Pragmatics of Autobiography: Biographies of Taha Hussein, Zaki Naguib Mahmud, and Ibn Khaldun as Models
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35516/Hum.2026.10142Keywords:
Autobiography, pragmatics, interaction, implications.Abstract
Objectives: This research aims to advance the study of autobiography by moving beyond traditional questions of credibility, autobiographical contract, and imagination. Instead, it proposes a new perspective that considers the communicative aspects of autobiography, establishing a deliberative approach to literature. This shift has become necessary with the expansion of sociolinguistics into literary discourse and criticism.
Methods: The research consists of an introduction and two main sections that highlight the contradictions between the prevailing academic approach to biographical studies and the proposed approach. It examines three Arab autobiographical models: Taha Hussein, Zaki Naguib Mahmud, and Ibn Khaldun.
Results: The primary concern of autobiographers is not merely credibility, autobiographical contracts, or imagination, but rather communication with their readers, through which they achieve their goals in writing and reading.
Conclusions: Autobiography presents contradictory challenges such as fiction, credibility, subjectivity, alterity, writing, and contractual agreements. However, approaching autobiography from a different perspective can contribute to its scholarly development. It is necessary to break free from research frameworks constrained by genre classifications and repetitive conclusions. Pragmatics offers a new horizon by emphasizing the interactive relationship between writers and readers, allowing for the transmission of ideas and the fulfillment of authorial intentions. This perspective enriches literary studies, liberating them from rigid genre constraints, and fostering greater reader engagement in interpreting autobiography.
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