Analysis of Reference Source Strategies in Linguistic Politeness in Friday Sermon Texts

Abstract

Reference source strategies is one of the linguistic politeness strategies that functions to establish the authority of content in a speech text. Analysing the use of reference source strategy enables the accuracy and validity of the information presented in religious speech texts, particularly Friday sermons. Accordingly, this study was conducted to identify reference source strategies employed in Friday sermon texts. The study adopts the reference source categories proposed by Noriati Abdul Rashid (2013). The findings reveal six reference source strategies, namely Islamic reference sources, historical reference sources, general reference sources, scholarly reference sources, book reference sources, and media report reference sources. The results indicate that Islamic reference sources and scholarly reference sources were the most frequently employed strategies, as both rely on authoritative primary sources and the views of Islamic scholars in sermon texts.

Keywords: Reference source strategies, linguistic politeness, Friday sermon, dakwah, reference source categories, authority