CHNGTOP: Change of Topic
| CHNGTOP: Change of Topic | |
|---|---|
| Category | Linguistic Embellishments (‘ilm al-badī‘) |
| Subcategory | Paragraph Structure & Flow |
| Built upon | 4 sources |
| Annotation Unit | |
| ARDT Code | CHNGTOP |
| Level | 1 |
| Has 2 Level2 subunits | |
| Included in Taxonomy | |
| ARDT | v0.1.1 v0.1.0 |
| External Identifiers | |
| BALAGHAScore | CF-5 |
| BalaghaBase | Q95 |
| OpenAlex | W4415373592 |
| Cite this page | |
| 🔗 Live DOI | 10.64393/balagha.Q95 |
| Use this page | |
| Download | PDF JSON  |
Definition
Change of Topic (barāʿat al-takhalluṣ) is an Arabic rhetorical device where there is a smooth transition from one purpose to another, or from the opening of a speech to its intended main subject, such that the connection between the two parts is natural and the listener does not detect any discontinuity.[1][2][3][4][5]
The device is named barāʿat al-takhalluṣ by al-Qazwīnī and his commentators.[1] It also appears in the sources under the names ḥusn al-takhalluṣ and ḥusn al-khurūj; Thaʿlab uses the latter in his Qawāʿid al-Shiʿr.[1][2]
Linguistic Operations
- The speaker or poet begins with an opening passage — typically a nasīb (amatory prelude), tashbīb, or other introductory matter — and then moves to the intended subject (maqṣūd), such as praise (madḥ), boasting (fakhr), description (waṣf), or another purpose. Nābulsī specifically describes transitions from introductory themes such as love, self-glorification, or lamentation to a topic concerning the patron.[2][4][3][5]
- The transition takes a meaning from the opening and uses it as a bridge (sabab) to the next section, so that the composition does not feel cut or interrupted, but flows as if it were a single unbroken whole.[2]
- The skill lies in making the meanings of both sections so seamlessly woven together that the listener does not perceive any discontinuity, even though the two sections are notionally distinct in purpose; Nābulsī similarly describes the transition as so subtle that the listener scarcely senses that one theme has been relinquished before becoming involved in the next.[3][4][5]
- ʿAkkāwī (pp. 263–264) records the formulation that when the transition is done well, it engages both parties, stimulates the listener's attention, and encourages them to attend to what follows; when it is done poorly, the opposite effect results.[2]
- The device applies to both poetry and prose.[2]
- The transition should not be achieved at the expense of propriety or sound taste. Nābulsī warns against straining for an ingenious transition where the resulting connection introduces an inappropriate implication.[5]
In this encyclopedia, the mechanism may be summarised as follows:
- The writer takes a meaning from the opening section and uses it to bridge into the intended main subject, so that the transition remains concealed rather than abrupt.
Recognition
Change of Topic may be present when:
- A text moves from an opening passage (nasīb, tashbīb, or other prelude) to a distinct main subject (madḥ, fakhr, waṣf, etc.).[2]
- The transition between the two sections is smooth enough that the listener does not detect a break.[3][2][4]
- A meaning in the closing part of the opening serves as a bridge to the opening part of the main section.[2]
- The semantic bridge should be not only smooth but appropriate: a formally ingenious connection that produces an unbecoming or tasteless implication may constitute a defective rather than felicitous transition.[5]
The following diagnostic tests aid identification:
- Ask whether the final element of the opening section could plausibly belong to the main section.
- Ask whether, if the bridging element were removed, the two sections would feel abruptly juxtaposed.
Diagnostic Communicative Enhancements
- The text appears unified and continuous rather than disjointed, like a body whose limbs are connected rather than severed.[2]
- The listener's attention is engaged and drawn toward what follows.[2]
- The device is counted among the merits of both poetry and prose.[2]
- It is described by some scholars as one of the aspects of Qur'anic inimitability (iʿjāz).[2]
Applying the Recognition Framework
The information on this page can be used to evaluate whether this device is present in a candidate lexical item using the Specific Device Recognition part of the Universal Framework for Identifying Arabic Rhetorical Devices:
Types of Change of Topic
The sources discuss two related forms within the broader rhetoric of transition, though they are not uniformly treated as subtypes of Change of Topic:
CHNGTOP-GT: Graceful Transition (ḥusn al-takhalluṣ)
The smooth and fitting transition from what the speech was opened with to the intended subject, with attention to the appropriateness (murāʿāt al-munāsaba) between the two parts.[4][6]
دَعَتِ النَّوى بِفِرَاقِهِم فَتَشَتَّتُوا
وَقَضَى الزَّمَانُ بِبَيْنِهِم فَتَبَدَّدُوا
دَهْرٌ ذَمِيمُ الحَالَتَيْنِ فَمَا بِهِ
شَيْءٌ سِوَى جُودِ ابْنِ أَرْتَقَ يُحْمَدُSeparation called them apart and they were scattered; / Time decreed their dispersal and they were dispersed. / An age blameworthy in both its states — there is nothing in it / Worthy of praise save the generosity of Ibn Artuq.
- Explanation
- The opening lines lament separation and the blameworthy age, then the final line pivots to praising Ibn Artuq's generosity.[4]
﴿نَحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ أَحْسَنَ الْقَصَصِ﴾
"We relate to you the most excellent of stories." (Qur'an 12:3)
- Explanation
- ʿAkkāwī cites this verse as an example of the device in the Qur'an: God signals the story through allusion (ramz) and subtlety (laṭāfa) before entering the narrative proper.[2]
أَجِـدَّكِ هَـلْ تَـدْرِيـنَ أَنَّ رُبَّ لَيْلَةٍ
كَـأَنَّ دُجَـاهَـا مِنْ قُـرُونِـكِ تَنْثَـرُ
نَـصَبْـتُ لَهَـا حَـتَّى تَـجَلَّتْ بِغُـرَّةٍ
كَغُـرَّةٍ يَحْيَى حِيـنَ يُـذْكَـرُ جَعفَـرُIn earnest — do you know how many a night / Whose darkness was as if scattered from your tresses, / I kept vigil for it until it broke with a white dawn / Like the bright face of Yaḥyā when Jaʿfar is mentioned?
- Explanation
- ʿAkkāwī cites this verse by Muslim ibn al-Walīd as a poetic example of barāʿat al-takhalluṣ: the image of dawn serves as the bridge between the nasīb and the madḥ.[2]
نُوَدِّعُهُمْ وَالْبَيْنُ فِينَا كَأَنَّهُ
قَنَا ابْنِ أَبِي الْهَيْجَاءِ فِي قَلْبِ فَيْلَقِWe bid them farewell, while our separation among us is as though it were the spears of Ibn Abī al-Hayjāʾ in the heart of an army.
- Explanation
- Nābulsī cites al-Mutanabbī's verse in praise of Sayf al-Dawla as an example of ḥusn al-takhalluṣ. The poet moves from the theme of parting to praise through the comparison of the pain of separation with the patron's spears penetrating an army, so that the image itself carries the poem into its new subject.[5]
طَالَ السَّهَرُ وَأَرَّقَتْنِي ذِكْرَاكِ،
وَالنَّجْمُ يَسْبَحُ فِي سَمَاءٍ مُعْتِمَة،
حَتَّى تَنَفَّسَ الفَجْرُ بِضِيَاءٍ كَضِيَاءِ وَجْهِ العَدَالَةِ
يَوْمَ أَنْصَفَ القَاضِي المَظْلُومِينَ.Long was the sleepless night, and your memory kept me wakeful, / as the stars drifted through a darkened sky, / until dawn breathed its light — bright as the face of justice / on the day the judge vindicated the wronged.
- Explanation
- The opening lines evoke a sleepless night of longing, a conventional nasīb-style prelude; the image of dawn breaking then serves as the bridge (sabab) into praise of a judge's rectitude. The transition is concealed within a single continuous image — the light of morning and the light of justice — so that the two sections feel unbroken.
CHNGTOP-AT: Abrupt Transition (iqtiḍāb)
A form of transition involving a sudden shift from the opening to the intended subject, or from one purpose to another within a text, without a connecting bridge. Unlike barāʿat al-takhalluṣ, it does not conceal the joint between sections. It is effective only when rhetorically motivated.[4]
Notes
- Nāṣif et al. and ʿAkkāwī treat al-takhalluṣ, barāʿat al-takhalluṣ, and ḥusn al-takhalluṣ as synonymous or closely equivalent designations.[1][6]
- The term takhalluṣ literally means "disentangling" or "freeing oneself from" something, hence its rhetorical use for departing from one subject to another.[2]
- The name ḥusn al-khurūj is recorded by ʿAkkāwī as an alternative historical designation.[2]
- Hatim (2010) translates barāʿat al-takhalluṣ as "Skilful Transition".[4]
- Cachia translates ḥusn al-takhalluṣ as “Felicitous Transition”. Nābulsī observes that the technique is particularly characteristic of later poets and warns against sacrificing propriety or sound taste merely to achieve an ingenious transition.[5]
References
- ↑ a b c d Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 128, ISBN 9786144162798.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 263-264.
- ↑ a b c d Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 536.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Basil Hatim, Arabic Rhetoric: The Pragmatics of Deviation from Linguistic Norms, LINCOM Studies in Communication 04 (Munich: Lincom Europa, 2010), 180, ISBN 9783929075731.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), p. 9; §3, ISBN 9783447040327.
- ↑ a b Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 295.
Page History
- 2026-02-10 - Migration to Semantic Device Identifiers: Renamed from CF-7: Change of Topic to CHNGTOP: Change of Topic.
- 2025-11-20 - Page incorporated into the Arabic Rhetorical Device Taxonomy (v0.1.1).
- 2024-04-22 - Page created: Change of Topic.
