The Argumentativeness of the Rhetorical Image in Imaginative Debates in Arabic Literature from the Eighth to the Twelfth Centuries AH

Abstract

This research aims to reveal the argumentativeness of the rhetorical image in imaginative debates due to its literary and argumentative value, and the ability of this rhetorical technique to present the abstract meaning sensually and visually and to give the discourse of imaginative debates a high degree of influence and persuasion. Based on the descriptive approach and the procedures of the deliberative approach, in analyzing the selected texts, the research will be distributed over three axes preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. Before that, a brief definition of the concepts of the argumentative image and imaginative debates will be addressed. The first axis will include the argumentation of simile, the second the argumentation of metaphor, and the third the argumentation of metonymy. The research concludes with the most prominent results. The research concluded that the rhetorical image with its three mechanisms (simile, metaphor, and metonymy) contributed greatly to clarifying the beauty of the discourse of imaginative debates, played a persuasive and inferential role, and performed several argumentative functions, including clarification, approximation, evaluation, interpretation, negation, and affirmation.