CUEING: Linguistic Cueing

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    الإرصاد / التسهيم
    CUEING: Linguistic Cueing
    CategoryLinguistic Embellishments (ʿilm al-badīʿ)
    SubcategoryParagraph Structure & Flow
    Built upon7 sources
      
    Annotation Unit
    ARDT CodeCUEING
    Level1 (Rhetorical device)
      
    Included in Taxonomy
    ARDTv0.1.1
    v0.1.0
      
    External Identifiers
    BALAGHAScoreCE-12
    BalaghaBaseQ96
    OpenAlexW4415386649
      
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    BalaghaCorpusSee examples
     
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    🔗 Live DOI10.64393/balagha.Q96
     
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    Definition

    Linguistic Cueing (al-irṣād, al-tashīm) is an Arabic rhetorical device in which one part of an utterance semantically or verbally indicates another part strongly enough for the addressee to anticipate or reconstruct it.[1][2][3]

    Background Information

    The two principal Arabic names illuminate the device's operation. al-irṣād is connected with preparing or making something ready: Ṭabāna explains it from arṣada al-shayʾ (أرصد الشيء), “to prepare something,” and describes the beginning of the utterance as being prepared to signal and enable understanding of its end.[3] al-tashīm is an alternative traditional name, explained through the patterned burd musahham, whose markings correspond to one another; this similarly evokes one portion of the utterance indicating another.[3][4]

    ʿAkkāwī explicitly records al-tashīm as another name for al-irṣād, while also reporting overlap with al-tawshīḥ and distinctions made between tashīm and tawshīḥ by some rhetoricians. Ibn al-Athīr is reported as preferring irṣād because he regarded that name as better suited to the phenomenon.[5][4]

    Linguistic Operations

    • The earlier portion of the utterance is arranged so as to prepare for and indicate a later portion, enabling the addressee to anticipate or readily understand it when it appears.[1][3][5]
    • The indication may arise through meaning or through wording.[5]
    • In the traditional formulation, the indicated material is typically the closing unit of a prose passage (fāṣila) or the rhyme of a verse (qāfiya). Knowledge of the rhyme letter (rawī) may assist the anticipation, but some examples can be anticipated without it.[1][2][6]
    • Al-Nābulusī additionally formulates the relation bidirectionally: later material may indicate preceding material strongly enough for the earlier wording to be reconstructed.[7]

    In this encyclopedia, the mechanism is described as follows:

    • The device establishes a sufficiently strong relation between two portions of an utterance that one makes the other predictable or recoverable. In the usual forward form, preceding material prepares, constrains, or signals a forthcoming portion, which subsequently appears.
    • The defining feature is predictability or recoverability generated by the relationship between the two portions, rather than merely their semantic, logical, or topical relatedness.

    Recognition

    Linguistic Cueing may be present when:

    • Material occurring before the end of an utterance enables the listener or reader to anticipate what will follow before the utterance is complete.[5][6][8]
    • The anticipation may result from semantic or verbal indications in the preceding material.[5]
    • In verse, knowledge of the rhyme consonant may narrow the possible completion, although some examples remain predictable without knowledge of the rawī.[5][6]
    • In al-Nābulsī's broader formulation, later material may instead indicate earlier material sufficiently strongly for the preceding wording to be reconstructed.[7]

    The following diagnostic tests aid identification:

    • Ask whether the earlier wording actively prepares, signals, or constrains the later portion, rather than merely being topically or logically related to it.
    • Cover the anticipated word, phrase, or clausula and ask whether the preceding material makes that particular continuation reasonably predictable or readily recoverable.
    • Where the relation operates in reverse, cover the earlier portion and ask whether the later material makes that wording reasonably reconstructable.

    Communicative Enhancements

    • The device engages the addressee in active anticipation of the utterance's continuation. Cachia suggests that it may invite the reader or listener to participate mentally in completing the expression, while Abdul-Raof describes the addressee as a vigilant linguistic observer who predicts the forthcoming part from the clues already provided.[7][8]

    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:

    • Use the Definition, Mechanism, and Recognition sections of this page in Step 1.
    • Apply the substitution test in Step 2.
    • Consider contextual indicators in Step 3.
    • Use the Diagnostic Communicative Enhancements section of this page in Step 4.

    Examples

    وَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ الشَّمْسِ وَقَبْلَ الْغُرُوبِ

    "And exalt [God] with praise of your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting." (Q50:39)

    Explanation
    The mention of ṭulūʿ al-shams prepares and predicts the closing unit al-ghurūb.[6]

    وَمَا كَانَ اللهُ لِيَظْلِمَهُمْ وَلَكِنْ كَانُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ

    "And God would not have wronged them, but it was they who were wronging themselves." (Q29:40)

    Explanation
    The statement prepares the audience to predict the concluding verb yaẓlimūn. Abdul-Raof (2006) uses this verse to illustrate how the listener can predict the conclusion before the communicator has finished the statement.[8]

    وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلٌ فَإِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ لَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ سَاعَةً وَلَا يَسْتَقْدِمُونَ

    "And for every community there is a term. So when their term comes, they will not be delayed an hour, nor will they be advanced." (Q7:34)

    Explanation
    Cited by al-Hāshimī (2019) as an example in which al-Irṣād operates without requiring knowledge of the rawī.[6]

    أَحَلَّتْ دَمِي مِنْ غَيْرِ جُرْمٍ وَحَرَّمَتْ - بِلَا سَبَبٍ عِنْدَ اللِّقَاءِ كَلَامِي
    فَلَيْسَ الَّذِي حَلَّلْتَهُ بِمُحَلَّلٍ - وَلَيْسَ الَّذِي حَرَّمْتَهُ بِمُحَرَّمِ

    "She made my blood lawful without any crime, and forbade without cause my words at our meeting..."

    Explanation
    The third hemistich, “What you made lawful is not lawful,” makes the fourth, “And what you forbade is not forbidden,” predictable in its entirety through the semantic and structural correspondence between the two clauses. Al-Nābulusī uses this example to show that al-tashīm may anticipate more than the rhyme word alone.[7]

    إِذَا لَمْ تَسْتَطِعْ شَيْئًا فَدَعْهُ وَجَاوِزْهُ إِلَى مَا تَسْتَطِيعُ

    "If you cannot do something, leave it and pass on to what you are able to do."

    Explanation
    The first hemistich directly anticipates the rhyme word at the close of the second hemistich.[6]

    إِذَا أَشْرَقَتِ الشَّمْسُ بَدَّدَتِ الظَّلَامَ، وَإِذَا غَابَتْ عَادَ الْقِتَامُ

    "When the sun rises it disperses the darkness, and when it sets the gloom returns."

    Explanation
    The mention of the sun's rising and its dispersal of darkness prepares and predicts the closing rhyme word al-qitām (gloom/murk). Once the rawī (here, mīm) is known, a competent reader can anticipate the closing unit before it arrives.

    The policy rewarded every team that met its target and penalized every team that missed it.

    Explanation
    The first clause establishes a parallel contrast between reward and penalty. Once the reader reaches “penalized every team that…”, the corresponding completion “missed it” is strongly anticipated before it is expressed. The earlier wording therefore makes the forthcoming close predictable.

    Notes

    • Abdul-Raof (2006) translates al-irṣād as "Observation", reflecting the addressee's role in anticipating the forthcoming completion.[8]

    References

    1. ↑ a b c Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qazwīnī, known as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ, ed. and comm. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 263, ISBN 9782745139078.
    2. ↑ a b Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Muṭawwal: Sharḥ Talkhīṣ Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Hindāwī, Shurūḥ al-Talkhīṣ 3, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013), 647-648, ISBN 9782745131768.
    3. ↑ a b c d Badawī Ṭabāna, Muʿjam al-Balāgha al-ʿArabiyya, 3rd rev. and expanded ed. (Jeddah: Dār al-Manāra; Riyadh: Dār al-Rifāʿī, 1988), 254-255.
    4. ↑ 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), 318-319.
    5. ↑ a b c d e f 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), 60-62.
    6. ↑ a b c d e f Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-Balāgha fī al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ (Windsor: Hindāwī Foundation, 2019), 367–368, ISBN 9781527316386.
    7. ↑ a b c d 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), pp. 111-112; §152, ISBN 9783447040327.
    8. ↑ a b c d Hussein Abdul-Raof, Arabic Rhetoric: A Pragmatic Analysis (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), 253–254, ISBN 9780415386098. DOI: 10.4324/9780203965399



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