥashu),
4. the minimum use of catachresis (excessive allegory – al-ta^cassuf al-majāzi),
5. the minimum use of complete non-relatedness (lack of coherence – kamāl al-inqiṭā^c) whose antonym is complete relatedness (consonance – kamāl al-ittiṣāl),
6. the minimum use of coding (al-ilghāz), i.e., blinding when using metonymy,
7. the minimum use of complex assonance (al-saj^cal-mu^caqqad),
8. the minimum use of implicatures,
9. the words employed should have explicatures (ma^cānī wāḍiḥah),
10. the minimum use of inkhorn expressions (al-fāẓ gharībah),
11. the minimum use of lexical oddity (gharābat al-alfāẓ),
12. the use of elegance of discourse (ḥ usn al-kalām),
13. the use of elegance of introduction (ḥ usn al-istihlāl),
14. compatibility between the register of discourse and the psychological state of the audience,
15. the use of grammatical, morphological, semantic, and stylistic congruity,
16. a pragmatically effective and appropriate text should enjoy stylistic purity (al-jazālah), should employ a sublime style (islūb rafi^c), and should avoid verbosity (iṭnāb),
17. a pragmatically effective and appropriate text should be decorated by embellishments (^cilm al-badī^c) and figures of speech (^cilm al-bayān) to promote the text’s figure of thought (al-ṣ ūrah al-bayāniyyah lil-naṣ ṣ), and
18. the illocutionary force of the text can be enhanced through the employment of foregrounding a sentence constituent and bringing it into a prominent perspective.

1.3.1.2 Text receiver

This is referred to in Arabic as (al-mutalaqqī). Texts are not produced haphazardly. Each text is purpose centred and has a targeted audience. However, each text addresses a given category of readers/listeners. Based on the type of audience, the text producer (al-mubdi^c) designs the genre, which involves specific linguistic and stylistic mechanisms through which the text’s intended message is relayed to the targeted category of text audience.

Although the text receiver is expected to possess acute discernment (nafādh baṣīrah), an informative text, we believe, should enjoy the following characteristics:

1. the use of minimum allusion (hidden meaning),
2. the use of minimum structural and semantic ambiguity,
3. the use of minimum amphigouri (pointless discourse).

In Qur’anic discourse, we encounter different categories of text receivers, such as:

1. disbelievers (kāfirūn): This is a major category of Qur’anic text receivers. They can be sub-classified into:
   1. the polytheists (al-mushrikūn): This category of Qur’anic text receivers are deniers (munkirūn) of the Qur’anic intended message, namely, monotheism and Muḥammad’s prophethood. The polytheists represent idol worshippers, i.e., believers in different gods. However, they believe in the hereafter. Example: (wajadnā ābā’anālaha ^cābidīn… – We found our fathers worshippers of them (idols), Q21:53).
   2. the heretics (al-mulḥidūn): This category of Qur’anic text receivers are deniers (munkirūn) of the Qur’anic intended message, namely, monotheism, Muḥammad’s prophethood, eschatology, and reward and punishment. The heretics are not idol worshippers, i.e., they are disbelievers in any god. Example: (mā hiya illā ḥayatunā al-dunyā namūtu wanaḥyā wamā yuhlikunā illā aldahr – This is not but our worldly life. We die and live and nothing destroys us except time, Q45:24).
   3. the Jews (al-yahūd, banū isrā’īl): This category of Qur’anic text receivers are deniers (munkir) of the Qur’anic intended message of monotheism and Muḥammad’s prophethood. However, they are believers in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Arabic transliteration system
• Introduction
• 1 Text linguistics
• 2 Qur’anic macro text
• 3 Argumentation structure in Qur’anic discourse
• 4 Ellipsis in Qur’anic discourse
• 5 Coherence in Qur’anic discourse
• 6 Cohesion in Qur’anic discourse
• 7 Linguistic inimitability of Qur’anic discourse
• 8 General observations on Qur’anic text linguistics
• Bibliography
• Index