Invocations in Everyday Saudi Arabic: A Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to explore the pragmatic functions and meanings of invocations as used in everyday Taif Spoken Arabic (TSA). Despite the considerable amount of research on invocations in Arabic, Saudi Arabic has received little attention. A qualitative Discourse Completion Test was used for analysis which comprised 15 scenarios based on everyday contexts. A total of 36 participants of TSA native speakers took part in the study and generated 79 examples of invocations. The collected data was then categorized into themes based on their context and pragmatics and included five recurrent themes: invocations of reward and blessing, honour and reputation, prosperity and well-being, solidarity and reciprocity, and culture-specific idiomatic invocations. The results revealed that invocations perform functions that extend beyond conventional religious meaning. Invocations are employed to express gratitude and appreciation, wish the addressee health and prosperity, reinforce positive social identity, establish solidarity, and acknowledge reciprocal social obligations. The results also revealed that several invocations are culturally and idiomatically embedded, making their pragmatic interpretation based on shared sociocultural knowledge. The study concludes that invocations constitute an important pragmatic resource in everyday TSA and that their interpretation requires attention to both linguistic context and Saudi cultural norms. The findings contribute to research on Arabic pragmatics by providing a systematic account of the multifunctional nature of invocations in everyday Saudi Arabic.