Language in Use 153-154
Growing up in a culture, we develop definite ideas about certain clearly defined
ways of speaking, even though we may not conic into direct contact with them.
In this sense, everybody has an idea of what constitutes language appropriate
for the ceremonies and practices of religion. The aim of this unit is to
relate a class's own notion of 'religious language' to the language of worship
and religious instruction, so that they will come to appreciate how readily
we pick tip ideas about certain kinds of experience merely through unconscious
acquaintance with the language our culture makes available for describing it.
Religious language (toes its job because our culture teaches us that language
of that kind is religious.
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[1] This session requires the class to describe what the), understand b% religious language. What is needed is their response to a general question like 'how would you recognise a text as religious merely front the way it was written?' The aim of the session is to get the class to say as much as possible about where their views come front and what direct experience they ire drawing upon.
[2] For this session, the class need a collection of texts from a wide
variety of religious literature, formal and informal, didactic and liturgical. The
aim of this session is to get the class to work out for themselves the very
different elements that go to make up 'religious language'. Points to include
are:
(a) the number of distinct forms like prayer, creed, moral fable and sermon
(b) the number of styles of 'religious language' available for translating scripture
(c) the relationship between form and variety so that while there ;ire many
styles available for prayer, not all of
them are available for liturgical prayer
(d) the use of what amounts to a technical language by writers who think that
they are using common language, because the experience
they write about is treated as common to all.
[3] In this session, the class look more closely at the way in which
religious texts attempt to communicate the message which is peculiar to them.
Features to note include:
(a) the way in which pronouns are used to indicate a relationship with the user
(b) the use of archaism, repetition, invocation and verbal gesture
(c) the assumption of a shared experience with the reader through the use of
a special set of emotive words and phrases
(d) the use of metaphor, especially in describing experience which is essentially
non-verbal.
Sermons are explored in D13.