'Christianese', a certain type of religious language, plays an important role in the group identity of groups of Reformed Christians. But it is not a static set of words and expressions, according to research by Martha Visscher-Houweling.
"In the past, it has been argued that the religious language known as 'Christianese', or 'tale Kanaäns' in Dutch, is static and homogeneous. But within sociolinguistics, language is seen as dynamic and varied. From that approach, I also looked at 'Christianese' in this dissertation. I found that the 'own language' of Reformed Christians is rather a 'sociolect', a language variant used by a specific social group.”
Group identity
"My research covers a span of four centuries: from the 18th to the 21st century. I analyzed several collections of digitized texts, most of which come from the digital archive Digibron. For example, religious autobiographies, meditations from church periodicals and the 'commentary' section from Reformatorisch Dagblad.
''Christianese indeed turns out not to be static and homogeneous, but it is an age-old phenomenon that is still relevant to this day. Reformed Christians use this own language that can be distinguished from the generally accepted language in various respects. As a ‘sociolect’, it plays an important role in the group identity."
More information on the thesis
