It is known that for each literary text or discourse there must be a contextual, basic referential belonging. Because of that we cannot comprehend the text or discourse unless we have an idea about the contextual, basic referential belonging. In 1976,Halliday and Ruqya Hasan discussed in their book «the consistency in English» the referential belonging. They believe that the place belonging shares in building the text because it links the language with the place. While the content belonging works with the consistency of the text.
The referential belonging refers to the content ability to link the interlocutor, the speaker and the listener, with something in the real world. This is called «the referential» by the modernists, while linguists called it «reference» in old studies. Therefore, each simple word has the following characteristics: its pronunciation, denotation, and reference. The reference is that part of the world to which all the signs or symbols are referenced. It is worth mentioning that these signs are parts of the world and the process of communication may reference to another way of communication which is its reference. The reference can be divided into two parts: content reference which refers to a preceding or a following element inside the text. The second part is the standing reference which refers to an element outside the text. What is worthing in the present study is the reference outside the text which enable us to comprehend Imam Ali's (peace be upon him) Covenant when we refer to its personal, temporal, spatial, social, and economical referent. Many of these references are mentioned in Imam Ali's (peace be upon him) Covenant to Malik and it is classified into:
First, exterior references in its political dimension.
Second, exterior references in its economical dimension.
Third, exterior references in its social dimension. |