A Comparative Look at Al-Jurjani and Holliday Works Concerning Anteriority and Posteriori Discourse and Text Structure

Text structure, is a structure that has an outstanding role in conveying message. The reason is that, the text, considering the state of the addresser and addressee, harmonizes the information relating to microscopic structural and non-structural elements and other structures. We observe that Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani, the pioneer and theorist of rhetoric, has noticed the structure and components of the text. He considers the textual structure and paying attention to the anteriority and posteriority of the constructing elements of the text, dedicates a special chapter in his book with the title Al-Taghdim va al-Takhir (Anteriority and Posteriori). In this chapter, he studies the structure of the text regarding the anteriority and posteriori of the terms and compounds with respect to the ordering and arrangement of the constructing components of the text, the role of state, situation, situational context, and the addresser and addressee status. This paper, descriptively and analytically, attempts to compare the views of Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani with those of Holliday pertaining to the textual structure and components. It also analyzes the rhetorical evidences on the basis of text structure and its relevant expressions.