Speech production authorities Fedikia sermon choice

Abstract

Authority extends into more than one field and wields such influence that it exerts control over several areas. This study sought to examine authority within the texts, the extent of its influence, and whether that influence is limited to meaning alone or extends to stylistic devices as well. This can only be ascertained through the text itself. Upon reflection on the text, we found it to be characterised by multiple authorities, though we have limited ourselves to two: one relating to the author and the other to the reader, each of which has an impact on the text in terms of both meaning and phrasing. However, no matter how numerous the authorities surrounding the text, its author and its audience may be, the author of the text can control them and harness them for their own purposes – provided, that is, the author possesses an exceptional character – as is the case with the author of the text under consideration in our study. We find that Lady al-Zahra, peace be upon her, despite all the authorities surrounding her, continued to defend her goals and principles to such an extent that one might say she outwardly submitted to those authorities; yet the truth is that she imposed her formative authority upon the text, the recipients and the era, and thus her discourse was preserved against all odds and conveyed to us.