The Pragmatic Function of Deixis in Ayatollah Al-Sistani’s Guidelines to Fighters against ISIS

Abstract

The present paper is an analysis of the micro pragmatic component namely deixis utilized in Ayatollah al Sistani’s guidelines to fighters against ISIS. It aims to identify the categories of  deixis that Ayatollah al Sistani employs for shaping a relationship with fighters against ISIS and expose the most current one .In addition, it aims to show the impact of utilizing deixis in conveying the speaker’s intentions. The researchers follow a qualitative and quantitative method of analysis. The qualitative analysis is based on Levinson’s (1983) classification of deixis. Chi square is utilized as a statistical tool for the quantitative analysis. The study concludes that Ayatollah al-Sistani’s guidelines witness the presence of the five categories of deixis namely: personal, temporal, spatial, social, and discourse. However, they occur with different scattering and a dominance of personal deixis across sermons (48.97%) signifying a focus on participants in the speech event. Elevated percentage of personal type shows the speaker’s aim to personally involve the audience, personalizing sermons and cultivating a feeling of inclusion or accountability