Abstract
This chapter examines a variety of literary texts in order to elicit nuances in narration, language, and style—these are important in identifying connections with forms of socio-political expressions as well as the broader phenomenon of globalisation. In the original material, linguistic aspects of short stories and blog posts are as important as looking at the purpose and functions of dialogue, which are vital to stories distributed in forums. I will then discuss various features of stories posted in forums, and end with a general analysis of the use of language and dialect. Language and narration frame discourses and their representation. The position of narrators and the writer’s point of view can be expressed through involvement and distance.
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Notes
- 1.
Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, edited by Ruth Wodak, Michael Meyer, third edition, 2016, p. 33.
- 2.
Tumblr is a social media and blogging tool that lets users post and share images and text.
- 3.
These and the following translations are my own. http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 4.
http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 5.
http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 6.
A reply to this poem can be found in the comment section. The content of this literary piece is worth discussing. The language is very refined compared to writings in forums. The political message is transformed into a personal narrative and first-hand encounter. Of interest here is the fact that the commentator has chosen to respond through poetry. In the chapter on participation culture, more on interaction in online writing is discussed.
- 7.
http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 8.
http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 9.
http://al-zain.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html, last accessed December 26, 2011.
- 10.
Sabry Hafez , “The Aesthetics of the Closed Horizon. The Transformation of the City and the Novel in Egypt Since 1990”, in Stephan Guth and Gail Ramsay (eds.) From New Values to New Aesthetics Turning Points in Modern Arabic Literature, 2. Postmodernism and Thereafter, Wiesbaden 2011, pp. 109–138, p. 18.
- 11.
N. Katherine Hayles , Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary, Notre Dame 2008.
- 12.
Loss Pequeno Glazier , Digital poetics, Tuscaloosa 2002.
- 13.
Interactive means here the users’ ability to participate in reading the texts through clicking on pictures and links. Communicative means that the readers can be in a dialogue about the texts and have a discussion in the comment section.
- 14.
Cf. Tom Johnson , “Less Text, Please: Contemporary Reading Behaviors and Short Formats”, January 21, 2011. http://idratherbewriting.com/2011/01/21/contemporary-reading-behaviors-favor-short-formats/, last accessed January 2, 2012.
- 15.
Many of the various forums seem to present more literary production from 2004/5 on.
- 16.
Online literature resembles the “storytelling” of oral tradition in that stories are sometimes changed a little when retold on different platforms. When I asked online writers during my research whether they see themselves in the tradition of storytellers, they all rejected the idea and explained that there is no connection between traditional storytelling at the tea house and what they are doing. This contrasts with the self-perception of poetry websites and poetry TV shows that always present a connection with the past. Examples for that can be the TV show “Prince of Poets) that is produced in Abu Dhabi www.princeofpoets.com.
- 17.
Tarek El-Ariss , Trials of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political, 2013, p. 179.
- 18.
Knute Lundby , Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-representation in New Media, New York 2008.
- 19.
Birgit Hertberg Kaare and Knut Lundby , “Mediatized lives. Autobiography and assumed authenticity in digital storytelling”, in Knut Lundby (ed.), Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-representation in New Media, New York 2008, pp. 105–122, p. 107.
- 20.
Simon Jargy , “Sung Poetry in the Oral Tradition of the Gulf Region and the Arabian Peninsula”, in Oral Tradition, 4/1–2, Columbia 1989, pp. 174–188.
- 21.
Eman Younis . Manifestations of the Arab Spring in Literature: “Video Clip Poems” on YouTube as a Model. Journalism and Mass Communication, 6, 33–42. https://doi.org/10.17265/2160-6579/2016.01.005, p. 35.
- 22.
P.G. Emery , “Nabaṭī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 7, 1993, p. 838.
- 23.
Christian Junge , “I Write, Therefore I Am. Metafiction as Self-Assertion in Mustafa Dhikri’s ‘Much Ado About a Gothic Labyrinth’”, in Angelika Neuwirth , Andreas Pflitsch , and Barbara Winckler (eds.), Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives, London 2010, pp. 444–460.
- 24.
Teresa Pepe , “When Writers Activate Readers. How the autofictional blog transforms Arabic literature”, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 15 (2015): 73–91, p. 84.
- 25.
Birgit Hertberg Kaare and Knut Lundby , “Mediatized lives. Autobiography and assumed authenticity in digital storytelling”, in Knut Lundby (ed.), Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-representation in New Media, New York 2008, pp. 105–122.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 109.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 120.
- 28.
http://www.adbuae.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-4491.html, last accessed December 30, 2011.
- 29.
Norman Fairclough , Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, second edition, edited by Ruth Wodak , Michael Meyer, 2009, p. 27.
- 30.
The use of dialect has also been present in literature before internet was part of mainstream culture. In theatre plays this was observable already more than 100 years ago. More on that can be read in the collection The Performance of the Comic in Arabic Theatre Cultural Heritage, Western Models and Postcolonial Hybridity, edited by Mieke Kolk , and Freddy Decreus (co-editor) 2005. www.artsafrica.org/archive/documents/docu-01/002_comic.pdf, last accessed January 3, 2012.
- 31.
Ivan Panovic writes more about dialect and the internet in Egypt in his analysis “Arabic in a Time of Revolution: sociolinguistic notes from Egypt” in Media in the Middle East: Activism, Politics, and Culture (2017) edited by Nele lenze , Charlotte Schriwer and Zubaidah Abdul Jalil , 2017.
- 32.
This example is from Iran but can also be applied to my field. Alireza Doostdar , “The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging: On Language, Culture, and Power in Persian Weblogestan”, in American Anthropologist 106, no. 4, 2004, pp. 651–662, p. 658.
- 33.
Teresa Pepe , “When Writers Activate Readers. How the autofictional blog transforms Arabic literature”, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 15 (2015): 73–91, p. 87.
- 34.
Clive Holes “Gulf States”, in Versteegh, K., Woidich M., and Zaborski, A. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Vols 1: A-ED, Leiden, Boston and Cologne 2006, pp. 210–216.
- 35.
Christopher Funkhouser , “Digital Poetry: A Look at Generative, Visual, and Interconnected Possibilities in its First Four Decades”, in Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman (eds.), Companion to Digital Literary Studies, Oxford 2008, http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405148641/9781405148641.xml&chunk.id=ss1-5-11&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-5-11&brand=9781405148641_brand, last accessed January 27, 2012.
- 36.
“Ḥiṣṣa and the Taxi Driver” is also examined in Chap. 4, Who are the Actors? http://www.alghat.com/archive/index.php/t-614.html, last accessed December 30, 2011.
- 37.
More on the phenomenon of using English letters or words in Arabic can be found on the blog http://arabizi.wordpress.com/, last accessed January 17, 2012.
- 38.
http://www.alghat.com/archive/index.php/t-614.html, last accessed December 30, 2011.
- 39.
Rafiq means buddy or friend and is a way to address an unknown male.
- 40.
Gail Ramsay . (2013). What kind of Arabic and why? Language in Egyptian blogs. Orientalia Suecana, Uppsala. 61(Supplement): 49–87, p. 50.
- 41.
http://www.muawiyah.com/—the last time the blog was updated was in October 2011 and after that it was taken offline.
- 42.
Banāt al-Riyāḍ was one inspiration for conducting research on online literature. It was written by young female Saudi author Rajāʾ ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣāniʿ and reached great popularity in the Middle East as well as in many other countries as it was translated into more than 18 languages. A change in printed literary production could be observed after the publication of Banāt al-Riyāḍ (Girls of Riyadh) in 2006. The novel mirrors the openness of the web as chapters were arranged appearing to be emails, sent through a yahoo news group to all Saudi users. After its publication the number of printed literature increased to the double of what was there before. This is also due to the fact that writers could actually see that Rajāʾ ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣāniʿ was not penalised for her publication. Possibly, Banāt al-Riyāḍ marks a transition of literary style in the Gulf. Making the style of online literary texts more popular within a broader readership in print. Also introducing it to an audience outside the Gulf, even outside the Middle East, and outside the internet.
- 43.
N. Katherine Hayles , Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary, Notre Dame 2008, p. 4.
- 44.
Reuven Snir , Modern Arabic Literature. A Theoretical Framework, Edinburgh University press, 2017. p. 8.
- 45.
Larry Friedlander , “Narrative strategies in a digital age. Authorship and authority”, in Knut Lundby (ed.), Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories. Self-representation in New Media, New York 2008, pp. 177–196, p. 181.
- 46.
But also other short stories in forums can serve as examples:
قصه مؤثره لفتاة على الانترنت http://www.hbktmlkni.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-2855.html.
الــسر المــخفي؟ http://www.alamuae.com/story/showthread.php?t=385 D
أوطــــانك غربتي http://www.alamuae.com/story/showthread.php?t=396
حب في الـــــــيونان http://www.alamuae.com/story/showthread.php?t=391
ليه عمري مالقى لبرده دفى الا دفاكي؟ http://www.alamuae.com/story/showthread.php?t=395
نار الغيرة تحرق رجلا http://www.alamuae.com/story/showthread.php?t=394
All stories were last accessed December 15, 2009. These links just serve as examples, there is an infinite number of short stories in colloquial language that make use of dialogues in forums from the Gulf.
- 47.
http://t7l6m.com/category/%D9%82%D8%B5%D8%B5/, last accessed December 30, 2011.
- 48.
http://t7l6m.com/2011/08/08/%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%A7-%D9%85%D8%BA%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A9/, last accessed December 26, 2011. Text part seems to be missing in the last two lines of the original source.
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
At the 2010 EURAMAL conference in Rome, recent developments in Arabic literature came up for discussion. A senior male academic said he refused to translate Banāt al-Riyāḍ because he did not find its literary quality worthy of translation.
- 51.
Clive Holes “Gulf States”, in Versteegh, K., Woidich M., and Zaborski, A. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Vols 1: A-ED, Leiden, Boston and Cologne 2006, pp. 210–216, p. 214.
- 52.
Teres Pepe Adab-icty 552.
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Lenze, N. (2019). Socio-Political Expressions Through Language and Narration. In: Politics and Digital Literature in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76816-8_3
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