Employing Colloquial methods in Ahmed Matar's Banners

Dialects  vary in their breadth and diversity. Arabic  has varied dialects according to the spread of Arabs in many tribes in the past and in many countries recently. For example, the Iraqis like other Arabs are united by a dialect belonging to the group of dialects of the eastern Arab world. Sarcasm in poetry is a way of expression, in which the poet uses special words that indicate the opposite of what he exactly means. It is similar to a pun. The intent of sarcasm is criticism, showing faults and exposing negativity. Ahmad Matar was excelled in this style, taking advantage of the irony. He was a satirical poet. His banners were the most prominent manifestations of sarcasm. They were called by this name because they resembled the advertising banner in terms of shortness and abbreviation in pronunciation and expression, in addition to their functional role that resembled the role of advertising banners in distinguishing mistakes and inciting revolution. The issue of intensifying meanings in a small focus requires a superior literary ability that Ahmed Matar had. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no study is done on Ahmed Matar's use of vernacular styles in his poetry despite the presence of some meanings that could not be explained by anything other than vernacular style. The Saudi writer and poet, Faeq Munif, put a bibliography of studies and critical articles on Ahmed Matar's poetry inn his blog, which he said he collected from the Internet, distributed among (10) university theses, (21) studies, and (10) critical press articles. It varied between research journals and university theses, some of which were published as books. To what extent did Ahmed Matar use colloquial styles in his banners? How diverse were these styles and the reasons for this; and to what extent did it have harmony with his poetic attitude? The aim of this research was to extract the colloquial styles that Ahmed Matar employed in his banners, but not to investigate all these styles. Only some samples were analyzed in this research. It was necessary to first describe these linguistic phenomena for analyzing them and extracting the required samples from them; thus, a descriptive-analytical approach was adopted.Colloquial language sometimes approaches the classical language in certain aspects and departs from it in other aspects. However, the most important thing that distinguishes colloquial from classical language is the removal of linguistic signals from the end of words or what is related to the grammar that controls relations in sentences.The Iraqi dialect shares the dialects of the eastern Arab world, including the Gulf dialects, in a large percentage with little differences between them. Notably, when we say this dialect is Iraqi, it does not mean that there is the same style, performance, and vocabulary in every Iraqi city and village. Yet, those differences are so few that we can give them one name that distinguishes that dialect from other dialects.The Iraqi dialect has had an influence on the language of many Iraqi poets, so they began to borrow some of its vocabulary. Yet, some poets, including Ahmed Matar, have been more influenced by the Iraqi dialect compared to other contemporary poets of Iraq. He used it in his poems in general and his seven banners in particular in various forms and styles, as well as a colloquial word instead of a formal word. This style was considered the most used style in the banners of Ahmed Matar. It either overshadowed the rest of the styles or overlapped them. His metonymy style included a metaphor for a word, whether as an adjective, descriptive, or otherwise, and a metaphor for a meaning or concept.The words used by Ahmad Matar were eloquent in terms of appearance and structure and colloquial in terms of use. This feature was applied to the overwhelming number of vocabulary of the Iraqi dialect. However, this did not mean that the recipient could have access the depth of Ahmed Matar's purposes without having knowledge of the styles of the Iraqi dialect or the dialects that Ahmed Matar employed with some of their styles.After we studied a number of colloquial styles that Ahmed Matar employed in his banners, we reached some results that are summarized as follows:The most important finding of this study was that the colloquial language was not outside the classical language or was alien to it. Rather, we could enrich the classical language with new styles of the vernacular language, which was what Ahmed Matar applied in his banners. We dealt with a fragment of it, while there were many fragments that needed to be studied.The fact that contemporary poets appropriately employed limited and specific methods of Arabic dialects confirmed the necessity of investing these dialects for enriching classical Arabic language at all levels. Today, we are in need to study folk poetry or Zajal artistically inspired by its methods.Ahmed Matar was creative in employing colloquial styles in his poetry. He was keen in the smooth flow of his speech, so it did not cause a shock to the reader to disturb him with the poem musically and emotionally. Rather, all his words and colloquial structures were in the appropriate place. His slang was not a purpose, but rather a means to better explain the meaning. This indicated the poet’s literary ability and the greatness of the Arabic language in all its dialects. This might explain the reason why researchers have not dared study the vernacular language in Ahmed Matar’s banners.In making use of colloquial styles in his banners, Ahmed Matar resorted to the style of displacement. Despite his ability to benefit from the eloquent styles, his literary ability qualified him for this. He found that the use of vernacular styles was more effective and had the greatest impact on the recipient.The colloquial styles that Ahmad Matar resorted to were not specific to Iraqis alone, but most Arabs knew them or, at least, understood them and did not find any difficulty in accepting them.Ahmad Matar was an Iraqi poet and it was natural that he benefited from the Iraqi colloquial styles, but he was not satisfied with that and benefited from some Arabic colloquial styles, especially Egyptian and Syrian or say Levantine styles, as well. Ahmad Matar had most likely learned some of Levantine colloquial techniques as a result of his long friendship with Naji al-Ali, so he employed them in his banners.All the styles employed by Ahmed Matar had their own context-specific reasons. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze these contexts to determine the poet's goals, purposes, and methods.