Religious Language and Critical Discourse Analysis

Book excerpt: This book demonstrates the highly productive effects of applying contemporary views of discourse to religious language, seen (in theological terms) from a postliberal viewpoint. The emphasis is on critical discourse analysis (CDA), with its well-developed methodology for deconstructing the manifestations of power. What emerges is a combination of two complementary, surprisingly simple models which explain many aspects of the language used and witnessed by contemporary Christian believers. A wide variety of detailed, worked examples provide a very practical introduction to the revealing practice of understanding how discourse analysis responds to the question: - When language is used in a religious context, what's going on here?"