An Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in Meaning Making in 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.