Defective Speech Act Translation and Linguistic Analysis of al-ʾAʿshā’s Dālīya and Intention

This paper translates and explores the language of a classical text composed by the pre-Islamic poet Maymūn ibn Qays ibn Jandal al-ʾAʿshā (d. 7/629) when he was about to travel to the Prophet to praise him, to perform a transfer of faithfulness to him, and to convert to Islam. From a modern linguistic perspective, the paper explains how this text is an "unhappy/infelicity/void speech act” and "defective" by the linguist John Searle's terminology. It describes how the text is a defective speech act in which the poet fails the condition of completing the ritual performance of the poem before the addressee/the Prophet. It explains how the poem is void/defective due to the circumstance here not being in order and because the act is not performed. Even more critically, the addresser/poet composed the poem with a purpose different from his intention, which is recognizable from the language of the poetry and the anecdote surrounding the poem.