Linguistic Roles and Message Functions in the Discourse of Surah Hud based on Roman Jakobsen's Theory

Language as a means of transferring thought has been the subject of research by various thinkers up to the present. In recent decades, however, language has become an important topic for research and study. Linguistic studies can be followed in two ways. The first is areas of linguistic studies that examine a particular language, such as syntactic science. Another aspect is sciences that study language as a general category. These sciences methodologically are two types as well: 1) sciences that consider language as a scientific subject and study it in an empirical manner, such as linguistics, and 2) those that regard language as a philosophical issue and consider it rationally. The philosophy of language is responsible for expressing the general aspects of language. These aspects do not relate to a particular language but are true for any language. The language of the Holy Qur’an is an innate language. The Holy Qur’an does not only have innate content, but the language used in the Holy Qur’an is an innate language as well. It is a pragmatic language, a language in which a person evaluates the validity of anything in its practical and concrete result in practice. The text-based communication in the Holy Qur’an will be understood by relying on such a language, namely the pragmatic language. It was therefore concluded that the Qur’anic language is a pragmatic language in the sense of an existential language. A language that is compatible with the nature of human existence. The observance of morphological and syntactic rules makes the language used in a text and dialogue meaningful, but understanding the existential and anthropological rules makes the text and dialogue understandable. Hence, the language of the Holy Qur’an is a pragmatic language, an existential one.Communication refers to a process during which a message is sent between the speaker and the audience so that the audience tries to analyze and interpret that discourse by considering the context and the conditions of speech. The language communication theory, expressed by Roman Jakobsen, is based on linguistic codes that the audience participates in deciphering those codes during a verbal conversation. In addition, this theory is based on the social roles of language. Jakobson distinguishes six communication functions, each associated with a dimension or factor of the communication process: 1) referential (contextual information), 2) aesthetic/poetic (auto-reflection), 3) emotive (self-expression), 4) conative (vocative or imperative addressing of receiver), 5) phatic (checking channel working), and 6) metalingual (checking code working). In the present study, using the descriptive-analytical method and referring to Jakobsen's theory, the linguistic connection in the discourse of Surah Hud (PBUH) is investigated. This surah is one of the surahs that have pragmatic codes and can only be interpreted and analyzed through the process of communication.The results of the research show that the referential (36%) and emotional (25%) roles are the most frequent linguistic roles in the discourse of Surah Hud (PBUH). The difference in the frequency of these two linguistic roles indicates that the discourse of this surah is mostly based on informing, promoting, and expressing events (referential role). It expresses the inner states of the speaker (mostly prophets). So, by using verbs that indicate the speaker’s intrinsic and inner feelings and affairs, his feelings in connection with the divine message are revealed (emotional role). The final result of the research shows that in the discourse of Surah Hud, the linguistic communication roles of Jakobsen's theory have been used to a very good extent, and this theory is a suitable model for analyzing the linguistic structure of this Surah. In Surah Hud, in order to create a communication process (God, prophets, angels, and others), the speaker must send a specific message to the audience (Prophet, ordinary people, relatives of prophets, and others) to influence the audience through the linguistic structures of that message. In such a conversation, the message must have a specific context to strengthen the communication links between the speaker and the audience and after that, this communication continues with special language tools (speaking and writing).