Deciphering Half Moon: An Intertextual Study of Taufiq Rafat's Selected Poems

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21080973

Abstract

Taufiq Rafat, the foremost poet of English in Pakistan, also known as "Father of Pakistani Idiom". His poetry depicts Pakistani culture, identity and its construction in finest styles. This research aims to explore contextual understanding of culture and lexical representation in the collection of the poems by Taufiq Rafat in his book "Half Moon". By applying Hermeneutic theory (1960), this study will scrutinize the language structures used by the poet under the shade of intertextual structural approach. This study unravels the intricate layers of meaning, intertextuality, and ideological stance embedding in Rafat's poetry. This research is based on quantitative approach. A survey of 50 participants provides additional insights into readers' perception and interpretation of Rafat's work, showing a nuanced understanding of Rafat's impact on his audience. This quantitative data is analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to examine the relationship between language comprehension and culture interpretation in the selected text.  This research develops literary understanding of poetry and gives new perspective to future researchers for in-depth study and application of linguistics methods on literary works.