The Role of the Speech Acts and Strategies in the Explanation of the Moses' Story Verses; a Case Study of Surah al-Shu'ara

Knowing the requirement of the speaker and the audience as well as the purpose of the conversation is effective in understanding the Quranic speech acts. Searle's theory of speech acts in pragmatics conforms with the secondary and literary purposes in semantics (Ma'ani). Searle has divided the effects of these speech acts into "Illocutionary effects" and "Perlocutionary effects". The perlocutionary effects are the subsidiary results of all the speech acts. Indirect speech acts need common background information between the speaker and the audience that is both linguistic and non-linguistic, and the audience perceives the conversation and its underlying concepts by relying on the rationality governing his verbal communication. The speaker's use of indirect expressions that means politeness in the speech has an important position. Using a descriptive-analytical method and based on the situational context of the verses, this study examines some direct and indirect speech acts. There are assertive, expressive, and directive acts in the conversations of Pharaoh, Moses, and the sorcerers through strategies of the speech. For example, when Pharaoh decided to destroy Moses' divine invitation, he asked the sorcerers for help and, by adopting a positive strategy, used the directive act to empower their magic and waited for his expected perlocutionary effects. Still, after the miracle of Moses, the sorcerers represented their expressive act toward the One God. Also. They reacted to the Pharaoh's threatening action with the speech strategies of the explicitness and declaration of faith in the One God. In other words, they didn't show any perlocutionary effects that he expected.