What Makes the Qurʾānic Narratives Cohesive? Systemic Functional Linguistics-Based Analysis of Reference Role: Some Reflections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.4747Abstract
The present study aims to analyse reference, as a cohesive device, in some of the Qurʾānic narratives of Abraham and Moses in ten suras. The study is based on, and limited to, HALLIDAY & HASAN’s concept of cohesion as a semantic relationship realized through grammatical and lexical devices. Such cohesive role of reference is implicitly treated and discussed within the topic of pronouns antecedents in the Arabic linguis-tic tradition. Reference resources in the Qurʾān are diverse but the scope of this study was confined to only the personal and demonstrative components of reference. The analysis showed that personal reference (of the third person forms) was the most frequently used in these narratives. Its salient features, of multiple referents and cumulative effect, contributed to the economy of language use and finally enabled the cohe-sion of the text. The demonstrative reference was less frequent, yet it provided, through its function of connecting various text parts, an additional contribution to the narratives’ cohesion. In general, reference, as one element of the textual metafunction, has played a major role in the text creation in terms of cohesion and coherence.
Key words: Reference, Cohesion, Qurʾānic narrative, Systemic Functional Linguistics
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