Abstract
Inspired by critical discourse analysis and regarding language as a social medium whereby individuals, social groups, and institutions tend to express their beliefs and values, this study seeks to explore the persuasion and discourse strategies utilized in sermons. By focusing on the sermon of an influential native English orator and by employing Wodak’s discourse–historical approach, it aims to investigate how the targeted religious genre unfolds to disclose the persuasive powers of the orator and its impact on the audience. The results obtained from the qualitative analysis of the corpus under investigation revealed that the speaker resorts to significant presentation of a wide range of topics to establish the oratory, and constructs the social actors through the application of nomination tools to qualify the selected actors through carefully formulated predication devices by laying out discursively logical justifications concerning various topos. Alternatively, the complementary quantitative corpus analysis using Corpus Presenter software also provided an insightful evidential basis reflecting orator’s involvement, intensification of the intended illocutionary force, and his utilization of thought-provoking linguistic resources. Notably, the results presented here may shed light on the function of intertextuality in the genre of the sermon operationalized and activated through nomination strategies, the tools of argumentation theory, and interdiscursivity. Second, language learners’ awareness of such elements may have an overriding importance in the process of text generation in speaking and writing processes.
Highlights
A person addressing a large group of people trying to persuade them to accept particular ideas and get them to carry out various actions by making specific choices or judgments is called an orator (Procter, 1978)
An evidence from etymology indicates that the term sermon originated from a Middle English word borrowed from old French, which had in turn been taken from the Latin word “sermo” signifying “discourse.” Involving such discourse components such as clear and detailed explanation, admonishment, and reasonable application, sermon stylistically adopts a scriptural, philosophical, religious, or moral
It helps us to develop a historical background of the discourse under discussion, which is necessary in regard with the first dimension, content or topic establishment, of the adopted model, discourse–historical approach
Summary
A person addressing a large group of people trying to persuade them to accept particular ideas and get them to carry out various actions by making specific choices or judgments is called an orator (Procter, 1978). Speech makers usually carry a heavy responsibility on their shoulders whatever their purpose is, good or evil, and their sermon is an interesting area of research because it has a determinant of part in the final destination and directions of the societies to which they belong (McKay & McKay, 2008). We likewise regard the present-day language meaning of sermon as a monolog, which in its mainstream sense derogatorily portrays a protracted and monotonous type of discourse conveyed with incredible enthusiasm by any individual to an uninterested group of onlookers
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