A Semiotic Reading of the Poetic Language of Amal Donqol, Adopting a Layered Approach: A Case Study of the Qasida ‘Al-Buka’ Bayna Yaday Zarqa’ al-Yamama’

Semiotics is a text-based method of criticism, which, adopting a systematic approach, studies all factors involved in meaning production and interpretation of the process of signification. Amal Donqol, as part of the society he lives in and a poet dedicated to and concerned for his community, instrumentalized language for direct and indirect reactions against his time's empowering discourses, thus transforming his poetry into purposeful texts. Therefore, adopting a descriptive-analytical method, the present study assessed the qasida of 'Al-Buka' Bayna Yaday Zarqa' al-Yamama' in an attempt to reveal the beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of Amal Donqol, infused with the linguistic structure and instilled in the audience, through investigating the linguistic choices across different levels. Given the obscurity of Donqol's poetic language and the concealed intended meaning and content therein, layer semiotics can be significantly useful in understanding and analyzing his poems. It can, furthermore, better manifest the linguistic and semantic delicacies of this qasida. The present reading examines the qasida's text as a network of codes within a coherent framework and, adopting a layered approach, studies signs in the title and the phonetic layer, lexical layer, and syntactic-rhetorical layer. Through syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes and considering the style and atmosphere governing the qasida, the signs move away from their referential functions and gain sociopolitical signification. As a result, analyzing and assessing textual symptoms and implications takes us to the concealed or in-depth meaning of the qasida, i.e., the rulers' political vices, a reproach to the Arab nation a call to rebellion.