A Reconstruction of Rule Addition Patterns in the Protest and Defeat Poetry of Ajwad Mujbil Khafaji

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Fatemeh Ghovvati ¹

Ahmad Reza Heidaryan Shahri ²

¹ Ph.D Candidate, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of letters and Humanities, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad , Iran

² Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of letters and Humanities, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jall.2026.92282.1515

Abstract

This study investigates the application of rule addition, a prominent linguistic foregrounding technique originating from Russian Formalism, within the poetry of Ajwad Mujbil Khafaji, a key figure in Iraqi resistance literature. Rule addition, conceptualized by Roman Jakobson as parallelism manifested through verbal repetition, involves the creative incorporation of linguistic rules beyond standard language usage to produce literary art. The research examines this phenomenon across phonological, lexical, and syntactic levels, acknowledging the diverse nature of stylistic devices generated through such parallelisms. Influenced by the pervasive themes of poverty, exile, war, tyranny, and injustice in his homeland, Khafaji’s poetry extensively reflects concepts of protest and defeat. Employing a descriptive-analytical methodology, this inquiry elucidates these themes by identifying patterns of rule addition. The primary objective is to demonstrate Khafaji’s linguistic dexterity in leveraging the expressive potential of language to convey protest and defeat, an area previously underexplored. The findings indicate that Khafaji’s utilization of rule addition extends beyond enhancing the musicality and imagery of protest and defeat; it serves as a mechanism for seeking escape from suffering and achieving liberation from internal turmoil. Specifically, in phonological parallelism, the repetition of the bright vowel (ā) and plosive consonants (b, d) evokes an atmosphere of protest, while the repetition of the low, dark vowel (u) and fricative consonants (f, s) signifies defeat. Lexical parallelism contributes to cohesion and semantic unity, and syntactic parallelism functions to emphasize and stabilize poetic imagery through the establishment of systematic repetitive structures.
 

Keywords

Formalism

Rule-Addition

Parallelism

Contemporary Iraqi Poetry

Ajwad Mujbil Khafaji

Subjects

• Linguistics

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