The Centrality of Pragmatics in Ideological Representation of Muslim Religious Speeches

Abstract

Muslim preachers’ discourse seems highly politically corrected, eloquent and formal. However, the problem is that the more the preacher is eloquent the more the ideologies are hidden. This paper addresses this issue by investigating several Muslim utterances produced by influential preachers on heated topics to unmask the implied meaning as well as the hidden ideologies of the preachers. To that end, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and criticality as ideologically manifested are interconnected to yield a considerable analysis model for discourse in general. Certain conclusions are drawn. Chief among them is that pragmatics is a broad central strategy through which discourse, in general, can be critically analyzed and consequently be referred to as a method rather than a concept in this regard.