Linguistic Manifestations of Climate Change in the Qur’an: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most fundamental challenges which has been examined not only as a physical phenomenon, but also as a social one based on scientific evidences. The present study is an attempt to investigate the presence of such phenomenon as one of the most publicised topics in the Holy Qur'an as a classical Arabic text in comparison with its English translated version. With an interdisciplinary approach to linguistics, discourse analysis, and translation studies, the study aims to explore the efficacy of applying Halliday's theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to both texts in order to explain the textual relations among their clauses and to compare both the source text and the translated text on a lexico-grammatical level. It also focuses on one of the most significant meta-functions of language; namely, textual meta-function which helps in understanding and interpreting the selected Madinan surahs in the Qur'an which were examined as units of meaning revolving around one of their central themes, namely, climate change. It provides not only a micro-level, but also a macro-level analysis of the theme-rheme structure of both selected texts in which a number of lexical items have been concurrently used in both texts.Based on the qualitative tool for analysis, it also provides a functional ( ‫العدد‬ 82 ‫يناير‬ ) 8282 ‫م‬ Rehab Hassan Mahmoud 640 description of both Arabic and English texts in order to reveal all the semantic meanings by means of their grammatical and lexical choices. In order to achieve quantitative accuracy, the present study also makes use of a software programme; namely, AntConc, in order to examine the occurrence, frequency, and concordance of the selected lexical items. Results indicate that there is a strong correlation between the frequency of the themes as well as rhemes related to climate change in both Meccan and Madinan surahs.