Discourse of parody in Mohammed Abdul-Wali’s Yamu:tuna Ghuraba: : A pragmatic stylistic approach

Abstract

Parody is a literary form of ridicule which is comic in its literal diversion and critical in its ironic understatement. Rhetorically, parody forms a dialogue between the text and the parodied text. In the dialogue between the text and the parodied text, parody offers a critical insight of the reality. Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s Yamu:tuna Ghuraba:  is such a text that parodies the issues in relation with migration. Abdul-Wali creates in the protagonist, Abdo Sa’eed, a prototype of ‘strangers’ who die in the foreign land unknown and unmerited. The paper argues that Abdul-Wali turns the enigmatic history of Abdo Sa’eed into a discourse of parody. The form of parody maintains the entertaining and critical effect in its unique pragmatic dimension. The paper seeks to explore the pragmatic dimension of the text, Yamu:tuna Ghuraba:   in order to understand the relation of words to the implications of the text. The enigma of Abdo circulates among the characters and owes its aesthetic effect to the language in use. To understand diverse linguistic and literary figures that inform the story of Abdo Sa’eed, the study consults the analytical framework of pragmatic stylistics.