The 'Objectivity'/'Subjectivity' Spectrum in Joseph Surah

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating subjectivity and objectivity in some noble verses from
the Joseph Surah in Holy Qur'an. One of the construal operations under perspective is
Langacker's notion of subjectivity/objectivity. This refers to how one conceptualizes a scene that
includes the speaker himself/herself. A common use of the notions of subjectivity and objectivity
is to demarcate kinds of judgment (or thought or belief). Subjective information is generally
considered to be a single person's opinion. It has a viewpoint, or possibly a bias, regardless of the
information it provides. Objective information on the other hand is meant to be completely
unbiased. The present study is a descriptive-analytic research. The analysis of Joseph surah as
the corpus of this article showed that there are discourse situations in which the interlocutors
avoid explicit mention of their relationship, yet they comment on this relationship indirectly
while talking about a 'third party'. The investigation into patterns of reference to a third party has
revealed their potential for significant impact on the interlocutor's mutual relations. Certain
emotions, attitudes, and the interpersonal distance between speech act participants may be
implicitly negotiated through a specific form of address used in reference to a third party. We
have argued that the choice of one pattern rather than another depends not only on the relation
between the speaker and the third party, but rather on the configuration of relations holding
between the interlocutors and the individual in question. We have illustrated how the speaker
may exploit referring expressions, specifically alternating proper names with certain kinship
terms, in order to communicate some emotion or attitude towards the hearer. The discussion
centers around factors which pertain to the speaker-hearer relation and which may influence the
imposition of a particular perspective from which the third party individual is apprehended.