Two registers and a substrate: An integrative model of Islamic parent–child communication from the Qaulan principles in Indonesian children’s fiction

Abstract

Islamic communication ethics identifies five Qur’anic principles of speech—qaulan layyinan (gentle), ma’rufan (proper), balighan (penetrating), sadidan (truthful), and kariman (noble)—yet their interaction in parent–child communication remains underexplored. This study develops an empirically grounded model of how these principles operate together. It analyzes 388 parent-to-child utterances from four Indonesian children’s novels in Tere Liye’s Serial Anak Nusantara. Each utterance was coded for speech principle, conversational implicature, pragmastylistic strategy, family communication pattern, and speech function, and interpreted in relation to the child’s narrated response. Gentle speech was most frequent (39.4%), followed by proper (24.2%), penetrating (20.1%), truthful (14.9%), and noble speech (1.3%). The categories were associated with style (Cramér’s V = 0.53), function (0.44), family communication pattern (0.40), and parental gender (0.33), but remained stable across novels (V = 0.06, p = .88). Two communicative registers emerged: a regulative-epistemic register, characterized by proper and truthful speech, and a relational-formative register, characterized by gentle and penetrating speech. Noble speech functioned as a dignity-oriented substrate, particularly during reconciliation. Sequential and response-based analyses suggest that combining both registers supports deeper internalization. The model offers implications for research, parenting, and character education.