Exploring patterns of cohesion in Leila aboulela's coloured lights and ahdaf soueif's returning/aisha : Ahallidayan approach

Abstract

A discourse is a connected speech which contains sufficiently clear and specific cultural elements that tie it together into a unified whole. Thus, cohesion is the primary means to make a discourse coherent, or allow it to make sense by using different types of grammatical and lexical devices. Following from this, the object of this dissertation is to apply the framework of cohesion proposed in Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion in English (1976). The analysis aims at shedding lights on patterns of discourse cohesion in two narratives belonging to two ArabBritish Muslim Immigrant authors: Leila Aboulela’s Coloured Lights, taken from her collection of short stories also entitled Coloured Lights, which was published in (2001), and Ahdaf Soueif’s Returning, also taken from her collection of short stories titled Aisha, published in (1983). What attracted my attention in these narratives is that both authors fashioned their texts in such a way enabling the reader to forget that he is reading a transcultural, hybrid fiction. This fusion of hybridity and transculturality is so interesting and striking that it prompted me as a fresh researcher to ask a set of questions. How could Leila Aboulela mention such details about Islam in a contemporary narrative conceived in a Western country and designed for a non-Muslim and secular readership, specifically, after being stigmatised by the 9th/11 NewYork terrorist attacks? I was eager to find out, to what extent these writings could be successful, and how would they be interpreted in the wider field of literature? Moreover, my curiosity, when reading on Arab-British Muslim authors living in Diaspora, draws my attention towards Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian Muslim author living in England. Many literary critics consider her as a post-colonial, hybrid writer voicing women agonies. Hence, my interest was about both authors’ ability to cohere this fusion of hybridity and transculturality. Thus, the interesting questions to raise here are how do Leila Aboulela and Ahdaf Soueif texture their narratives? What type of cohesive ties do they prefer to use to structure such fusion? What are the common points or divergences between both novelists’ style? At last, what effect such structuring can have on the reader? Therefore, Implementing Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) approach on Leila Aboulela’s Coloured Lights and Ahdaf Soueif’s Returning will allow me as a fresh researcher to explore specific points in Arab-British Muslim narratives, focusing specifically on cohesive ties in order to demonstrate how do these cohesive ties function, and why do they function as such? Finally, the framework will then be applied to both stories under study with illustrations and interpretations using software called ‘Hyperbase’ (2007).