Investigating Politeness in the Prayers of Prophets: A Quranic Discourse Perspective

Abstract

In religious contexts, prayers are essential communication between humanity and the divine. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the concept of politeness in the context of the Qur'anic prayers delivered by the Prophets. By adopting a Qur'anic discourse perspective, the study uncovered the underlying patterns and linguistic devices used in expressing reverence and humility before God. It also aimed to identify the communication strategies used in the prayers to determine how these principles were manifested. There was an argument that the communication strategy employed by the prophets implicitly manifested their humility and politeness, a fundamental attribute of the messengers of God. To address this, the politeness maxims proposed by Leech and insights into strategies in interpersonal communication developed by Brown and Levinson served as an analytical framework for examining politeness discourse strategies within prayer utterances. In addition, pragmatic identity and contextual methods were employed to understand the context of these utterances. The results showed several politeness maxims observed in the Qur'anic prayers of the prophets, including the maxims of tact, approval, and modesty. It also revealed the wisdom evident in their language and behavior. The Prophets utilized two strategies in their pursuit of politeness: the 'on-record' strategy, characterized by direct and explicit expressions and the 'off-record' strategy, involving indirect and subtle expressions. This study contributed to a deeper understanding of politeness's linguistic and cultural implications in religious communication. It also provided insight into the divine-human relationship portrayed in the Qur'an.