PRAGMATIC DIMENSIONS OF LINGUISTIC ACCOMMODATION IN THE QUR’ANIC LANGUAGE

Abstract

This study explores the pragmatic aspects of the Holy Qur’an, focusing on how it engages diverse audiences through linguistic accommodation. It examines the communicative strategies employed in Qur’anic discourse to address different groups—believers, disbelievers, and the People of the Book—by adapting language in accordance with audience identity and context. The research responds to a gap in Qur’anic pragmatics, where limited attention has been devoted to the systematic analysis of audience-oriented discourse. A qualitative approach was adopted, with purposive sampling used to select verses that illustrate accommodation strategies. The analysis is grounded in Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory, Speech Act Theory, Relevance Theory, and the concept of implicature. Each verse was examined for pragmatic markers, including speech acts, politeness strategies, presuppositions, and implicatures, through a discourse-pragmatic lens. Findings indicate that the Qur’an skillfully adjusts tone, lexical choices, and rhetorical style to enhance persuasion and moral guidance, thus ensuring communicative effectiveness across varied audiences. The study concludes that linguistic accommodation constitutes a central feature of Qur’anic discourse and a key factor in its enduring impact.