An Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in Meaning Making Maqamat Al Hariri

Abstract

This study investigates cohesion, one of rhetoric's foremost and fundamental
characteristics, in the famous Arabic text ‘Maqamat-al-Hariri’ taught in
Madaris (religious seminaries) in Pakistan. The study considers cohesive
tools, meaning, and functions to connect a text like an organic whole. The
theoretical framework adopted is the text-linguistic approach. Reviewing
previous literature reveals that cohesion has been studied in different
academic and research fields. Although there are several studies about
cohesion in the Holy Al-Quran, cohesion in any Arabic text other than the
Al-Quran has not been considered academically. The study concentrates on
cohesive devices and their functions in Maqamat-al-Hariri using Hasan and
Halliday’s model. The primary objective was to analyse the text for lexical
cohesion, conjunctions, references, ellipsis and substitution. The results
revealed that the most frequently used device is personal reference,
conjunction while reiteration and the ellipsis is the least used cohesive
device in the selected text. In all Maqamat-al-Hariri, there is no single
sentence that does not have a cohesive device. A web of cohesive devices ties
all Maqamat-al-Hariri together, making it one of the prominent coherent
Arabic texts.