<![CDATA[This study investigates how jamaah interpret persuasive and humanistic language as politeness in Alkhairaat preaching in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. It extends speaker-oriented facework accounts by treating participants’ evaluations as primary evidence and by connecting linguistic form with contextual appropriateness, perceived respect, psychological comfort, message accessibility, and potential acceptance. Using a qualitative interpretive design, the study drew on semi-structured interviews with 15 purposively selected congregants who met the operational criterion of active participation—attendance at least twice monthly for a minimum of one year—and eight sermon transcripts selected through purposive maximum-variation selection across sermon topics and preaching occasions during the same fieldwork period for triangulation. Interview data were examined using reflexive thematic analysis through familiarisation, initial coding, theme development, review, definition, and reporting. Thematic sufficiency was reached after 13 interviews and confirmed in two additional interviews; five participants reviewed summary interpretations, and the coding framework was peer-debriefed by a second researcher. Four dimensions shaped perceived politeness: simplicity and comprehensibility; persuasive and humanistic communication; criticism without humiliation; and humour, stories, and analogy. Unlike models that infer politeness mainly from speaker strategies, the proposed audience-centred account shows that politeness is an evaluative outcome produced when discourse fits listeners’ knowledge, dignity, and emotional needs. The findings are context-bound and require cross-congregational validation.]]>
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