The Jewish Rabbis’ Rudeness as Portrayed in the Holy Qur’an: A Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

Rudeness is one of the offensive communicative behaviors which is often intentionally done by the speaker in certain communicative encounters. Such a kind of behavior can cause a communication clash through breaking the social interaction norms of the social context in which it occurs. In fact, it is a disrespectful and insensitive conduct used as a means of scorning, insulting, ridiculing, or even showing disregard towards others. Rudeness can be found in various types of communicative discourse including political, workplace, family, and even religious ones. This last type of discourse has not received its due investigatory attention, particularly from a pragmatic point of view. Thus, the current research work attempts to scrutinize rudeness pragmatic aspects in a certain religious discourse, namely that of the Holy Qur’an. Precisely, it attempts to reveal the pragmatics of rudeness as manifested by Jewish Rabbis when they address God, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and His Messenger Moses. It pragmatically focuses on rudeness types and strategies as used by those people to reflect their moral corruption, aberration, and their intended distortion of God and his messengers. To conduct a qualitative data analysis, an analytical framework is developed by the study. Additionally, a quantitative analysis is performed by means of some statistical methods to quantitatively support the findings of the pragmatic analysis. Then, some conclusions are introduced on the basis of the findings of the two types of analyses. Among the most important conclusions introduced is that the Jewish Rabbis prefer to use Strategic Rudeness in addressing or referring to God, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and His Messenger Moses. In so doing, they indicate a sort of moral corruption.