| Description |
This paper provides an analysis of the Arabic language used in two of the post-revolutionary works of Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm. The dialog of the 1952 short story, "I've Got It, I've Got It," from the collection, The Art of Literature, is examined along with the dialog from the 1956 play, The Deal. In addition to a language analysis and an overview of the life and works of al-Ḥakīm, the relationship between al-Ḥakīm's themes and language usage in his works as a means of promoting either Egyptian nationalism or Arab nationalism is also postulated. Furthermore, this paper reviews the social, political, and linguistic climate in Egypt that may have had an influence on al-Ḥakīm's choice of subject matter, while also presenting theories of variation in the Arabic language and the signifcance of language in identity creation and nationalism promotion. al-Ḥakīm is known for creating a third language as a means of generating a sense of interconnectedness among the less educated people of the Arabic-speaking world, and this paper looks at the absence or presence of the third language, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and Colloquial Egyptian Arabic (CEA) in the two works. The analysis is two-fold, one section is a qualitative analysis of language tokens in both the play and the short story, while another section is a quantitative analysis of negation in the play. This study is unique in that it provides an analysis of language variation in literary works in the context of societal and political events. |
