Discourse Strategies and Narrative Repetition in the Qurʾān: A Special Reference to al-Shuʿarāʾ

This paper attempts to explain some discursive strategies in relation to the cyclic structure of narratives in the Qurʾānic context of Sūrat “al-Shuʿarāʾ.” To that end, the paper works on three essential interrelated aspects of study. First, it detects the cyclic structure that interconnects the seven prophets’ narratives within the Sūrah. Second, it investigates the cross-Sūrah interconnections by examining the (re)occurrence of each prophet’s narrative in the preceding and following sūrahs. Third, it discusses how such coherent interrelationships among the relevant sūrahs can reveal certain discourse strategies such as narrative extension, intention, expansion, juxtaposition, and inversion among these sūrahs. Another, yet interrelated, aspect of the study is to explain the “Us/Them” distinction counted in the Qurʾānic narratives involved, and to show how such dichotomy is realized through the use of referential and predicational strategies. The study adopts and adapts Reisigl and Wodak’s strategies to address this aspect. Within this analytical approach, the narratives are examined on the basis of two strategies; namely, “despatialization” (actionyms, perceptionyms, anthroponyms, and metaphors of spatiality) and “collectivization” (pronouns and possessive determiners). The analysis of data reveals some striking findings that can be summarized in two major points: first, each of the narrative’s topoi in the social actors representation evinces the dominance of predicational strategies; second, the Qurʾānic discourse is bias-free and is, thereby, drastically distinguished from other types of discourse such as political discourse.

Anxiety and the Everyday in Lila

Although Lila seems to promise access to the interiority of a character whose life has unfolded under the stresses of poverty, abuse, and homelessness, the novel captures the rhythms of its protagonist’s existence through acts of narrative repetition and deflection that defend against intimacy. Lila’s inability to feel at home reflects a self-consciousness rooted in the trauma of childhood abandonment, violence, and forced sex work. The structure of the novel reflects Lila’s experiences of anxiety and shame by constantly revisiting her detachment from the lived world of the novel. The novel adopts a radical stance, replacing the narrative construction of Lila’s interiority with the disrupted rhythm of an everyday world that remains flat and inaccessible. This chapter explores why and how Lila refuses to lend the reader the intimate access to character or the heightened acts of perception that many critics see as characteristic of Robinson’s fiction.

A catastrophic media failure? Russiagate, Trump and the illusion of truth: The dangers of innuendo and narrative repetition

The journalistic coverage of Russiagate, between 2017 and March 2019, has been described as ‘a catastrophic media failure’. Drawing on political and social psychology, this article seeks to enrich, and refresh, the familiar journalistic concepts of agenda-setting, framing and priming by combining them under the heading of the ‘news narrative’. Using this interdisciplinary approach to media effects theory, Russiagate is considered in terms of the Illusory Truth Effect and the Innuendo Effect. These effects hypothesise that the more audiences are exposed to information, the more likely they are to believe it – even when they are told that the information is unreliable. As a specific example, we focus on the stance taken by BBC News – which has an obligation to journalistic impartiality. We ask what implications arise from this analysis with regard to audience trust.

Emotional and Thematic Meanings in a Repeating Homeric Motif: A Case Study

The regularly occurring Homeric motif τρὶς μέν … τρὶς δέ shares key characteristics with both formulas and type scenes. Like a formula, it is a group of metrically localized words that refers regularly to the same idea. Like a type scene, it describes a series of discrete events that feature ‘repeated attempts to do something, often by two different characters’. This motif evokes the same basic theme in the narratives of both Homeric poems: a vigorous hero gains the sympathy of the audience in the course of repeated attempts, usually in vain, to surmount a powerful opposing force. As with many forms of narrative repetition in Homeric epic, most of the instances of the τρὶς μέν … τρὶς δέ motif display regular narrative patterns, and then a few key scenes elaborate on those patterns in order to create moments of outstanding poetic and emotional force. Highly developed examples of this motif make significant contributions to the aristeia of Patroclus in Iliad 16, the death of Hector in Iliad 22 and Telemachus’ attempt to string Odysseus’ bow in Odyssey 21.

A Dignifying Shame: On Narrative, Repetition, and Distance in Anne Carson’s Nox

This article examines the relationship between the form of Canadian poet Anne Carson’s