Linguistic analysis of the short story ‘Alsharaf’ from the narrative point of view of Boris Avspnsky and Roger Fowler

Language is a social phenomenon that is influenced by the beliefs and ideologies in the society, and it plays a fundamental role in reflecting and, thus, reproducing those beliefs and ideologies. This study aims to investigate the linguistic aspects of the short story ‘Alsharaf’ by Zenoon Ayoub, on the basis of the pattern devised by two prominent linguists, namely Boris Avspnsky and Roger Fowler. The text is studies with a focus on the author’s perspective and the level of discourse in this story. This helps to understand the ideology encoded in the text explicitly and implicitly. The analysis of the narrative suggests a pattern at four levels, including spatial-temporal, interpretive, psychological and ideological levels. These levels are the main elements of a discourse. Using linguistic tools, the story teller depicts two contrastive thoughts. On the one hand, there are dominant patriarchic attitudes explicitly expressed by the story characters. On the other hand, there is the implicit ideology of the first-person story teller, as the representative of the intellectual generation, which shows his dissatisfaction about the cultural and social misconceptions institutionalized in the society.