Rasoul Balavi

This study is premised on the hypothesis that the poetry of contemporary Emirati poet, Karim Maatouq, serves as a reflective mirror of his culture and heritage. A cultural semiotic analysis of his poetry reveals profound layers of anthropological significance. A range of analytical tools, including conceptual metaphor analysis, cultural binary opposition, semiotic space, and Carl Jung's theory of archetypes, have been employed to uncover these meanings. Through an in-depth analysis of Maatouq's metaphors, symbols, and discourses, this study seeks to answer questions about how the poet utilizes language to reflect his cultural identity, and how his poetics interact with the collective Arab and Islamic memory. The research adopted a descriptive analytical approach, and concluded that Karim Maatouq's poetry represents a prominent model of the interplay between language and culture in contemporary Arabic poetry. The poet employs language as a tool to express his cultural identity and connects his personal experiences with the collective memory of the Arab-Islamic nation. Our study revealed that the image schemas, clearly reflect elements and symbols of the ancient Arab heritage. Similarly, the Arab and Islamic heritage is reflected in the cultural binary oppositions in his poetry, most notably the fertility and aridity binary. The narrative paths in the semiotic squares, which served as an outlet for the poet to overcome fear, sadness, and sin, all exhibit elements of the cultural and Islamic heritage in the poet's life and that of his people. As for the semiotic space in Maatouq's poetry, Maatouq has employed various methods of invoking heritage to interact with individual and collective cultural memory, thus clearly revealing the semiotic space of Arab-Islamic culture.