Public MA Viva-Voce Examination of Ms. Hanan Khaled Mohammed Yaish, from the Department of. Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts & Humanities – Sana’a University
Ms. Hanan Khaled Mohammed Yaish has awarded the MA Degree with distinction, achieving a score of 95% and an Excellent grade, alongside a recommendation for printing and distributing the thesis across universities, majoring in Linguistics, from the Department of. Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts & Humanities – Sana’a University. The thesis, titled “Speech Acts Embedded in Surat Al Taubah: A Structural & Semantic Study,” was successfully defended on Tuesday, 26 Sha’aban 1446 Hijri, corresponding to February 25, 2025.
The Viva-Voce Committee, which was formed based on a resolution issued by the Post-Graduate Studies and Scientific Research Council, consisted of the following:
1. Prof. Ibrahim Mohammed Al-Salwi, Internal Examination, Sana’a University, Chair.
2. Dr. Mohammed Nasser Humaid, Main Supervisor, Sana’a University, Member.
3. Prof. Abdulkarim Muslih Al-Bahla, External Examiner, Dhamar University, Member.
The primary objective of the thesis was to investigate the effectiveness of speech acts in elucidating the interaction between the Quranic text and its audience. This analysis focused on the unique directives, legislations, dialogues, situations, and stories presented in Surah At-Tawbah, which collectively emphasize the distinction between faith and its followers on one hand, and disbelief and hypocrisy and their adherents on the other.
The thesis highlighted several pivotal conclusions, including:
1. The modern theory of speech acts, as developed by philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Austin, and Searle, can be considered an extension of the Arab heritage theory of declarative and performative statements. While Arab scholars had recognized these concepts earlier, their interpretations were somewhat indistinct. Western formalization clarified these ideas, as demonstrated in Searle’s inquiries, such as how statements may function as commands and how performatives operate alongside their counterparts. Arab scholars like Abu Bakr Ibn Al-Arabi, Al-Qarafi, Al-Zamakhshari, and Fakhr Al-Din had previously addressed these issues in their analyses, exploring the pragmatic roles of declarative statements in conveying commands or prohibitions.
2. The study identified indirect speech acts as the cornerstone of speech act theory. In Surah At-Tawbah, speech acts demonstrated notable variation, with declaratives being the most frequent, owing to the numerous verses recounting events about believers, hypocrites, and various other contexts. The directive acts, primarily commands, ranked second in frequency. The analysis of interrogative sentences in Surah At-Tawbah revealed the following distribution: (16) sentences of command; (7) sentences of prohibition; (8) sentences of call; (9) sentences of inquiry, including 2 interrogative requests.
3. The performative implications of prohibitions were substantially fewer than those of commands, potentially due to the prevalence of commands or the sufficiency of command forms in certain contexts. The Surah also featured numerous reprimanding acts aimed at hypocrites, criticizing their behavior. The five categories of speech acts demonstrated significant overlap, where context could transform a judgment act into a performative act or vice versa. A unique feature of Quranic discourse in Surah At-Tawbah is its multiplicity of discourse perspectives, a hallmark of its miraculous nature. A single linguistic form could yield multiple layers of meaning: the immediate, direct meaning; the indirect performative force; and the deeper implicature, such as shifts from inquiry to reprimand or from reprimand to astonishment.
The Viva-Voce was attended by several academics, researchers, students, and several colleagues and family members of the researcher.
A video from the Viva-Voce
