REFERRING STRUCTURES AND THEIR ROLE IN ACHIEVING TEXTUAL MEANING AND COHERENCE: A READING OF AʿYŪN AL-BASĀʾIR BY MUḤAMMAD AL-BASHĪR AL-IBRĀHĪMĪ

Abstract

Arabic linguists have referred to cohesion devices such as reference, conjunction, ellipsis, repetition, parallelism, and substitution throughout their studies. These are among the most prominent cohesive devices that contribute to the coherence and interconnectedness of a text.

This article seeks to present reference as one of the most important formal cohesive devices through selected examples from the articles collected in Aʿyūn al-Basāʾir (Eyes of Insight), the work under investigation. Reference appears to be a dominant mechanism in the text, affecting the articulation of its various components. The study aims to highlight the role of reference and the way in which it contributes, as a cohesive mechanism, to textual cohesion and organization through its surface structures, thereby revealing the articles in the remarkable form created by the master of eloquence, Shaykh Muḥammad al-Bashīr al-Ibrāhīmī, in his work Aʿyūn al-Basāʾir.

The central questions are: What is the concept of reference linguistically and terminologically? What are its types? And how did reference, as a cohesive device, contribute to achieving textual coherence in the articles of Aʿyūn al-Basāʾir by Muḥammad al-Bashīr al-Ibrāhīmī?