A Lexical Pragmatic Analysis of Quranic ‘Rain’ and ‘Clouds’ Concepts

Maha Bakir Mohammed

University of Tikrit - College of Arts

Maysoon Kadhim Ali

University of Tikrit - College of Arts

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/Lang.8.11.7

Keywords: Adjusted Meaning, Clouds, Lexical Pragmatics, Quranic Genre, Rain


Abstract

This study deals with lexical pragmatic perspective not only due to its new birth but also for being a bridge that links two vivid linguistic fields that are pragmatics and semantics. On one hand, pragmatics tackles speech elements and speaker’s disclosed meaning. On the other hand, semantics is framed as the components of conceptual structure that can be represented in a certain proposition. Jackendoff (1990) comes with the concept that pragmatics and semantics, respectively, investigate how the meaning is constructed in a text regarding the speaker’s attention and the inherent meaning of words and phrases. This study examines the workability of lexical pragmatic analysis in analyzing certain Quranic lexemes concerning clouds and rain. It attempts to apply the four-leveled lexical pragmatic mutual adjustment method of analysis to selected Quranic verses highlighting both lexical and adjusted meanings of the words ‘clouds’ and ‘rain’ in the verses in question. It sums up to prove the applicability of the adopted model of analysis to the selected genre. Adjusted meaning can be interpreted either by specifying or generalizing it to fit its context.


References

- Abdullah, Alaa Ahmed (2024). A Journey through Ages: Revisiting the Traumatized Female Characters in Glück's Poetry: A Study of Selected Poems. In Journal of Language Studies.Vol.8,No.5, 2024, pp. (267-281).

- Ali A.Y.(1989) The Holy Quran : Translation and commentary . that ES-salasil printing and publishing co. Al- Murgab, Kuwait.

- Aljadaan, N. (2016). Understanding Hyperbole. University College London Program of Study: M.A. Linguistics (Master Thesis). Retrieved from Arab World English Journal (ID Number: 212 October 2018, 1-21. DOI: http://dx.doi.org110.24093/awej/th212.

- Blutner, R. (1998). Lexical Pragmatics. Journal of semantics 15: 115-162.

- (2000). Some Aspects of Optimality in Natural Language Interpretation. Journal of Semantics 17: 189-216.

- Cram, David and Paul Hedley (2005). Pronouns and Procedural Meaning: The Relevance of Spaghetti Code and Paranoid Delusion. Oxford University Working Paper in Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics. Vol. (10), pp.187-210.

- Cruse, D.A. (2000). Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University press.

- Dynel, M. (2009). Beyond a Joke: Types of Conversational Humour-Journal of language and linguistics compass, 3 (5), pp. 1284-1299.

- Ghomeshi, Jial, Rey Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen and Kevin Russel (2004). Contrastive Focus Republication in English (the SALAD-salad paper) Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22: 307-357.

- Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts, edited by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, 41-58. New York: Academic Press.

- Huang, Y (2009). Neo-Gricean Pragmatics and Lexicon. International Review of Pragmatics. 1: 118-153.

- Horn, L. (1989). A Natural History of Negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Jackendoff. R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

- Katie, W. (2001). A Dictionary of Stylistics. Longman: Harlow.

- Levinson, S. (1987). Minimization and Conversational Inference. In The Pragmatic Perspective, edited by J. Verschueren and M. Bertuccelli-Papi, Amesterdam: Benjamins, 61-129.

- (2000). Presumptive Meanings. The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, Massachusette: MIT Press.

- Mercer, Robert (1991). Presuppositions and Default Reasoning: A Study in Lexical Pragmatics. In Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation, edited by J. Pustejovski and S. Bergler. ACL SIG Workship Proceedings, 224-237.

- Mohamed, Maha Bakir & Abed Kalaf Saleh (2023). A Pragmatic Analysis of Trump’s Hate Speech. In Journal of Language Studies.Vol.VI,No.4, 2023, pp. (40-48).

- Mohammed, Maha Bakir & Hiba Saad Abduljabbar (2024). Exploring the Importance of Contextual Factors in Translating Islamophobia Caricatures. In Journal of Language Studies.Vol.8,No.2, 2024, pp. (230-244).

- Mohammed, M. Al-Said, M. A. Rashad, M. F. Al-Ajmawi, A. A. Abdulbaqi & H. A. Qutub (ed.) (2000). Tafseer Al-Qura’an Al-Azheem for Imam Emaduldin Abi-Fidaa Ismail bin Katheer Al-Dimashqi, Qurtuba Institution for printing, Publishing, and Distribution.

- Nunberg, Geoffrey (1979). The Non-uniqueness of Semantic Solution: Plosymy. Language and Philosophy 3: 143-184.

- (1995). Transfers of Meaning. Journal of Semantics 12, no.2: 109-132.

- Sperber D. and D. Wilson (2006). A Deflationary Account of Metaphor. In R. Gibbs (ed.), Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. C.U.P. Cambridge University Press.

- Sweetser, Eve (1998). From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Walaszewska, E. (2015). Relevance-Theoretic Lexical Pragmatics: Theory and Application, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle, U.K.

- Wilson, D. (2003). Relevance and Lexical Pragmatics. Rivista di Linguistica 12, no.2: 273-291.

- Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber (2004). Relevance Theory. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by L. Horn and G. Ward. Oxford: Blackwell, 207-632.

- Wilson, Deirdre and Robyn Carston (2007). A Unitary Approach to Lexical Pragmatics: Relevance, Inference and Ad hoc Concepts. In Pragmatics, edited by N. Burton-Reberts. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillon, 230-259.

- Zeevat, Henk (2006). Pragmatics: Optimality Theory. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. (10), edited by K. Brown. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 47-51.