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Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis

One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exa...

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Main Authors: André Wehrli,, Norsimah Mat Awal,
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit UKM 2014
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
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spelling my-ukm.journal.77722016-12-14T06:45:08Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/ Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis André Wehrli, Norsimah Mat Awal, One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exactly is being addressed. For that purpose, sample prayers in Indonesian are analysed. These samples consist of prayers from an Indonesian Bible translation, Christian prayers in Indonesian books, and spontaneous prayers by Indonesian Christians, which were recorded and transcribed. The following steps were defined: 1) the grammatical analysis of nouns and pronouns, 2) the listing of relevant instances of referents, 3) the assignment of these instances to certain referents and 4) the comparison of the identified referents with the context of the analysed prayers. The findings show that the person addressed in Indonesian Christian prayers cannot reliably be identified without looking at the context. As for the recorded spontaneous prayers, the socio-religious background and a close look at the actual perception of the person praying are crucial for a reliable identification of the referent. This was done by comparing the results with interview responses of these persons. By applying the four mentioned steps, different addressees can be identified in prayers. In the examples of this analysis, the most significant difference was found between the addressee of prayers in the Bible compared to the addressee in spontaneous prayers. While 9 out of 11 Christians spontaneously address Jesus in their prayers, all investigated biblical prayers do not address Jesus. The findings show that the four steps applied are beneficial to a high degree, but in some circumstances, ambiguity may remain. Penerbit UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf André Wehrli, and Norsimah Mat Awal, (2014) Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 14 (3). pp. 175-189. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Perpustakaan Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description One might expect that the divine person addressed in prayers by Indonesian Christians matches those in biblical prayers. However, this seems not always to be the case. Since referential differences in such texts are not always obvious, the aim of this paper is to define steps for identifying who exactly is being addressed. For that purpose, sample prayers in Indonesian are analysed. These samples consist of prayers from an Indonesian Bible translation, Christian prayers in Indonesian books, and spontaneous prayers by Indonesian Christians, which were recorded and transcribed. The following steps were defined: 1) the grammatical analysis of nouns and pronouns, 2) the listing of relevant instances of referents, 3) the assignment of these instances to certain referents and 4) the comparison of the identified referents with the context of the analysed prayers. The findings show that the person addressed in Indonesian Christian prayers cannot reliably be identified without looking at the context. As for the recorded spontaneous prayers, the socio-religious background and a close look at the actual perception of the person praying are crucial for a reliable identification of the referent. This was done by comparing the results with interview responses of these persons. By applying the four mentioned steps, different addressees can be identified in prayers. In the examples of this analysis, the most significant difference was found between the addressee of prayers in the Bible compared to the addressee in spontaneous prayers. While 9 out of 11 Christians spontaneously address Jesus in their prayers, all investigated biblical prayers do not address Jesus. The findings show that the four steps applied are beneficial to a high degree, but in some circumstances, ambiguity may remain.
format Article
author André Wehrli,
Norsimah Mat Awal,
spellingShingle André Wehrli,
Norsimah Mat Awal,
Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
author_facet André Wehrli,
Norsimah Mat Awal,
author_sort André Wehrli,
title Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_short Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_full Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_fullStr Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_full_unstemmed Second person reference in Indonesian Christian Prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
title_sort second person reference in indonesian christian prayer: a sociolinguistic analysis
publisher Penerbit UKM
publishDate 2014
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/1/3276-18878-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7772/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
_version_ 1643737243336048640
score 13.211869

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