Linguistic Links in the Satirical Discourse of Al-Jahiz's Letters (d. 255 AH), A Textual Study

Abstract

This study investigates Al-Jahiz’s satirical discourse, focusing on the linguistic connections that shape his texts into coherent and dynamic structures. These connections—grammatical, lexical, referential, and pragmatic—function not only as syntactic devices but as central mechanisms that govern meaning and reveal an early textual awareness, making discourse an integrated entity alive with vitality.

The research is structured in three stages: an introduction emphasizing the significance of conjunctions in linguistic studies; a first section outlining the conceptual and methodological framework; and a second section analyzing conjunctions in Al-Jahiz’s satire. The third section highlights the aesthetic and rhetorical functions of these connections. The analysis demonstrates that Al-Jahiz’s discourse is rich in pronouns, conjunctions, conditionals, and repetitions, and is further characterized by synonymy, antithesis, and allusion, reflecting dialectical energy and cultural depth.

The findings reveal that such connections form the backbone of Al-Jahiz’s texts, serving both as argumentative tools to support his ideas and as rhetorical strategies to express irony and sarcasm. The study also shows how the notion of “text” shifted from being viewed in Arab heritage as self-contained speech to becoming, a major semantic unit. Al-Jahiz emerges as a pioneer in bridging rhetorical tradition with structural awareness of the text. Numerical statistics further reinforced these conclusions, confirming the centrality of linguistic connections in his satirical discourse.