The Impact of Linguistics on the Structuralist Critical Approach: A Study and Analysis

Abstract

This study examines the impact of linguistics on shaping the structuralist critical method, with a focus on its reception and application in modern Arab criticism. The research aims to clarify the relationship between linguistics and structuralism, and to explore the most prominent linguistic concepts that contributed to establishing the tools for structural analysis of literary texts.

The study begins with an introduction, followed by the first chapter entitled “Linguistics and Its Developments”, which includes the development of linguistics after Saussure, the concept of the structuralist method, and the influence of the linguistic structuralist approach on analyzing the internal structure, symbols, rhythm, and semantic composition of texts. It then addresses the emergence of critical structuralism in the West, followed by the impact of linguistics on Arab structuralist criticism and how it adapted to the specificity of Arabic texts, thereby making analysis more effective and precise. The linguistic structuralist method has proven its effectiveness in analyzing both poetic and prose texts, with the potential to generalize it to modern Arabic literature. The chapter concludes by examining the relationship between linguistics and structuralism and its role in shaping the structuralist method.

The second chapter provides an analytical application of the linguistic structuralist method to two poems by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, by examining the levels of structural analysis through the phonetic, rhythmic, structural, and semantic composition of the three poems. The study concludes with a summary highlighting the most significant findings.