Analysing Religious Discourse

A comprehensive introduction to all the major research approaches to religious language, from a variety of linguistic perspectives.

Stephen Pihlaja (Edited by)

9781108836135, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 July 2021

349 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.2 cm, 0.68 kg

Language plays a key role in religion, framing how people describe spiritual experience and giving structure to religious beliefs and practices. Bringing together work from a team of world-renowned scholars, this volume introduces contemporary research on religious discourse from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. It introduces methods for analysis of a range of different kinds of text and talk, including institutional discourse within organised religions, discourse around spirituality and spiritual experience within religious communities, media discourse about the role of religion and spirituality in society, translations of sacred texts, political discourse, and ritual language. Engaging and easy-to-read, it is accessible to researchers across linguistics, religious studies, and other related disciplines. A comprehensive introduction to all the major research approaches to religious language, it will become a key resource in the emerging inter-disciplinary field of language and religion.

1. Analysing religion discourse: introduction Stephen Pihlaja
2. Interaction Shawn Warner
3. Ethnography Vally Lytra
4. Narrative Zayneb E. S. Al-Bundawi
5. Multimodality Sarah Turner
6. Rhetoric Beau Pihlaja
7. Translation Philip Wilson
8. Institutions Kate Power
9. Media Stephen Pihlaja
10. Community Andrey Rosowsky
11. Education Xin Gao and Juliet Thondhlana
12. Inter-religious dialogue Alain Wolf
13. Rituals Wei-lun Lu and Svitlana Shurma
14. Metaphor Aletta G. Dorst
15. Emotion Francesco De Toni
16. Identity Helen Ringrow
17. Cognition Peter Richardson
18. Sacred texts Karolien Vermeulen
19. Ecology Mariana Roccia
20. Conclusion David Crystal.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB], Theology [HRLB], Religion: general [HRA], Religion & beliefs [HR], Linguistics [CF]