Deixis in English Islamic Friday sermons: A pragma-discourse analysis

Abstract

Although deixis has received increasingly academic attention in linguistic research, its use in sermons, particularly in the Islamic context, has been largely underexplored. Therefore, this paper examined deixis in Islamic Friday sermons from the perspective of pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on Levinson’s Framework, it aimed at analyzing three main types of deixis (personal, temporal, and spatial), focusing on their forms, features, functions, and frequency. The data were a corpus of 70 sermons compiled by the researcher from various online websites. The study employed qualitative and quantitative methods to meet the purpose of the study. The findings revealed that these three deictic types were relatively common in the language of the respective corpus with the personal type being predominant, deictically pointing to different referents whose interpretation was sensitive to the context in which they occurred. As an affectively powerful tool in the corpus, the preachers utilized deixis to serve a wide variety of functions on the discourse and pragmatic levels. In the corpus, deictic expressions worked as a discourse strategy to persuade the listeners by drawing their attention and engaging them in the message of the sermon and to signal and organize the flow of information in the ongoing discourse. They also served to enhance togetherness, intimacy, and politeness between the preachers and their audience. This study is hoped to present a good basis for further linguistic investigation of deixis in other languages and religions to illuminate how deictics work in sermonic discourse.

Religious Moderation Through Friday Pulpit in Campus Environment

“…For example, the pragmatic study revealed by Alkhawaldeh on the use of hiss in the script of Friday sermons. Variations of hiss are used as a means of language to convey persuasion and show the familiarity of the speaker with the worshipper [8]. In addition, the diverse conditions of pilgrims require sociolinguistic means to touch all layers of worshippers.…”

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“…Deictic phrases were used as a discourse tactic in the corpus to persuade listeners by capturing their attention and engaging them in the sermon's message, as well as to signify and arrange the flow of material in the continuing discourse. They also increased the preachers' and their audience's unity, intimacy, and politeness (Alkhawaldeh, 2022).…”

Gue, Saya, Aku, Kita: Person Deictic Comparison between Male and Female Indonesian Food Vloggers

“…As one of the branches in pragmatic, deixis has drawn numerous interests in linguistic studies since it is a common and a universal feature in regular conversation as well as in written productions. and Alkhawaldeh (2022) mentions that deixis features a word or a phrase that points out people (e.g., I, you) known as person deixis, time (e.g., yesterday, today) known as temporal deixis, or place (e.g., there, here) known as spatial deixis. Furthermore (C. J. adds two other kinds of deixis: discourse deixis which reveals the fraction of text (e.g., this, that) and social deixis that refers to the social class (e.g., your highness, your majesty).…”

“…Deictic and non-deictic expressions rely on whether the expression receives parts of its meaning from the current situation context. According to Alkhawaldeh (2022), there is a vague boundary to differentiate between deictic and non-deictic expressions by which several expressions can provide both deictic and non-deictic role based on the context. Alkhawaldeh (2022) provides examples as follows: I couldn't help you yesterday, but today is fine.…”

“…According to Alkhawaldeh (2022), there is a vague boundary to differentiate between deictic and non-deictic expressions by which several expressions can provide both deictic and non-deictic role based on the context. Alkhawaldeh (2022) provides examples as follows: I couldn't help you yesterday, but today is fine. 'Yesterday' and 'today' in this sentence are deictics as they refer to a specific time based on the speaker's intention.…”