ELOQUENCE AND ANALOGIES AND HOW IT CAN BE APPLIED TO TEACH ARABIC TO NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS

Abstract

It is known that any language, no matter how they are discordant in writing, sound, denotations or culture, cannot be void of linguistic or intellective metaphorical meanings, used in various contexts in accordance with the situation that is taking place. Arabic language is one of the richest in synonyms, derivation, imaginations, depiction, connotations and denotation. Arabic Language with many more characteristics is culminated with Allah’s Speech, the Qur’an that shakes with its eloquence the feelings, minds of the Arabs, and agitated their sense of language attraction. They were unable to imitate even one verse. Therefore, the language studies in the first century focused on how to comprehend the Holy Quran’s manner of speaking in its eloquence and grand style of depiction. And the eloquence and phrasemaking studies emerged and is categorized into three groups: semantics, rhetoric and elegance by scholars who dedicated their endeavors to know the secret of the Holy Quran’s eloquence. This paper aims to exhibit one aspect of Eloquence science that will be represented by the simile and its rhetoric purposes in the Qur’an for non-speakers of Arabic who are taught in a short manner and without a textual context.  This is the case in Arabic curricula of the national secondary schools, and the national religious secondary schools in Malaysia, as if Rhetoric is an independent science. This paper concentrates on a part of Rhetoric which is the study of simile and highlight its purposes of assimilating the sensible with the tangible in the following aspects: making what is insensibly applicable to be sensibly applicable, making what is customarily uncommon common, making what is not known by intuition to be intuitively known, and making what is not strong with attributive to be strong with it.  The focus here is t find to what extent we can use the tangible to explain the intangible when teaching Arabic the non-speakers of it.  However, the paper will employ analytical method in displaying the Holy Quran’s versions that contains exemplary assimilation to know its instructive purposes and the lessons, which can be learnt from it.