Muscat: The proceedings of the sixth international scientific conference of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, titled "Language and Literature in Light of Interdisciplinary Studies," opened on Monday at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU).
The three-day conference is organised by the College of Arts and Social Sciences, under the auspices of Dr. Abdullah Nasser Al Harrasi, Minister of Information.
The conference explores the prospects of cognitive integration between language, literature, and other scientific and humanities disciplines. It also discusses ways to develop curricula and research tools in Arabic studies through approaches that combine linguistic and literary heritage with modern knowledge, in a manner that keeps pace with scientific and technological transformations while preserving the specificity of Arabic sciences.
Dr. Mohammed Sulaiman Al Omeiri delivered the speech of the conference's organising committee, in which he clarified that interdisciplinary studies are founded on building cognitive and methodological relationships among scientific fields. This allows for the study of phenomena from multiple and integrated perspectives, contributing to the production of new knowledge that transcends the boundaries of the isolated treatment of each discipline.
He affirmed that the complexity and multiple levels of human phenomena necessitate the integration of ways of viewing them, while maintaining the precision of the disciplines and the specificity of their tools. He pointed out that inter-disciplinarity represents an extension of the maturity of specialised knowledge and a response to questions that require the contribution of more than one scientific field to address them.
He indicated that language and literature occupy an important position in this cognitive interaction, due to the connection of language to building concepts and organising human experience, and the connection of literature to imagination, memory, culture, history, cognition, and emotion. He clarified that the conference calls for formulating joint research questions wherein evidence and methodologies integrate to reach a more comprehensive interpretation of linguistic and literary phenomena.
He pointed out that the conference's topics allow for the convergence of linguistics, semiotics, and pragmatics, and the renewal of perspectives on grammar, morphology, rhetoric, and criticism. They also foster an openness to cognitive, neurological, psychological, and sociological knowledge, alongside computing and artificial intelligence, affirming the importance of distinguishing between the governing principles of reasoning and the specific procedures of each science.
The ceremony included a visual presentation, followed by the participants' speech delivered by Prof Yahya Bahoun from the University of Ghardaïa in Algeria. In it, he expressed the participants' appreciation to Sultan Qaboos University and to the organising, scientific, and administrative committees, valuing the opportunities the conference provides for meeting, dialogue, and the exchange of ideas and expertise.
He clarified that holding the conference reflects a renewed awareness of the importance of openness among disciplines, and that the Arabic language represents a space where the sciences of language, literature, history, philosophy, media, and technology intersect. He pointed out that the conference's themes combine heritage and contemporary studies, opening research paths that keep pace with scientific and technological developments while preserving the authenticity of the Arabic language and its civilizational standing.
He expressed his hope that the conference's proceedings would yield beneficial scientific results, and contribute to continuous communication and cooperation among researchers, as well as the development of curricula and disciplines, in service of science, knowledge, and the Arabic language. The opening ceremony also included a poetry recitation.
The conference discusses nine themes addressing the relationship of interdisciplinary studies with linguistics, pragmatics, semiotics, applied linguistics, grammar, morphology, rhetoric, criticism, and acculturation, in addition to the theme of language, literature, and artificial intelligence.
The conference's research papers address topics connecting linguistic and literary studies with various cognitive and applied fields. These include linguistic economy in leadership discourse and its impact on fulfilling responsibilities, features of cognitive imagery in the thought of Abdulqaher Al Jurjani, the conceptual structure among depression patients, and the pragmatics of functional discourse in ancient Arabic heritage.
In the field of artificial intelligence, the research papers address the transformations of literary and linguistic discourse and the limits of interaction between human creativity and the automated production of texts. They also cover the employment of smart technologies in evaluating writing in the Arabic language, building treebanks for texts from the eras of linguistic citation to support the computational processing of Arabic, alongside studying the artistic and narrative characteristics of AI-generated stories.
The conference seeks to enhance scientific dialogue among researchers, explore areas of mutual influence between Arabic and other sciences, and develop research tools in language and literature. Furthermore, it aims to discuss the potential for transitioning from individual studies to institutional partnerships and sustainable interdisciplinary research projects.
It also raises issues related to the controls for employing theories and concepts derived from various disciplines in the study of Arabic, the extent of the impact of interdisciplinary studies on the contents and methodologies of disciplines, and ways to achieve cognitive integration while taking into account the civilizational context of the Arabic language and its characteristics.