The Evolution of Arabic Self-Expression in the Western Mediterranean: Using an Annotation Schema as a Comparative Framework

This paper presents a hybrid quantitative-qualitative methodology for the comparative study of texts of an autobiographical nature and their evolution. It is divided into three sections followed by some concluding remarks. The introductory section argues for the need to use digital and empirical methods in the study of self-expression within the pre-modern Arabic and Islamic cultural context, considering the autobiographical genre as a Western and modern conception. The second section presents the process of developing an annotation schema that encodes the authorial voice in a sample corpus and its application as a comparative framework. The sample corpus consists of works belonging to the riḥla (travel narratives) genre produced in the western Mediterranean during the fourteenth century. In the third section, the schema is put into practice in a case study, through the analysis of an early-sixteenth-century North African text with similar characteristics. The paper demonstrates the usefulness of this methodology in the study of the structure, content, and language use in these texts, drawing connections between works and authorial styles, and questioning the relevance of genre as a framework for analysis.