Analyzing Classical Arabic Poetry Texts: An Applied Model of Educational Competencies in Literature Instruction

This study seeks to examine Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s model of speaker competencies within the context of teaching Arabic literature – particularly poetry – to non-native speakers. It is well known that teaching poetry, and literary texts in general, poses significant challenges in language instruction due to various cultural, aesthetic, linguistic, and communicative factors. Many non-native Arabic speakers find it particularly difficult to understand classical Arabic poetry and to analyze its components. This paper adopts Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s framework to explore the difficulties learners face in constructing and decoding implicit meanings, with the aim of identifying, classifying, and ultimately overcoming these challenges. The model is grounded in four core competencies: linguistic competence, encyclopedic competence, logical competence, and pragmatic-rhetorical communicative competence. The study aims to translate these theoretical discussions into practical applications in the teaching of classical poetry. To test this approach, we selected a short poetic excerpt (a fragment) from Al-Mufaddaliyyāt, specifically the third mufaddaliyya attributed to al-Kulḥaba al-ʿUrnī - one of the oldest poetic selections to have reached us. Its brevity allows for an in-depth analysis, helping us identify specific challenges that may arise in the pedagogical process. In this context, we present analytical tables derived from real classroom engagement with students from the Russian Federation, who studied the poem during an Arabic language course at Sultan Qaboos University in the fall of 2024. This lends the theoretical model both relevance and empirical credibility within the field of language education.