Meaning, Semantics, and interpretation: a study in the linguistic thought of fundamentalists

Document Type : Original Article

Author

10.21608/aafu.2024.367002

Abstract

What distinguishes Arabic sciences is that they are applied sciences that arose to explain the Qur’anic linguistic phenomenon, before diving into logical rulings and theoretical details that deviate the language from its essence. Among those sciences is the science of jurisprudence, which was able to analyze texts and clarify their purposes, in a way that indicates a deep intellectual awareness that looks at the language. As a means and not an end in itself; A means by which the speaker achieves his goals through the formation of a well-constructed linguistic system. Hence, this science has its interpretive cognitive tools with which it decodes this linguistic text and reveals its connotations in order to reach the meaning intended by the speaker. Ibn al-Qayyim says: “Since the purpose of communication is the meeting of an intention. The speaker and the addressee’s understanding of the same meaning is the most correct understanding, and the happiest people with speech is the one in which the understanding of the hearer and the intended meaning of the speaker meet, and this is the truth of jurisprudence.”
Hence, fundamentals looked at language in its communicative context, and the research attempts to clarify that view and this thought by clarifying three terms (meaning - Semantics - interpretation) by answering a number of questions:

What is meant by meaning, significance, and interpretation according to fundamentalists?
What are the mechanisms used by etymologists to reach meaning?
How did the fundamentals divide the meaning of the text?
What are the most prominent features of the fundamentalist interpretive school of linguistic text?