Redundancy and Contradiction in Arabic: Non Intended, Non Functional, and Potentially Humorous

Authors

  • Khaled Abu-Abbas

    Department of English for Applied Studies, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan
  • Aseel Al-Omari

    Department of English for Applied Studies, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i9.10644
Received: 23 June 2025 | Revised: 27 June 2025 | Accepted: 1 July 2025 | Published Online: 29 August 2025

Abstract

This study is a qualitative investigation of special cases of redundant and contradictory expressions in Jordanian Arabic (JA) where the speakers are unaware of the redundancy or contradiction they are using. It is this lack of awareness, we assume, that deprives the expressions of any semantic or pragmatic contribution to the communication event. The data used in this study includes observation of the speech of individuals in various naturalistic settings. In addition, a wide range of social media posts and comments, advertisements and television content are gathered, categorized, and analysis. We analyse the data with reference to the semantic notions of componential analysis and entailment and then categorized. On the one hand, results reveal that unintended redundancies involved either message repetition or entailment. On the other hand, some redundancies are found to lend themselves to negation while others do not. Contradictions are analyzed with reference to the notion of logical incompatibility. Some contradictions are found to be subject to negation while others are not. Results also highlight that such redundancies and contradictions may result in humor unintended by the speaker and only captured by a language critic. This contrasts with other genre-specific humor where humor is intended by the speaker and understood by those who share that genre.

Keywords:

Componential Analysis; Entailment; Linguistic Humor; Arabic

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How to Cite

Abu-Abbas, K., & Al-Omari, A. (2025). Redundancy and Contradiction in Arabic: Non Intended, Non Functional, and Potentially Humorous. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(9), 73–85. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i9.10644

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 9 (September 2025): In progress

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Khaled Abu-Abbas, Aseel Al-Omari

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.