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Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study

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Last updated: 25 Dec 2024

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Abstract

This paper investigates irony in selected verse and prose from Ibn Sūdūn's (1407 – 1464 AD) Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs from a pragmatic perspective. It investigates what I have dubbed "ironic axioms," or IAS, as a new kind of verbal irony used by the author to create a hilarious ironic text. This technique is based on taḥṣīl al-ḥāṣil, which entails stating the obvious, explaining simple facts, using circular definitions, and defining a thing by itself. Ibn Sūdūn's strategy for developing ironic humor is predicated on preparing his audience for something serious, weird, and significant before stunning them with trifling facts and well-known adages. A hybrid method based on the combination of Attardo's (2000) theory of Irony as relevant inappropriateness and Giora's (1995, 1997, 1998) graded salience hypothesis (GSH) has been employed. This study established that Ibn Sūdūn used ironic axioms not only to elicit humor and provoke laughter, but also to send a message and express an opinion. The most significant findings of this study are that irony is nuanced, difficult, time-consuming, requires two-stage processing, and does not necessarily implicate the opposite. This study argues that Ibn Sūdūn's Dīwān Nuzhat Al-Nufūs parodies pedantic academia and mocks the social realities of his contemporaries.

DOI

10.21608/opde.2023.325328

Keywords

irony, Ironic axioms, humor, Ibn Sūdūn, pragmatics, Mamlūk literature

Authors

First Name

Ibrahim M.

Last Name

Dowaidar

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Menoufia University, Egypt

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Volume

83

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

44299

Issue Date

2023-07-01

Receive Date

2023-11-09

Publish Date

2023-07-01

Page Start

57

Page End

106

Print ISSN

1110-2721

Online ISSN

2735-3591

Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/article_325328.html

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https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=325328

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3

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,140

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education

Publication Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study

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Article

Created At

25 Dec 2024