Levels of Linguistic Shifts in Al-Baraddoni's Poetry (Smolder Faces in the Mirrors of the Night) as Example

Abstract

This research intends to investigate levels of linguistic shifts in 'Abdullah Al-Baraddoni's poetry, specifically in his divan entitled: (Smolder Faces in the Mirrors of the Night). This research, therefore, studies the manifestations of Al-Baraddoni's shift on Rhythmic level, Syntax level, Vocabulary or Lexical level and Semantic level and what it manifests of this poetic principle or law. The research highlights the violations or shifts with which the poet has surpassed the poets of his age as well as the preceding poets, such as his commitment to weight and rhyme, a framework in which he formulates his poetry, but he goes beyond this traditional framework by keeping pace with the poets of modernity. Furthermore, he also has a lot of shifts in the syntactic level by forwarding, delaying, omitting, and various aspects of semantics, structures or syntactic grammar, according to the terminology of some researchers. Some of these methods may even be considered stylistic features in his poetry, such as the interrogative style, forwarding and delaying, and so on. As for the lexical level, we find shifts in the morphological structure through the derivation of some vocabulary, and the impact of colloquialism in its disposition, especially verbs. The shift is also manifested in the displacement of some functions or vocabulary from their lexical positional connotations, and their entrance into a widening circle, i.e. their meanings are multiplied. This study has tracked the semantics resulting from the displacement structures and their implications, as well as the semantics resulting from vocabulary with suggestive connotations. As for the rhythmic level, it touches on highlighting the poet’s methods of forming rhythm, and how he relied on weight and rhyme as a framework in which he formulates his poetry, but he moves away from the methods of the ancients, by absorbing the methods of the modernists in forming the rhythm of the poem, and moving away from the features of durability in casting and solid composition. As for the semantic level, the study is content with what is presented in each of the three levels of indications and goals related to those levels, in addition to highlighting some of the shifts that were manifested at the level of (imagination) in the graphic image, such as similes, metaphors, allegory, etc., and how the law governing its weaving is the overlap between these structures, not to mention their mixing with free image and its techniques of painting, snapshot and scene, especially in those poems that are built on a narrative structure, and what these metaphorical and graphic images exhibit of connotations and suggestions that reveal the poetic and romantic nature of this poet.