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Imams' Language Use in Mosque Sermons IMAMS’ LANGUAGE USE IN MOSQUE SERMONS Ali Abdulkarim Alsaawi Thesis submitted as partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Integrated PhD in Educational and Applied Linguistics Newcastle University School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences November, 2017 Dedication This thesis is dedicated to: My mother, Hilah, for her powerful inspiration and support My father, Abdulkarim, who has showered me with support and encouragement My wife, Abeer, for her patience and care My son, Abdulkarim, and my daughter, Kinda, for making my life brighter i Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis would not have been accomplished without the help and support of a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and profound appreciation to my supervisor, Dr Peter Sercombe, for his constant support, guidance and patience. I also extend my thanks to my thesis examiners, Dr Ahmad Nazari and Professor Pauline Dixon, for the time and effort they voluntarily put into reading and commenting on my thesis. I was lucky enough to receive constructive feedback from researchers who attended my presentations at four conferences, namely the 14th ECLS Postgraduate Conference (June 2015) at Newcastle University, the 3rd International Linguistics and Language Studies Conference (June 2016) in Istanbul, the 11th Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference (July 2016) and the 5th iMean Conference at the University of West England (April 2017). I am also grateful to Newcastle University, especially the staff and my colleagues in ECLS, for their kindness and support. Special thanks go to the imam participants and audiences for their valuable time and contribution. Last but not least, I am obliged for the financial support I received from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Cultural Bureau in London). ii Abstract Religion plays a pivotal role in some societies, but the interaction between language and religion from a bilingualism perspective has not been fully explored. The overlap between the two, including “the way that religion and language interact to produce language contact” (Spolsky, 2003, p. 81), has recently been considered by Omoniyi and Fishman (2006). Many studies have been conducted regarding language use within institutional settings, such as schools, universities, workplaces and courtrooms. However, less attention has been paid to language use outside of these settings, such as within religious contexts, although mosques are viewed as institutional in nature. In particular, imams may switch between languages in their sermons in the mosque, perhaps similar to priests’ practices in churches where they may switch between Latin and English. The shortage of such studies regarding this phenomenon could be a result of the assumption that secularism is increasingly dominant and widespread, especially in Europe. This assumption can lead to an underestimation of the depth of religion in peoples’ lives and of the significance of the languages to express it. Another salient aspect may be that prayers tend not to change much over time and thus there is no need for such studies to be conducted. Yet, this is not actually true, especially in the case of Friday sermons, which tend to be less formulaic than prayers and in which ordinary talk also occurs. To explore this phenomenon, a qualitative study was undertaken by means of simulated recall interviews and non-participant observation with imams (n=10) and mosque audiences (n=7). The study reveals that employing more than one language in one-way religious speech is a means of increasing historical authenticity, exposing audiences to Arabic, overcoming a lack of easy equivalents in English (such as for the word bidah), emphasizing religious authority (given the very close links between Arabic and Islam), an assumption of audiences’ knowledge of some Arabic features (mostly in the form of words), or accommodating the iii diverse backgrounds of the audience, some of whom have knowledge of Arabic. This has been described as having spiritual, historical and emotional significance, invoking religious links associated between Arabic and Islam. Stakeholders, especially audiences, claim benefits beyond the language used in the sermons themselves. Imams, in addition, also tend to see the use of both English and Arabic as socially and culturally salient, a means of uniting people in an otherwise often fractured world, or one frequently presented as such in the media. Attitudes towards this phenomenon in mosques have been reported by all those involved as being very positive. iv Table of Contents Dedication ................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... v List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... vii List of Appendices ................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background to the study ................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Justification for the research ............................................................................................ 3 1.3 Significance of the study .................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Study setting ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.5 Organization of the thesis ................................................................................................. 9 1.6 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................... 10 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Chapter overview ........................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Language and religion .................................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Bilingualism……………….…………………………………………………….....17 2.2.2 Code-switching…………………………………………….……………………....18 2.3 Islam in the UK .............................................................................................................. 19 2.3.1 Mosques in the UK .................................................................................................. 20 2.3.2 Friday sermons in mosques ..................................................................................... 22 2.3.3 Language of the sermon .......................................................................................... 23 2.3.4 Arabic variety in Friday sermons ............................................................................ 24 2.4 Theoretical frameworks of language and religion.......................................................... 26 2.5 Functions of language use in religious contexts............................................................. 31 2.5.1 Power and authority ................................................................................................. 32 2.5.2 Authenticity and tradition ........................................................................................ 34 2.5.3 Emotions .................................................................................................................. 35 2.5.4 Other functions ........................................................................................................ 35 2.6 Attitudes towards language use in religious contexts .................................................... 37 2.7 Previous studies of language use in religious contexts .................................................. 38 2.8 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3: Methodology .......................................................................................................... 46 3.1 Chapter overview ........................................................................................................... 46 3.2 Philosophical and methodological stance ...................................................................... 46 3.2.1 Ontology .................................................................................................................. 49 3.2.2 Epistemology ........................................................................................................... 49 3.2.3 Theoretical perspective ............................................................................................ 50 3.2.4 Methods and procedures .........................................................................................
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