In An introduction to religious language, Hobbs explores why people use religious language in both religious and non-religious contexts, and how it facilitates the construction of in- and out-groups. This book focuses on religious language in English in contexts where Christianity is prominent. Hobbs adopts a corpus-based methodology in her study, and her discussion draws on a range of data including billboards, obituaries, sermons, and wedding invitations.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the development of research in religious language. Chapter 2 discusses the closed and open approaches to defining religion. The former approach seeks to provide essential characteristics of religion. The latter approach outlines the possible characteristics of religion. In comparing the concepts of ideology and religion, Hobbs draws on the work of Christopher Hart, Teun A. Van Dijk, Veronika Koller, and Theo van Leeuwen. Hobbs argues that religion, unlike ideology, generally involves a belief in a supernatural deity. Chapter 3 presents three functions of religion: axiomatic, social cohesive, and emotive. The social cohesive function, for example, relates to the way religion unites a community around sacred ideals, sacred people and objects, and sacred rituals.
Chapter 4 provides a toolkit for investigating both explicit and implicit religious language. Explicit religious language refers to language with recognisable religious and explicit references to sacred texts and people. Implicit religious language refers to language associated with a world religion that is no longer recognisable as such, due to its prevalence in secular contexts. Hobbs’ toolkit focuses on analysing texts and emphasises the role of context in identifying religious language. The contexts included in her discussion are overtly religious contexts, moments of conflict and crisis, high stakes moments, and significant life transitions.
Chapters 5 and 6 present language features of religious language, which include vocabulary, archaism, parallelism, metaphor, and intertextuality. Chapters 7 and 8 examine two specific religious contexts: prayer and the way people talk about the time of human death. In analysing obituaries, Hobbs investigates the phrase ‘a life well lived’. Her analysis shows that this phrase favours ‘a human life that is long and full, primarily male, and involves accomplishments, a range of personal attributes and qualities’ (149).
Chapter 9 discusses religious language in non-religious contexts, such as politics, sports, advertising, and healthcare. In chapter 10, Hobbs highlights the importance of attending to religious language, and encourages her readers to critically examine their notions of sacred.
Useful features of this book include further reading and discussion questions at the end of each chapter. This book would be a useful resource for students and researchers studying religious language in contemporary contexts. The systematic presentation of methodology is particularly useful for students and researchers who would like to adopt her methodology in a different context. By examining both text and context, this book concludes that religious language occurs in religious and secular environments, and that the study of religious language is fundamental in understanding how humans and particular communities participate in sacred-making.
