Delven in Digibron
'Christianese', a certain type of religious languag e, plays an important role in the group identity of groups of Reforme d Christians. But it is not a static set of words and expressions, ac cording to research by Martha Visscher-Houweling.
"In the past, it has been argued that the religious language known as 'Ch ristianese', 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 dissertat ion. 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 s pan of four centuries: from the 18th to the 21st century. I analyzed several collections of digitized texts, most of which come from the d igital archive Digibron. For example, religious autobiographies, medi tations from church periodicals and the 'commentary' section from Ref ormatorisch 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 gr oup identity."
More information on the thesis
DESCRIPTION: Delven in Digibron '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 word s and expressions, according to research by Martha Visscher-Houweling ."In the past, it has been argued that the religious languag e known as 'Christianese', or 'tale Kanaäns' in Dutch, is static and homogeneous. But within sociolinguistics, language is seen as dynami c and varied. From that approach, I also looked at 'Christianese' in this dissertation. I found that the 'own language' of Reformed Christ ians is rather a 'sociolect', a language variant used by a specific s ocial group.”Group identity"My research covers a s pan of four centuries: from the 18th to the 21st century. I analyzed several collections of digitized texts, most of which come from the d igital archive Digibron. For example, religious autobiographies, medi tations from church periodicals and the 'commentary' section from Ref ormatorisch Dagblad.''Christianese indeed turns out not to be static and homogeneous, but it is an age-old phenomenon that is still releva nt to this day. Reformed Christians use this own language that can be distinguished from the generally accepted language in various respec ts. As a ‘sociolect’, it plays an important role in the group ide ntity."More information on the thesis END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR