A Pragma-stylistic Study of Selected Poems of Mahmoud Darweesh

Abstract

A pragma-stylistic analysis is presented in this study of three poems of a well-known poet of the Arabic literature, Mahmoud Darweesh. Stylistically, this study aims to elucidate how pragmatic theories are exploited in literary discourse in general and poetic discourse in particular. Accordingly, the study's primary goal is to demonstrate how the poet uses the pragmatic aspects to convey a figurative meaning of certain stylistic devices; exclusively symbolism, metaphor, and paradox in his poems to achieve stylistic effects. To meet the aims of this study, it is hypothesized that: there are dominant types of speech acts employed by the poet to achieve some stylistic effects. This study also discusses the possibility of adopting the stylistic devices mentioned earlier, which are used by the poet, as indicators of the presupposition existence. Finally, the employment of the representative stylistic devices by the poet carries an implicit and foregrounded meanings that may not be understood by the recipient or may be interpreted differently from one reader to another. This study includes English translations, which are selected just for showing the vocabularies to the non-Arabic reader or researcher.