Self-Narration from the Spoken to the Written: A Journey Between Two Centuries – Mohammed Al-Khudair as a Model

This study seeks to trace the stages of transformation from the spoken to the written form in Muhammad Al-Khudair’s autobiographical work A Journey Between Two Centuries. The work originated as an oral narrative, first shared within the setting of a council, before evolving into a written text. This shift reflects a transition from a culture rooted in spontaneity and oral performance to one grounded in documentation, recording, and writing. Consequently, the autobiographical structure of the text merges the realism of the spoken word—with its personal, subjective dimensions and oral features—with the artistic and aesthetic qualities of written expression, along with its formal conventions.This transformation gave rise to new forms and hybrid modes of writing that blend both the spoken and written dimensions. The study is grounded in three main premises:First, identifying the stages and motivations behind the transition from spoken to written expression. Second, examining the semiotic markers that signal this shift—its mechanisms and underlying causes—and uncovering how the written form compensates for the physical absence of the narrator, Al-Khudair, by employing narrative techniques that reconstruct his presence within the autobiographical discourse. Third, exploring the manifestations of overlap between the two forms within the text, as written narration almost always retains traces of the oral storytelling tradition from which it emerged.