Prof. Dr. Salih Mahdi Addai (Ph.D.)1 Ahmed Fleih Hassan2
English Department, College of Education for Human Sciences, University of Babylon, Iraq.
Email: salih_mehdi71@yahoo.com
University of Babylon, Iraq.
HNSJ, 2022, 3(5); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj3522
Published at 01/05/2022 Accepted at 20/04/2022
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the speech act of warning in the religious sermons delivered by the representatives of Ayatollah Al Sistani, High religious authority in Najaf. Religious sermons are often infiltrated by various acts such as speech act of warning to direct people to do something for their advantages. Speech acts of warning are used to guide Iraqis against the unexpected dangers. The model used in the study is Searle’s categorization of speech act and its types.
Key Words: religious, sermon, warning.
1. Introduction
Language is mainly used as a means of communication through which people can communicate and exchange their ideas, opinions emotions and so on. This communication often occurs where individuals are within their social gathering, celebrations, religious occasions or any other social context. It is clear that the language of religion is one of the means through which certain type of discourse is delivered where forms of language are used to reflect the condition of acts used in variedly religious speeches (Sherzer ,1990).
Language reflects types of discourses with its communication roles. Discourse can deal with those the forms of socializing practices of language. It is significantly noted that the use of language is found in varieties of social surroundings. Religious application of communication and language use are viewed as a socialized and organized practices of the social means of language as its directions are to be considered as effective and influential as lawful instructions (Fairclough, 1992).
2. Speech act theory
Speech act theory is a theory to the study of language that is attributed to the philosophy of language and it is originated by famous British philosopher J. L. Austen in the mid of 1950.This theory developed as he published his famous “How to do things with words” in 1962 that set the principles that govern this theory which later comes to gain as lot of interest in term of the linguistic studies Austen makes clear that utterances can represent act and the speaker can performs acts as he speaks out the utterance in specific situation. His propositions have set forth issues win which he set conspicuous distinction between the grammatical construction of the sentence and the concept of utterances. Thus, there are two concepts consequently raised, namely, the formal and grammatical element of sentence construction and the unit of interaction or communication that is to say,an utterance (Trosborg , 1995).
The theory of speech act makes clear that language can demonstrate functions and speakers uses the function as they use language for communication. The entire assumption of this theory is that language is basically a pack of acts that are consistently performed in the course of communication. Thus, this fact implies the condition that speaking language is mainly performing acts such as delivering statement, making promising, issuing orders, setting warning, pinpointing questions. These actions are considered to follow certain rules and convention that can in some way affect the behaviour of the participant (Searle, 1969).
2.1 J. Austen Categorization of Speech Act
Austen (1962) put forward to two major conservations in the basis of speech act theory. The first fact is that it is mistakenly to claim that all sentences are statements. He confirmed that as there is a conversation among participants, there are varieties of construction such as making question, exclamatory, commanding as in;
A: “Are you serving?”
B: “Excuse me!”
A: “Give me the dry roasted ones.”
Secondly he stated that such as above examples sentences represent actions. In the process of uttering them, the speaker performs act of making command, promise, warning, threating and so on rather that describing event of things. These tow concepts developed in his theory as he came up with the famous dichotomies which are ‘performative and constative’. The former manifests the action of the utterance where the latter can be concerned with description of the events.
2.1.1 Constatives vs. Performatives As Austen (1962) continued to shape up his theory of speech as he proposed the term of ‘constative performative.’ He made clear that constative is related to the type of utterance that is meant to describe a certain declaration and it is either true or false. The performative is mainly derived from the verb ‘perform’ which indication the acts that are found in the utterance.
Moreover, Austen (1962), set the main feature of these two distinctive dichotomies as he refers to the fact that the main feature of the constative is that it is used to describe statement and it is can either true or false proposition. He goes on to manifest the concept of performative as he assigned tow meaning to this type. It is either specified in certain jobs or it can be used to exert action or acts. Austen makes clear that an uttering an utterance is similar to performing an act. He set forth an utterance instances which can make clear demonstration for such conditions as in;
“I name this ship ‘Liberté’.
“I apologize”
“I welcome you’
“I advise you to do it”2.1.2 Explicitness and Implicitness of Performatives Anther clarification made by Austen is that there are explicit and implicit performative .explicit type of performative can set the act clear. Explicit perfomative is type of performative act which is denoted by one of the action verb that naturally reflects the act being denoted by the utterance such as saying;
A: ‘I promise that I shall be there’.
It is clearly noted that the so far mention example of utterance represents an explicit performative act as the grammatical structure express the mood of the act as well it is found in the tone and the intonation. On another hand the implicit perfomative is the one that can’t be suggested from the grammatical unit.
3. Speech act of Warning
Warning is regarded one types of the speech act that widely used. This act is considered as one of the common type of speech act. This versatility is demonstrated in a variety of structural forms that are used to make warning. This act is often defined as “to tell somebody about something, especially dangerous or unpleasant that is likely to happen, so that he can avoid it”(Quirk et al., 1985).
In addition, according to Austen, warning is viewed as one of the exercitive that reflects the condition of exercitive of being right, powerful or influential as in;
- “You are warned that the bull is dangerous”.
On another hand, according to Searle (1977), warning is considered as on of the directive of speech act categorization in which the speaker directs the hearers to do something. Searle thus defined warring as “the giving of a decision in favour of or against a certain course of action, or advocacy of it…. Its consequences may be that others are ‘compelled’ or ‘allowed’ or ‘not allowed’ to do certain acts”
Moreover according to Leech (1983) considered the verb’ warn’ to set in more than of classification. First, it is either used assertively in which the speaker warns about something which will happen or it is used directively in which the speaker warns the hearer to do something about the certain case.
Moreover, Lyons, (1977) stated that warning is an act in which the header is being warned to do something of certain this which is viewed as unpleasant or desirable. It is clear that the hearer is is alarmed of something that is not beneficiary to him. The act of warning can be connected in some way to the act of advice as the speaker informs the addressee of something as being not good for him/her. This sense of warning is thus interpreted as advising something not be done.
The act of warning is often attributed tot directive classification of acts in which “the speaker warns the hearer against doing an action”. Warning means that he/ she shouldn’t do something because is it harmful or non-beneficiary to them. Therefore, doing the thing can put them at risk. This kind of act can be demonstrated in;
- “I warn you from driving so fast”
- I warn you that you shouldn’t drive so fast”
The both utterances above, the speaker warns the addressee not to do a bad action, that is to say, driving fast. Thus, warning can include the meaning of request or command where the speaker warns the hearer in term of requesting or commanding to do something. The act of warning often predicts the future of the hearer action. This can be shown in the example which says “I warn you to stop smoking” can somehow predict the feature action of the hearer that is to say, to stop smoking. Furthermore, act of warning can have assertive meaning in which the speaker can assert that smoking can be dangerous ( Parker and Riley,2005) .
3.1 Categories of Warning
According to Searle (1977), there are various methods or strategy which can be used as classification of ‘warning act’ which can be summarized as follows;
3.1.1Explicit Waning
The force of illocutionary act is openly expressed in the utterance, then it contain the perfomative of basic format as in’ I (here by)Vp you by that U” . This type of explicit warning can underlie (U) in the utterance. This type of warning can have (Vp) which demonstrate the illocutionary forced explicit as in;
- “I (here by) warm you that the bull is about to charge”.
3.1.2 Implicit Warning as there is no any performance expression in the utterance , then the illocutionary force is comprehend pragmatically .Therefore, the use of elliptical expression or imperative can be used in this type of warning as in;
- Keep o of me
- Danger
- Fire! (Korbuyvo, 2005).
3.1.3 Direct Warning
This type, as the name suggests , shows that there is a direct connection between the form of the sentence whether ‘ imperative , interrogative , or declarative with its communicative function as either command , statement , question , then the act is direct one. Direct wanting is found in;
- They warn him to stay away.
It is clear that there is a direct connection between the declarative sentence and it warning function (Yule, 1996).
3.1.4 Indirect warning
The indirect act often explains that there is no connection between the structural form and the function of the sentence. The indirect as of warning can be expressed in various forms such as interrogative or the imperative form as in
- ‘Stay away from my place.
- Would you keep off my privacy?
4. Religious speeches Religious sermons are often proved to be very important means to impact the behaviour of the society and affect the opinions of the society towards something. As for the importance of the meaning, so do their structure, sermons are considered to have very distinguishing types of formula that makes the sermon to show authority and power in their words. One of the basic feature that are considered as empowering one is the reference to the source of public belief such as reference to the holy books ,prophets sermons , theological expressions and so on. In addition, the languages of these sermons are often described to be highly meaningful as there are effective metaphorical uses, impersonal interaction, paradoxical manipulations and paralinguistic features (Olanrewaju,2004).
One major issue of the religious sermons is that they are most often attributed to divine origin or source. In addition, the credible source and the origin can make the effect of these sermons to be very effective in changing the behaviour of the society, likely to say, the speech of prophet or Imam. In Islam, the Quranic reference and the Hadiths of Sunna (prophet’s speeches) are very religiously elevated and respected. Khatibs are often authorized and guaranteed their sermons of quotations from Quran and references to the hadith from the prophet’s reported narratives. These techniques are viewed as effective means to gain and influence behaviour as well as grasping the attention (Netton, 2001).
In Islamic tradition, khutba, the religious sermon, is often delivered to the public in Friday. These khutbas are weekly delivered and very Friday where instructions, directions, warnings, religious issues and clarifications are made publically in the light of Islam and Sunna. This practice of delivering Khutbas are as old as the time of the Prophet Mohammad ( peace and blessing be upon him and his progeny).It has been reported that the prophet used Khutbas to issue out direction , instruction , command, and religious teachings as well as many other issues that are of great importance to Muslims and the Muslim world. It is often that khutbas are started with the call for praying then followed by the time of khutbas. This heritage goes in the in the Muslim world where Imams, religious figures are destined to deliver this Khutbas. Imams or khatibs are often showing to have a high and credible knowledge of the issues that are religious. They usually treat issues that of great importance for Muslims and the Muslim world a whole dealing with different as such as social, political or religious issues (Juliastui, 2012).
5. Methodology
5.1 Data Collection and Description
The researcher adopted the model of Searle’s speech act classification to investigate the speech act of warning found in the religious sermons of Ayatollah Al Sistani and these sermons are obtained from the official website (http://www.sistani.org/arabic/archive/24925/). This study is limited to the religious sermons of The High religious authority in Najaf and delivered by his trusted representatives Al Karbalai and al Safi in The Holy place of Karbala.
5.2 The Model Searle’s classification of speech act is the adopted model in this study. This model is the updated version of the earlier classification and it is considered sufficient in the process of investigating acts according to the model presented by Searle (1975) because it is concerned with analyzing the pragmatic (illocutionary) acts. According to this classification, five types of acts are presented with the relation to the verb relying on the illocutionary force and the reaction of the participants and these categories can be shown as Assertive, Directives, Commissive, Expressives and Declaratives.
6. Data Analysis Extract 1
“إن العراق وشعبه يواجه تحدياً كبيراً وخطراً عظيماً وإن الارهابيين لا يهدفون إلى السيطرة على بعض المحافظات كنينوى وصلاح الدين فقط بل صرحوا بأنهم يستهدفون جميع المحافظات ولا سيما بغداد وكربلاء المقدسة والنجف الأشرف ، فهم يستهدفون كل العراقيين وفي جميع مناطقهم”
“Iraq and its people are facing a great and dangerous challenge that terrorists do not aim to control some of the provinces as Ninava and Salah ul – Din only , but they said they are targeting all provinces , especially Baghdad and Karbala and Najaf, they are targeting all Iraqis in all their areas” 13, June , 2014
This extract delivered by al Karbalai, a representative of Ayatollah AL Sistani in Imam Hussein’s (Peace be upon him) holy shrine as he addresses Iraqi people of the great danger that face the country due to the barbaric attack of ISIS who came to destroy the country of Iraq and they aren’t aiming at destroying the Holy places but the entire country as well as the holy places which are found in Najaf Karbala and Baghdad. It is clearly demonstrated that the speech reflects act of warning as the illocutionary act here is manifested into that the speaker is makes the society and the community of Iraq to realize the danger that is planned. There is a warning to the society as to be careful and ready to face and defeat the enemy.
Extract 2
” المرجعية الدينيتأسف عما حصل للكثير منهم من الأذى نتيجة عدم توفر الاستعدادت الكافية لقبول تطوّعهم وهي تأمل أن تتحسّن الأمور في المستقبل القريب”
“The religious authority regrets what happened to many of them because of the lack of sufficient readiness to accept their volunteering and hopes that things will improve in the near future” 20,June , 2014 .
Al Safi , the other representative of the religious authority declared that the religious authority represented by Al Sistani regrets that condition n of the volunteers as they rush to defend their country from the savage group of ISIS as many of them lack even the simplest equipment that are needed in this crucial confrontation. Thus, this condition can result in weakening them as they fight the enemy. There is a speech act of warning. The illocutionary force her is directed toward the government as they are responsible for honouring the volunteers and support them with the necessary equipment that help them to achieve victory against the enemy. The warning is directs to the government that these volunteers have to be fully and appropriately equipped d and weaponized.
Extract 3
” إنّ التحديات والمخاطر الكبيرة الحالية والمستقبلية التي تحدق بالعراق والتي تهدد السلم الأهلي ووحدة النسيج الاجتماعي للشعب العراقي”
“The huge challenges and dangers, current and in the future, which beset Iraq and threaten the communal peace and the unity of the social fabric of the Iraqi people” 9,July , 2014.
In the above extract, Al Karbalai declared a warning to the society and the political leaders alike concerning the condition of unity and the peace of Iraq. He declared that this unity and peace are at risk. Society and political leaders have to cooperate in this time to come out of this critical time and it is their responsibility to make right decisions to come over this condition damage the enemies plan. It is clear that this speech expose warning act. The illocutionary y force is meant to make the Iraqi society aware of the danger of dismantling its unity. The act of warning is made to Iraqi unity which becomes at risk.
Extract 4
” ونذكّر الجميع بما قاله النبي المصطفى (صلى الله عليه وآله) في حجة الوداع عندما خاطب الناس بقوله : ((ألا وان دماءكم وأموالكم وأعراضكم عليكم حرام كحرمة يومكم هذا في شهركم هذا في بلدكم هذا ، ألا ليبلغ الشاهد الغائب)) و بقوله (صلى الله عليه وآله): ((من أعان على قتل مسلم بشطر كلمة لقى الله عز وجل يوم القيامة مكتوب بين عينيه : آيس من رحمة الله(( “
“We remind everyone of what was said by the Prophet al-Mustafa (may God bless him and his family) in the Farewell Hajj((he who helped in the killing of a Muslim, by even a word, he will meet God on the Day of Judgement with it written between his eyes: he will not receive the mercy of God)” 9,July , 2014
Karbalai warns the volunteers and the members of public mobilization as well as the armed forces to show respect and kindness to their brothers and sister in the usurped land and areas. They have to give those people all their rights and never deprived them of none. Nin this extract has a warning act as there is warning illocutionary force to the fighters and the security forces to never kill or harm the citizens who are under the savage group in the exploited land. Those people have to be respected and treated kindly regardless of their religion or ethnic affiliations.
Extract 5
” يمرّ بلدنا الحبيب العراق بأوقات عصيبة ويُعاني من أزماتٍ متنوعة ٍ أثّرت بصورة ٍ جدّية ٍ على حياة المواطنين ، وكانت لها تداعيات كبيرة على معيشة الكثيرين منهم . فمن جانب يواجه البلد الارهاب الداعشي”
“Iraq, is going through difficult times and suffers from various crises that have seriously affected the lives of citizens and have had great repercussions on the lives of many of them. On the one hand, the country faces the terrorism of Da’ash” 7 , August , 2015.
Al Safi, in this extract, tries to warn from the different crisis that comes to face the Iraqi society. These bad conditions can affect the life of the citizens. There is a speech act of warning from the barbaric attach of ISIS who aim at spreading terrorism and damage in Iraq. The illocutionary force of warning act is here to make the Iraqi people and their political leaders to be aware of the danger that is planned for them.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that religious sermons of Ayatollah al- Sistani are highly effective in avoiding the danger that was immediate to Iraqi people. Those sermons are full of speech act of warning. It has played a very significant role in making Iraqi people resist dangerous crisis. It is also concluded that speech act of warning that has come to impact the behaviour of the people and the political leader as well. Religious sermons are considered to expose the role of alarming tools of the dangers and the expected dilemmas that the society can face.
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