A Three-Level Analysis of Religious Texts: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis

doi:10.7176/rhss/11-19-01

Abstract

This study focuses on a three-level analysis of the two religious texts: the Bible and the Quran. The goal primarily is to do an objective and comparative analysis of the discourse used in the Bible and Quran texts. By using critical discourse analysis as a research tool, the study aims to describe, interpret and explain the discourse used in the two texts, and analyse its relation to other discourses and to social reality. Since the central concern in CDA is to trace “explanatory connections” (Fairclough 1992: 72, 80, 95) between language use (discourse) and social reality (structure), this study combines (the use of) micro- and macro-sociological analysis with linguistic analysis. In this article, one core theological theme “The Doctrine of Trinity” is selected for analysis and various Biblical and Koranic passages are drawn to corroborate a thesis about this particular theme. The findings of the study show significant linguistic as well as ideological differences between Christian and Muslim religious texts due to opposite ‘truth claims’ the two texts provide on the theme. The result is significant in distinguishing three types of value the formal features of the texts may have: the experiential, the relational, and the expressive. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, linguistic practice, discursive practice (interdiscursivity, intertextuality), social practice (hegemony, ideology), experiential value, relational value, expressive value DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-19-01 Publication date: October 31 st 2021

Highlights

1.1 Background to the Study This study focuses on a three-level analysis of the two religious texts: the Bible and the Quran
By doing a comparative critical discourse analysis of the texts of Christian and Muslim religions, and by exploring the linguistic features, the choice of discourse used, and the modes of ideology employed in these texts, the social effects of the formal features of the texts on communal relations and patterns of religious coexistence in the two religious communities is analysed
Though critical discourse analysis has been extensively applied to the study of communication and business studies, sociology and anthropology, in particular with regard to language use and social reality, little research to date has focused on its use on religious studies

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Background to the Study This study focuses on a three-level analysis of the two religious texts: the Bible and the Quran. It aims to describe, interpret and explain the discourse used in the two texts, and analyse its relation to other discourses within and across the two religious texts and to social reality from different theoretical perspectives. By doing a comparative critical discourse analysis of the texts of Christian and Muslim religions, and by exploring the linguistic features, the choice of discourse used, and the modes of ideology employed in these texts, the social effects of the formal features of the texts on communal relations and patterns of religious coexistence in the two religious communities is analysed. Even though there has been relatively little focus on religious discourse within critical discourse analysis (abbreviated CDA) in the past, there has been an on-going interest in the periphery in studying how religious ideologies are shaped and reflected by discourse, and what discursive strategies characterize religious discourse from other discourse types. (See Cipriani, 2002)

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