Pragmatic Representations of Deictic Markers in Religious Discourse

Citation: Asmau Mohammed BELLO, Aminu BASHIR & Abubakar ABBA (2025). Pragmatic Representations of Deictic Markers in Religious Discourse. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 13, Number 1. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660

PRAGMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF DEICTIC MARKERS IN RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

By

ASMAU MOHAMMED BELLO

AMINU BASHIR

ABUBAKAR ABBA

Abstract

Friday sermon is one of the unique type of Islamic religious discourses which represents a compulsory act of Friday prayers mostly written in Arabic and translated into English language and various languages commonly understood in the community. Friday sermons serve as important communicative avenues for conveyance of messages to the Muslim community. It also depends on context for actual interpretation of meanings. Deictic markers are context dependent phenomenon with relative meanings which fill the gap between linguistic forms and their referents in the real world. Therefore, incorrect representation of deictic markers in Friday sermons may lead to misinterpretation, misconception and miscommunication of the actual intended meaning. Thus, the study examines the representations of deictic markers in Friday sermons in purposely selected six Friday sermon texts with two corpora each from the North, Central and South senatorial zones of Bauchi State. The study adopts Levinson’s (1983, 1995) frameworks of deixis, documentary technique and descriptive analytical and statistical methods in generating and analyzing the data. Pragmatically, the findings reveal that personal deixes function in representing varying referents and indicating distinct referring meanings depending on the changing contexts of Friday sermons. The study therefore, concludes that proper representation of deictic markers in Friday sermons could convey the actual intended messages. It also recommends for more studies on deixis so as to enhance proper deictic representations in the religious discourses.

1.0 Introduction

In Islam, the use of language in every aspect of worship is sacrosanct and inevitable. Accordingly, Qur’anic injunctions and prophetic traditions were made possible through the medium of language. Thus, communication is an integral part of worship in Islam, like Friday prayer which is also a compulsory act of worship accompanied by Friday sermon delivered to the congregants before the commencement of the prayer,

Friday sermon is composed using a lot of citations from the Quaran and Hadith as well as other scholarly recollections. In doing so, the proper representations of deictic markers as context dependent properties are necessary and important, because they fill the gaps between linguistic forms that are used and the referents to which they are adhered in real world. Accordingly, deictic referents or referring meanings might shift or change due the changing contexts in Friday sermons. Notably, if care is not taken, the deictic marker referring to the supremacy of God or the uniqueness of Prophet Muhammad might be shifted to an ordinary poor Imam or his, ignorantly be shifted to either the Almighty God or the Prophet. Thus, incorrect representations or misrepresentations of deictic marker could lead to misinterpretations and misconceptions of the intended messages as well as distortions or miscommunication of the intended information, thereby resulting into unsuccessful communication. This study therefore, examines the representations of deictic markers in Friday sermons in Bauchi State, Nigeria. To achieve this, the study has the following objectives:

(i) To find out the types of deictic markers used and their frequencies in the selected Friday sermons.

(ii) To examine the representations of deictic markers in the sermons under investigation.

2.0 Literature Review:

Pragmatics.

Language is studied at the levels of grammar, phonetics and phonology, semantics pragmatics among others. The concept of pragmatics has been viewed differently by different scholars. Leech (1983) states that pragmatics is the study of how meaning get to be interpreted in communicative situation in relation to the roles of the speaker and the hearer. This definition explicitly shows that pragmatics studies the interpretation of meanings according to the knowledge of the real world, the speaker’s speech act and the structure of the sentence as influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the hearer.

Accordingly, Morris (1983) asserts that pragmatics is concerned with the study of the relationship between expression and the use of this expression in communicative situation, particularly between sentences and context of situation in which they occur. This submission of Morris is supported by Levinson (1983) who also views pragmatics as the study of the relationship between language and the context, which is a basis in understanding the meaning of language. Similarly, Levinson’s stance that the relationship between context and language is paramount for better language understanding is also acceptable to Richards (1985) cited in Zainuddin (2012) who sees pragmatics as the study of language use in communication, particularly the relationship between context and situation in which they are used. Accordingly, Yule (1996), further maintains that pragmatics is the study of how speakers and hearers interpret meaning in particular context i.e, taking into consideration of the physical and social situation, knowledge of each other’s background and cultural conventions. He also emphasizes the fact that pragmatics has close association with syntax, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics and semiotics. According to Yule (1996), pragmatics study covers entailment, implicature, presupposition, speech acts and deixis.

The issue of interpretation of meaning according to a particular context is also captured by Bussman (1996) who states that pragmatics deals with the function of linguistic utterances and the proposition that are expressed by them depending upon their use in specific situations. While the association of pragmatics with sociolinguistics in Yule’s (1996) definition, is supported by Stazny (2005) who also considers pragmatics to be part of sociolinguistics because it studies verbal communication as a complex form of intentional behaviour. He further maintains that pragmatic studies verbal interaction in relation to its context for actual interpretation of meaning.

Deixis

The term deixis is derived from the Greek word “Deikikos” which means the process of pointing or indicating something (Levinson, 1983). Notably, according to Burk (1949) in Bunnet (2005), deixis is considered to be the features of language including verb tense and aspect, personal pronouns and adverbs of time and place that depend for their full interpretation on the context of their utterance. To Burk, the linguistic expressions that possess this property of context dependence were first termed as indexical symbols.

Meanwhile, according to Lyons (1977) in Zulyte (2014), deixis is the location and identification of persons, objects, events, processes and activities being talked about or referred to in relation to the spatiotemporal context created and sustained by act of utterance and the participation in it, typically of a single speaker and at least one addressee to a crowd of audience. This shows that the submission of Burk focuses most on the categories of deixis such as personal pronouns, adverbs, verb tense and aspect to be deictic markers which initially termed as indexicals, but Lyons on the other hand, emphasizes that deixis is interpreted as the location or deictic centre in which the utterance is made or anchored based the encoding time or space of the speaker and the addressee.

Levinson (1995) further expantiates that deixis is an important area studied in pragmatics, semantics and linguistics which refers to the phenomenon where understanding the meanings of certain words and phrases requires contextual information. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning are deictic. Levinson clarifies that deixis focuses the way in which language encode features of the context of utterance in their interpretations and analyses depend on the context of such utterance. This shows that deictics are features of human language which have reference to specific point in time, space and the speaking event between interlocutors. A word that depends on deictic clues is called a deictic or deictic word or deictic marker. Words are deictic if their semantic meanings are fixed. But their denotational meanings vary depending on time and or place. Meanwhile, Levinson also views that words or phrases that require contextual information to convey their meanings, for example, English pronouns are deictic and that deixis is closely related to both indexicality and anaphora.

Types of Deixis

Levinson (1995) points out that there are five types of deixis. They include personal, spatial, temporal, discourse and social deixis.

(i) Personal Deixis: According to Levinson (1995) personal deixis concerns with the determination of the role of participants of the speech event in which the utterance in question is uttered and reflected directly in the grammatical categories of persons. He further elaborates that person deixis that can be considered as truly deictic are personal pronouns. The first person is the speaker, the second person is the addressee and the third person who is neither the speaker nor the addressee but a very important participant in the speech situation.

(ii) Spatial Deixis: Levinson (1995) states that place or space deixis is concerned with the specification of locations to anchorage in the speech event and the speaker. The basic ways of referring to objects are by describing or naming them on one hand and by locating them on the other. Thus, spatial deictic words can specify to the location of participants at the time of utterance. There are proximal (close to the speaker) such as ‘this/these’ and distal (away from the speaker and sometime close to the addressee such as‘that/those’.

(iii) Temporal Deixis: Levinson (1995) asserts that the basis for the system to reckon and measure time in most languages seem to be natural and prominent cycles of day and night, months, seasons and years. In the same vein, Yule (1996) maintains that the basic type of temporal deixis in English is the choice of verb tense. A time line is divided into the present, the past and the future. Thus, temporal deixis can be grouped into lexical and grammatical.

 Also, Vlaika and Varikaite (2010) in Zulyte (2014) elaborate that temporal deictics identify processes which can be differentiated in three ways; the past process which took place before the speaker’s time, the present process which corresponds to the speaker’s time, and the future process will take place after the speaker’s utterance.

(iv) DiscourseDeixis: According to Yule (1996), discourse deixis is deictic reference to a portion of a discourse relative to the speakers’ current location in the discourse. Thus, discourse deixis is making reference to a particular portion of a discourse for interpretation based on the current location of the speaker.

Levinson (1995) states that discourse deixis or text deixis has to do with the encoding of reference to the portions of the unfolding discourse in which utterance (which include the text referring expression) shows that discourse or text deixis makes reference to the speaker’s current location. Meanwhile, discourse deixis is an expression which refers to certain discourse that contains the utterance and its relation to the text. Similarly, Levinson (1995) further explains that since discourse unfolds in time, it is naturally suitable that time deictic markers can be used to refer to portion of the discourse.

Therefore, it is important to note that discourse deixis or text deixis uses a wide range of deitic expressions, as it tends to borrow from others categories of deixis.

(v) Social Deixis: According to Fillmore (1997), social deixis indicates or expresses social differences that exist among the participants; most especially, the distinction between the social roles or status of the speaker, addressee or other referents in an interaction. While, Levinson (1995) describes social deixis as the predetermination of social differences that are relative to participants’ roles, mainly aspect of the social correlation that is possessed between the speaker and the addressee(s) or speaker and some referents. Social deixis is divided into two basic kinds namely; relational and absolute. Social deixis, however cannot be separated from concepts of honorifics. Honorific is concerned with the relative rank and respect between speaker, referent and also bystanders. Levinson (1995), states that social deixis is sometimes encoded in person deixis and it is related to the different social status (higher or lower) between speaker and addressee. Furthermore, it also deals with familiar and non-familiar addressee in certain languages. Social deixis is a deictic expression used for distinct social status of a person.

Friday Sermon

Friday sermon, according to Saddhono (2011), is an utterance delivered by an Imam(leader of the prayer) in sacred situation because it is a part of Islamic ritual which contains a call to the congregation to improve their faith towards God. Friday Islamic sermon is unique compared to regular forms of preaching, recitation, as well as any other type of preaching in Islam or other religions. Notably, there are numerous kinds of sermons – Christianity, Hinduism and other – religions but each with its unique and different features, styles, use of language e.t.c. Similarly, variations also exist within a particular religion, in Islam for example, Friday sermon differs from marriage or sallah festival sermons.

Furthermore, Abdul-fattah (2004) states that Friday sermon is a kind of speech delivered by the Imam, which includes items of preaching and reminds Muslims of God’s ordinances and forbiddances. It should also include items of praising God and invoking blessing on Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) at beginning and the making of supplications at the end of the sermon. It is also desirable for the Imam to sit for a short while during the delivery at certain interval and this makes it in the form of two connected sermons. Accordingly, Friday sermon should not be prolonged so that it may not be difficult act of worship for the worshippers. This is because, there could be among them some who are aged and sick and some who have their problems or affairs which they must tackle or attend to immediately after the prayer.

3.0 Theoretical Framework

The study examined and explored deixis in Friday sermons. Therefore, the study adopted the Levinson (1983, 1995) theory of deixis as its framework which systematized deixis in the five categories worth studying: personal deixis deals with persons in the utterance; spatial deixis focuses on the location of the utterance, and temporal deixis refers to the time of the utterance. Similarly, discourse deixis refers to a particular portion in the discourse, while social deixis deals with the social status of the participants in communicative situations.

Therefore, the phenomenon of deixis as a context-dependent property of language, has received greater research attention and recognition among scholars and researchers all over the world. But, only the aforementioned framework was selected and served as a focus and guide to this study.

3.1 Methodology:

Method of Data Collection

This study examines the use of deixis in the English translation of Friday sermons in Bauchi State. As such, the study adopted the purposive sampling technique in order collect six Friday sermons from six different Friday mosques across the three senatorial zones of the State. Thus, the following Friday prayer mosques were sampled for the collection of the sermons: Azare Central Mosque, Izala Mosque Matsango Azare, Darazo Central Mosque, Izala Mosque Kara Darazo, Bauchi Central Mosque and UBK Izala Mosque Bauchi respectively. More importantly, the sampling is limited to six corpora in order to give room for qualitative investigation.

Furthermore, the collection of the sampled corpora was done in six consecutive weeks as a particular Friday was dedicated to each of the selected mosques mentioned above.Before the date of the collection, the researcher visited and obtained approvals from all the chief Imams of the selected mosques. Thus, the researcher got all the sampled Arabic manuscripts in six weeks ready for translation into English language. The collected Arabic versions of the selected sermons were translated into English by Dr. Mahmood Yaya Azare, who holds PhD in Applied Arabic Linguistics and he is a translator and correspondent of German Deutsche Welle (DW) Radio Station covering Middle East. Similarly, the translated English versions of the Friday sermons were taken to Professor Ibrahim Bello Kano in the Department of English and European Languages, Bayero University Kano who vetted them before the analysis.

3.2 Method of Data Analysis

The study used the framework of deixis proposed by Levinson ((1995) as well as pragmatic descriptive-analytical and descriptive-statistical methods for analyzing the data generated. Levinson’s framework was used to guide the identification and classification, while the pragmatic descriptive-analytical approach was used to guide the textual analysis.

Similarly, the study employed documentary technique which greatly helped the researcher through reading, studying and analyzing, as well as identifying, classifying and check listing deixis according to their types. Moreover, descriptive statistics was also used in analyzing the data in tabular formats, frequencies and percentages score.

 

4.0 Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussion:

The Deixis in Friday Sermons

The table below presents the types of deixis found along with their frequencies and percentage scores. 

Table 1: Types of Deixis in Friday Sermons.

Deixis	Frequency	Percentage
Personal	512	28.76
Temporal	821	46.12
Spatial	115	6.46
Discourse	233	13.09
Social	99	5.56
Total	1780	100.00

Table 1 displays the types of deixis used in the sampled Friday sermons. The data on the table show that temporal deixis scores the highest frequency and percentage with a total of 821 appearances (46.12%), then followed by personal deixis with a total of 512 appearances (28.76%). Subsequently, they are distantly followed by discourse deixis with 233 (13.09%), spatial deixis with 115 (6.46%) and social deixis with 99 (5.56%) appearances respectively. Similarly, this indicates that a grand total of 1,780 appearances of deictics have been discovered in the six sampled Friday sermons. Additionally, all the five types of deixis have been found and represented.

Textual Analysis

This section presents, analyses and discusses eighteen extract representing eighteen distinct deictic markers referring to different referents.The analysis and discussion focus on the representations of deixis and their possible misrepresentations in Friday sermons as presented in the following order:

First and foremost, the first three extracts below depict the use of personal deixis in Friday sermons:

Extract 1: “I thank Him the pure and the Almighty for the good things and the blessings He has done for us.” (Text1)

Extract 2: “If My representatives refuse to give my family, I will make them taste hardship.” (Text 1)

Extract 3: “if I am alive next year, surely I will fast on the tenth and ninth days.”(Text 1).

Pragmatically, the personal deictic “I” in the context of the first extract refers to the Imam or presenter of the sermon who was speaking to his followers or audience before the commencement of the Friday prayer. While, in the context of second extract, the “I” refers to the Almighty God. Similarly, it also refers to Prophet Muhammad in the context of the third extract. On the other hand, the deictic marker “I”in the second and third extract could be misrepresented to refer to the Imam or presenter without considering their varying contexts. Notably, it is a serious offence in Islam for someone to attach himself or somebody to attach him with the attributes of God or the qualities of the Prophet.

Extract 4: “Surely, this year has indeed come towards you. So welcome and accept it with respect”. (Text1).

Extract 5: “You are the most Wise, the All Knowing, the Forgiver and Provider.” (Text 3)

Extract 6: God says “repent to God completely O’ you who believe, so that you may be rewarded” (Text 6)

Extract 7: “O’ you people, be cautious and let the previous generations serve as deterrent to you.”(Text 5)

Similarly, the personal deictic “you” refers to the followers who came to pray at that time. Thus, it is second person plural because the Imam or presenter was addressing a congregation. Therefore, this deictic marker due to the changing contexts also refers the Almighty God in extract 5, it refers to the believers in extract 6 and stands for the entire people in the context of extract 7 respectively. This shows the deictic element “you” has four different representations due to the four changing contexts, which the first context indicated a communication between the presenter and live audience, the second context indicated a communication with the Almighty God, the third context conveys message to only the believers and fourth context conveys message to the generality of people. Therefore, if all these referents could only mean the physical second person having a conversation with the physical speaker as in extract 4, the deictic referents in extracts 5, 6 and 7 are misrepresented or partially represented. For instance, the ‘You’ in extract extract 5 is only representing for the almighty God as the psychological second person singular. While, the ‘you’ in extract 6 is exclusively representing both the physical believers at time of the sermon and the psychological believers across the globe. Accordingly, the ‘you’ in extract 7 is representing both the physical live audience and the generality of people all over the world.

Extract 8: “He prohibits anything harmful and cherishes life, dignity and property.” (Text2).

Extract 9: “He is the light that lights up the darkness.”(Text 1)

Extract 10: “It is compulsory that he who wants to be free from the wealth or possessions of others should release to them before death snatches away his life.”(Text 2)

Extract 11: “Then, as to him who is given his book in his right hand; he shall be reckoned with by an easy reckoning”.(Text 4)

Accordingly, the personal deictic “He” in extract 8 represents the Almighty God. It is personal deictic referring to the singular masculine person outside the congregation at that time. It is also the deictic referent who the presenter was talking about which decodes a far distance from the speaker as well as connects the presenter, the congregation and the message. In the context of extract 9, it represents the Prophet Muhammad. However, in the context of extract 10, it represents anybody who wants to be free from the illegal possession of wealth. While in extract 11, it also stands for the person that received his book on the right hand in the hereafter. Conversely, the interpretation of the third person singular “he” as a personal deictic marker without linking it to the context of utterance could lead to prohibitions in Islam, misrepresentations of information or miscommunications of the actual intended messages.

Extract 12: “We must return to what is right and lawful, so that we can attain good life in this world and the hereafter.” (Text 6)

Extract 13: “Surely, you have come to us alone as We created you at the beginning.” (Text 4)

Furthermore, the personal deictic “we” represents both the Imam and the congregants in the context of extract 12. Contrastively, the “We” in extract 13 represents the Almighty God. Thus, the “we” in extract 12 is inclusive, where both the presenter of the sermon and his live audience are enjoined to do what is right and lawful. While in extract 13, the“We”is the royal one, which stands for first person singular “I”. The royal “we’ is used by the kings or those with sovereign power and authority. Therefore, misrepresenting and misinterpreting the royal “we” as plural could mean the Almighty God created human beings together with somebody. This perception is ascribing a partner to God, which is the greatest offence in Islam.

Secondly, the below underlined deictics “this” and “that” belong to the spatial deixis category which refers to the location or place at the time of utterance in Friday sermon.

Extract14: “O’ you brethren in Islam, after this life God the most High shall raise His servants on the Day of Judgment.” (Text4).

 Extract 15: Did there not come to you apostles from among you reciting to you commandments of your Lord and warning you of the meeting of this day? (Text 4)

Extract16: “On that day the Almighty God will not abase the Prophet and those who believe with him.” (Text 6).

The deictic “this” in the context of the extract 14 above, the Imam or presenter referred the audience to the life closer to his location and time of the presentation using spatial deictic “this”. Therefore, based on that context “this life” represents “this world or worldly life” which at the same time could also indicate a psychological proximity to both the presenter and the audience as well. But, the use of spatial deictic “that” in extract 16 indicates a distance further away to both the presenter and the worshipers there present. So, based on that context, “that day” represents the “Day of Judgment” which psychologically denotes far distance away from the presenter’s and the followers’ location and time of the utterance. Similarly, “this day” referred to the “Day of Judgement’ in the context of extract 15. In the aforementioned context “this day” represents the “Day of Resurrection”. Thus, “this” is proximal spatial deictic while “that” is distal spatial deictic which play key roles in determining or decoding both physical and psychological distance. On the other hand, “this life”, “this day” and “that day” could be misrepresented and misinterpreted as “the present life at the time of the sermon”, “the day of the delivery of the sermon” and “a previous day before the delivery of the sermon” respectively without looking at their varying contexts.

Thirdly, the underlined deictics in the extracts below depict the use of discourse deixis in Friday sermons:

Extract17: “It was clearly revealed that God destroyed people of Ada and Samud which He did not spare any one among them. Meanwhile, the same happened to the people of Nuh, who were most arrogant and trespassing.” (Text 5).

Extract 18: After this, there is an enrolment into the paradise or hellfire. (Text 4)

The discourse deictics “same” and “this” refer to the portion of discourse already mentioned. The presenter’s current location was the encoding point of reference to the previous portion in the sermons in extract 17 and 18 above. Therefore, the deictic word “same” represents the “destruction of the people of Ada and Samud” in the earlier or preceded portion of the discourse in extract 17. Equally, deictic marker “this” also represents “the distribution of books on the right and left hands” previously mentioned in the preceded portion of the discourse in extract 18. Thus, they function as the anaphoric discourse deictic markers. Accordingly, the deictic words “same” and “this” could be misinterpreted and misrepresented without referring to the previously mentioned or preceded portions of the discourse, thereby breaking the chain of communication which leads to distortion or misconception of the actual intended information.

5.0 Summary of Findings

The presented, analysed and discussed data produced the following findings:

The study established that a total of 1,780 appearances of deictics have been discovered in the six sampled Friday sermons. Similarly, all the five types of deictic markers have been found and represented with persona deictics which appear 512 times (28,76%), temporal deictics 821 (46.12%), spatial deictics115 (6.46%), discourse deictics 233 (13.09%) and social deictics 99 (5.56%) respectively.

Personal deictics represent varying referents in Friday sermons as well as indicates distinct referring meanings depending on the contexts of the sermons.

Spatial deictics indicate various representations and meanings as well as spacify the domains or locations of the referents. They also represent both physical and psychological distances and proximal and distal locations at the time of the utterance based on the changing contexts of the sermons.

Discourse deictics also depicts different representations and meanings in the sermons. Some of the discourse deictics found in the sampled Friday sermons are referring to the previous portions of the sermons, as such they fuction as anaphoric discourse deictic markers.

 On the other hand, misrepresentations of deictic markers in Friday sermons could lead to a great offence in Islam tantamount to the associating a partner to God or claiming His powers, if the personal deictics elements referring to the Almighty God are shifted to the Prophet, Imam or any other participant in the sermon. Similarly, if the personal deictic markers referring to Prophet Muhammad or other Prophets are shifted to the presenter or any other person the sermons could be a degradation and claiming the positions of the Prophets which are serious offences in Islam.

Accordingly, if the personal deictics representing the Imam are shifted to any other ordinary person or participant in the sermon or the vice versa could be misrepresentations of the actual referents which lead to misinterpretations and misconceptions of the intended messages.

Consequently, misrepresentations of spatial and discourse deictic markersin Friday sermons could lead to misinterpretations, misconceptions, breakages and distortions of the actual intended information which result into unsuccessful communication.

6.0 Conclusion

The study discusses that all the types of deictic markers are found in Friday sermons with significant frequency and percentage scores. Thus, deictic elements or expressions depict varying representations and meanings based on the changing contexts of Friday sermons. Conversely, deictic markers could be misrepresented without forging a link with their changing contexts, thereby leading to misinterpretations, misconceptions and miscommunications of the intended information.

7.0 Recommendations

 The study offers the following recommendations:

1. The study recommends for more researches on deictic markers or expressions in varying Islamic religious discourses, because there are still other areas that need to be explored such as Ed al Fitr and Ed al Kabir sermons, and so on. This can bring to the fore the use of deictic elements in other distinct Islamic religious discourses

2. The study also recommends that the Imams should be diligent, constructive and deictic conscious in composing their sermons for effective delivery of the intended messages to the addressees.

3 The study also recommends for additional deictic investigations in Christian religious discourses such as Biblical chapters and different topical preaching and lectures. This can equally reveal how deictic markers are used in varying Christian religious discourses.

     

 

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