Im/politeness in Muslim Discourse: A Study of Nigerian Friday Sermons

Abstract

This paper investigated the use of im/politeness in Muslim sermons or Khutbahs. The study attempts to show that the Muslim sermon, in its aim to impart various types of religious information to the congregation, is a communicative event that is capable of generating ill-feelings among its various audiences. The Imam is thus expected to make strategic use of politeness elements in his delivery or risk compromising the efficacy of the sermon. To identify these elements, a modified version of Brown and Levinson's (1987) model of politeness was used as an analytical framework. Using naturally occurring data collected from Friday sermons, the study shows that the Imams used several politeness strategies identified in the Brown and Levinson model. Furthermore, the inclusion of data comprising sermons delivered in Yorùbá adduced evidence of the influence of the Yorùbá culture in the linguistic politeness practices of the Imams. In addition, it is shown that although the Imams used the traditional Face Threatening Acts (FTAs), these largely amount to ‗conventional aggression' (Harris, 2001)or ‗unmarked FTAs' (Dynel 2015). The study concluded that the Imams were characteristically polite in their delivery, and politeness is an important feature in a religious discourse such as the Friday sermon.

Framing and Group Polarisation in Hate Speeches in Nigeria

“…Other linguistic studies on the inter-connectedness between framing and hate speech abound. They include Arofah (2018) whose work on rhetorical analysis of hate speech submits that hate speech rhetoric neglects the ethos and logos aspects and mostly relies on pathos aspect to persuade its readers to hate; Simon (2019) who worked on self-restraint on hate speech, arguing that individuals may freely choose not to speak hatefully about others, anchoring it on three analytically distinct categories of normative codes of civility, ethics, and morality; Jamekolo (2017) who argues that the media have the potential to accentuate hate speech through news reporting and advocated socially responsible political journalism to ensure media compliance with legal provisions applicable to hate speech in Nigerian politics, and Kareem (2018) whose work on online communication opines that Islam and Muslims are the target of some Facebook posts whose language and semiotic details represent hate speech which may sometimes amount to a call for genocide.…”

Deontic Modality in Ghanaian Pente-Charismatic Sermons

“…With the importance attached to sermons, linguistic studies have been carried out on both Christian and Islamic sermons. Most of the studies on Islamic sermons are centered on their Friday Sermons (Underwood and Kamhawi, 2015;Abdel and Eldin, 2014;Olaniyan and Oyekola, 2006;Kareem, 2018). Relatively, Christian sermons have received more linguistic research attention (Kareem, 2018).…”

“…Most of the studies on Islamic sermons are centered on their Friday Sermons (Underwood and Kamhawi, 2015;Abdel and Eldin, 2014;Olaniyan and Oyekola, 2006;Kareem, 2018). Relatively, Christian sermons have received more linguistic research attention (Kareem, 2018). The preaching of Christian sermons seeks to work on the salvation of worshippers and deliver them from emotional, spiritual, social and political challenges (Idowu, 2007).…”