Date of Award
Spring 4-28-2022
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English and Linguistics
Department Chair or Program Director
Richards, Gary
First Advisor
Lee, Janie
Major or Concentration
Linguistics
Abstract
This paper examines sermons taken from Southern Baptist churches in Virginia to study how the forms of sermons contribute to the message of the sermons. The data for the study comes from publicly posted recordings of sermons on websites of churches registered with the Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia. I took five sermons, transcribed, and analyzed them using methods of discourse analysis. I find that Southern Baptist pastors change their tempo mid-utterance, pause often, change pronouns between themselves and the congregation, and refer to the weekly sermon as a reference point in time. I argue that these discourse features mark the sermon as a linguistic performance for congregants and that they provide rhetorical power to the sermon while highlighting cultural values of the Southern Baptist religious community.
Recommended Citation
Nelson, Matt, "Prosodic and Deictic Features as Performance Markers in Southern Baptist Sermons" (2022). Student Research Submissions. 455.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/455
Rights
Included in
Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons