Expressive Speech Acts in Dr. Haifaa Younis’s Preaching: A Pragmatic Study in Islamic Communication Ethics
Abstract
This study investigates expressive speech acts in Dr. Haifaa Younis’s digital preaching and analyzes how this speech acts reflect Islamic communication ethics. Dr. Haifaa Younis was selected as the research subject because her dual professional and religious background as an Iraqi-American physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, and as a woman preacher and founder of The Jannah Institute positions her sermons at a distinctive intersection of medical familiarity with women lived experience and Islamic theological authority, producing preaching that is simultaneously persuasive, doctrinally grounded, and emotionally compassionate. Drawing on Searle’s (1979) speech act theory and Mawlana’s (2007) ethical communication framework, the study examines the linguistic strategies used to convey moral values and ethical messages in contemporary digital Islamic discourse. A qualitative descriptive approach was employed to analyze 36 expressive utterances collected from two YouTube lectures published by the Jannah Institute. The data were identified, classified, and interpreted based on the categories of expressive speech acts and the principles of Islamic communication ethics. The findings reveal six types of expressive speech acts: praising (9 occurrences), expressing hope (8), encouraging (7), thanking (6), empathy (5), and blaming (1). Among these categories, praising emerged as the most dominant form, indicating that moral guidance is frequently conveyed through appreciation and admiration rather than direct obligation or criticism. Furthermore, each expressive speech act reflects key ethical principles proposed by Mawlana, including the unity of God (tawhid), enjoining good and forbidding evil, global community, piety, and trustworthiness. The study concludes that expressive speech acts play a significant role in constructing compassionate, ethically grounded, and emotionally engaging digital Islamic preaching discourse.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.31004/jele.v11i3.2636
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