Dowaidar, I. (2023). Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83(1), 57-106. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325328
Ibrahim M. Dowaidar. "Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study". CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83, 1, 2023, 57-106. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325328
Dowaidar, I. (2023). 'Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study', CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 83(1), pp. 57-106. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325328
Dowaidar, I. Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 2023; 83(1): 57-106. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.325328
Irony in Ibn Sūdūn's Nuzhat Al-Nufūs wa Muḍ ḥḥik Al-ʿabūs: a Pragmatic Study
Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Menoufia University, Egypt
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.
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