A Narrative Analysis in English and Arabic Religious Texts
Abstract
Narrative has always attracted the attention of the linguistic scholars and the researchers. It is one of the innate means of human expressions so it has been investigated not only in literature but also in other fields as a form of communication in linguistics, sociology, and psychology. Narrative analysis is a way of expressing and arranging human experiences. It is a story of people whether it is written, oral, or visual that has been transmitted from one generation to another throughout history to help them organize, make sense of their lives, as well as focuses on the particular actors at the particular times in the particular places.
The study aims at showing the appropriateness of Labov’s model (1972) of analysis narrative in English as well as Arabic religious texts from the Holy Bible and the Glorious Quran by asking certain questions to display the functions of the structural elements in "Luke the first" and "Surat Maryam". It also aims at presenting how the narrative analysis gives a new understanding of the Holy narrative which focus on the speakers and their communicative functions. Like all other stories of the personal experience, the Biblical and the Quranic narratives can also be based on the criteria taken from William Labov depending on six structural elements.
Finally, the study finishes with data analysis to analyze Mary(am)'s story in religious texts depending on the qualitative analysis in using the Labovian model as a suitable frame for analyzing as well as the main findings to sum up in the conclusion which summarise the main results like the divine narration in both English and Arabic has structure just like all other spoken personal narrative which begins with the abstract and ends with the coda besides another structural elements yet it has certain differences in some points.
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