The Functions of Pragmatic Linguistics in Renewing Arabic Literary Criticism Methodologies: From the Authority of the Text to the Authority of Reading

Abstract

This study explores the potential of Pragmatic Linguistics to renew modern Arabic literary criticism. It leverages core pragmatic concepts—speech acts, intentionality, context, and the social circulation of discourse—to move beyond purely formalist readings. The research utilizes Muhammad al-Fayturi's poetry collection, Songs of Africa (Aghani Ifriqiya), as a case study to demonstrate how pragmatic tools reveal the complex interactive dynamics between a text’s poetics and its historical-cultural context, particularly themes of African identity, anti-colonialism, and cultural alienation. The methodology is descriptive-analytical-critical. The analytical process involved a purposeful selection of poems based on three criteria: (1) Thematic centrality to the diwan’s themes of liberation and identity; (2) Density of pragmatic features, prioritizing texts rich in direct and indirect speech acts (e.g., commands, calls to action); and (3) Representativeness of the collection's stylistic and rhetorical diversity.

The analysis shows that al-Fayturi’s poetry functions as a performative discourse, strategically using direct and indirect speech acts to persuade, mobilize, and shape a collective African consciousness. The findings reveal that meaning is not solely generated by the text's internal structure but is co-constructed through the intricate interplay of the poet's intent, the reader's engagement, and the socio-political context of Africa in the 1960s. The study concludes that a pragmatic approach facilitates a crucial shift in Arabic criticism: from a closed text-centric authority to an open, interactive authority of reading. It positions the literary text not as a self-sufficient aesthetic object but as a dynamic social act, thus significantly contributing to the ongoing renewal of Arabic critical discourse.