مولانا عبیداﷲ سندھی
افسوس ہے کہ مولانا عبیداﷲ سندھی نے ۲۳؍ اگست ۱۹۴۴ء کو اس عالم فانی کو الوداع کہا، مرحوم نے ساری عمر اپنے خیالات کی خاطر جن کو وہ حق سمجھتے تھے تکالیف میں بسر کی، بلکہ یوں کہنا چاہیے کہ مدت کے بعد کوئی عالم دین ایسا پیدا ہوا تھا جس نے اس طرح مجاہدانہ زندگی بسر کی، اﷲ تعالیٰ ان کی مغفرت کرے، اور مقام اعلیٰ نصیب فرمائے۔ (سید سلیمان ندوی،ستمبر ۱۹۴۴ء)
The Holy Qur’ān is said to be a book neither in poetry nor in prose; yet it has a unique rhyme with a metrical system peculiar to it. The science of prosody and metrics, which is linked directly to poetry with its two characteristics of meter and rhyme, is based on the inductive study of the formal qualities of the Arabic poetry. The Holy Qur’ān, though not a book of poetry, is far away from the stylistics of prosaic speech in the sense since the terminal-end points of the ayaths (verses) of its each and every surah are rhythmic and follow a metrical system of its own, which phenomenon is significant from the view- point of the science of prosody and metrics. Given this, each and every Surah of Qur’ān has a distinct quality whereby it can be recognized and differentiated from every other surah. Both Islam and the Qur’ān have abstained from going to the extent of putting an end to poetic genius; rather they have encouraged it differentiating good poetry meant for the cause of spreading Islamic message from the bad one that stands against the message of Islam. As regards the Qur’ān, its each and every Surah is dominated by multi-dimensional musical rhythms in synchrony with the total climate of its verses, which makes the listener spell-bound, and which plays an essential function so characteristic of the science of eloquent rhetoric.
This study examines the dominant elements of Transitivity (Ideational meaning), and the lexical features of Samuel Beckett’s dramatic texts with special reference to Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, All That Fall, and Krapp’s Last Tape. The significance of the linguistic features of these texts has also been explored. The study also attempts to investigate the conformity of linguistic interpretation with the Existential interpretations of Waiting for Godot. The analysis of data was conducted by using computational tools like UAMCT, MAT, SUAS and AntConc. However, UAMCT was used as the main tool and the rest of the tools were just used to ensure validity of results and to supplement some areas of analysis which were deficient in UAMCT. The study has found that Beckett’s dramatic texts have a considerable amount of Material processes going on in the world of the plays but these processes are less directed to a Goal and are even agentless too. The processes are also not spatially and temporally situated. The linguistic analysis reveals that his dramatic texts are a linguistic paradox; lexically simple but structurally complex. The linguistic features of Waiting for Godot establish certain themes like, ‘Alienation’, Directionlessnes’, ‘Ambivalence’, ‘Nothingness’, ‘Existence’, ‘Skepticism’, ‘Boredom’, and ‘Pessimism’. These themes conform to the Existential interpretations of Waiting for Godot. We find a linguistic spontaneity of Existential themes in the play. In a nutshell, Beckett has not narrated the predicament of Existence but made it happen linguistically in Waiting for Godot. The study finds that Endgame, Happy Days, All That Fall, and Krapp’s Last Tape also exhibit similar syntactic and lexical features as that of Waiting for Godot. It has also been found out, as a result of this study, that Waiting for Godotand the other four plays of Beckett (Endgame, Happy Days, All That Fall, and Krapp’s Last Tape) have communicative qualities of an extempore interactive oral text. Beckett’s plays also have some qualities of a narrative text. It is due to these qualities that the plays are able to make a mark on the minds of their readers. The present report consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 describes the scope and nature of the study by providing introduction to Beckett, Waiting for Godot and Existential context of Beckett. This chapter gives a detailed background of the problem, states the problem, aims of the study, research questions, significance, methodology and limitations of the study. Chapter 2 presents the survey of the related literature in the areas of SFL, application of linguistic theory to the study of literary text, application of computational tools to the study of literary and nonliterary texts. Chapter 3 encompasses the procedures and methods of data collection and analysis. Chapter 4 presents a detailed analysis and interpretation of the texts of Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, All That Fall, and Krapp’s Last Tape. Finally, Chapter 5 summarizes the results produced through data analysis and interpretation in Chapter 4. Discussion, implications and conclusion of the results of the present study are also given in the same chapter.