Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Mgr. Lucie Světloňová
A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Early and Current Christian Worship Sung in the U.S. Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Wei-lun Lu, Ph. D.
2017
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Author’s signature
I would like to thank my supervisor for his insights and patience, also my husband, my whole family and my friends for their support, and last but not least my God.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...... 1 2 Religion in human life ...... 3
2.1 Role of religion ...... 3 2.2 Role of worship ...... 4 2.3 Christianity in the U.S...... 4
3 Discourse analysis ...... 6
3.1 Defining discourse ...... 6 3.2 Defining discourse analysis...... 7 3.3 Defining corpus linguistics ...... 10 3.4 Methods used in discourse analysis ...... 12
3.4.1 Lexical analysis ...... 13 3.4.2 Metaphor analysis...... 16
3.5 Discourse analysis and religion ...... 19
4 Analysis ...... 21
4.1 Data ...... 21
4.1.1 Early worship songs ...... 21 4.1.2 Current worship songs ...... 23
4.2 Lexical analysis ...... 24
4.2.1 Methodology ...... 24 4.2.2 Results ...... 24
4.3 Metaphor analysis ...... 46
4.3.1 Methodology ...... 46 4.3.2 Results ...... 54
5 Conclusions ...... 68 6 References ...... 70 7 Sources ...... 76 8 Resume ...... 86
1 Introduction
I have noticed that current Christian worship songs express a very close relationship between believers and God. The question I have asked myself was whether this has been always so. I will thus compare current popular worship songs with early worship that was published most frequently in America in order to see whether there is a shift in the degree of intimacy in current worship songs.
There is an article by anthropologist Tanya M. Luhrmann (2004) who claims that
God has been perceived to be more personal today in the U.S. She says: “…congregants
– even in ordinary middle-class suburbs – learn to have out-of-the-ordinary experiences and to use them to develop a remarkably intimate, personal God. This God is not without majesty. But he has become a pal” (p. 518). Based on Luhrmann’s claim, I expect to find more representations of love, intimacy and closeness in current Christian songs than in songs sung in the period from the seventeenth to nineteenth century.
I will examine how the current and early worship songs differ in their use of language and what the difference says about principles found in the songs. I will also test
Luhrmann’s hypothesis, based on investigation of sermons, interviews and Christian materials, on investigation of worship songs. Stubbs says that this is a process of para- replication which is a repetition of an experiment with new data of the same kind or of a different kind so that one can “see whether [findings] were an artefact of one single data set” (p. 124).
One of the definitions in American Dictionary of the English Language captures the nature of worship when it says that it is “to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission; as a lover” (Webster's Dictionary 1828). I have chosen worship songs for the research because they are a unique way to express one’s relationship to God.
1 It will be a diachronic comparative discourse analysis by which I will use a corpus of one hundred early and a corpus of one hundred current worship songs. The analysis will be primarily corpus-based as I will look for expressions strongly associated with conceptual metaphors found in the Bible representing the intimate relationship between believers and God. Also, I will look for any instances of love and intimacy between the believer and God in the corpus-driven analysis. Both analyses should provide results that will show reality – whether there is a shift in the degree of intimacy in current worship songs.
First, there will be a theoretical framework which will help to define discourse, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and conceptual metaphors and will also describe the state of contemporary Christianity in the U.S. Then, I will continue with the practical part doing lexical and metaphor analysis and end with final conclusions.
2 2 Religion in human life
2.1 Role of religion
Religion is a complex concept for which one can find a whole range of various definitions.
Religion may be described as a concept that “involves the co-presence of beliefs, ritualized experiences, norms, and groups connected to what people perceive as a transcendent entity (e.g. God, Allah, Higher Power)” (Koenig, 2012; Saroglou, 2014; as cited in Cappellen et al., 2014, p.485-486). Altogether, religion has been connected with the role of providing “higher well-being” (Koenig, 2012; Koenig et al., 2012; as cited in
Cappellen et al., p.485). Thanks to past research, it has been found out that religion can bring contentment into life (Ellison & Fan, 2008; Salsman et al. 2005), “optimism and sense of self-worth” (Krause, 2005; Whittington & Scher, 2010; as cited in Cappellen et al., 2014, p.486), “perceived meaning in life” (Martos et al., 2010; Steger & Frazier, 2005; as cited in Cappellen et al., p.486), and “hope” (Ai et al., 2007; as cited in Cappellen et al., p.486).
Lowie (1963) also mentions several roles of religion that are very important for functioning of individuals, communities and nations. For one thing, religion helps one to become a part of society. There are also other possibilities that can be used for the same purpose such as being engaged in “art, music, education, or science” (p.539) but religion is probably the most easily accessible one. For another, people can receive strength and encouragement that they need in times of trouble when they turn to religion. Also, religion can function as a strong support in life helping one to establish moral values and it “should also provide the basis for ethics” (p.539). Lowie observes that when there are attempts to destroy religion completely it causes the disappearance of “the accompanying ethical standards” (p.539).
3 Religion has been central to lives of many people all over the world across the eras. It can pervade and direct their thinking and decision making and is certainly worth studying if one wants to know more about people and language. I have decided to deal with Christianity and analyze Christian worship because I have some knowledge of it as it is close to my heart.
2.2 Role of worship
Worship in Christian understanding can be described as “an activity which expresses certain religious attitudes, affections and experiences and tends to evoke them” (Astley,
1984, p.245). Worship is therefore an indispensable part of Christian life as it supports and encourages the faith of the believer.
Smart (1972) says that worship is “relational and implies an object” (pp. 24f) that is the center of the worship and may be described as the “Focus” (p.51). The believers praise and herewith turn to the Focus directly and “this Focus transcends the manifestations” (p.51). Smart suggests that the nature of worship “implies the personalized character of the Focus” (p.51). That means that the Focus can be considered as an adequate partner in the worship communication.
Smart also adds that, besides the role of strengthening the faith, worship helps people, both believers and unbelievers, to understand “the nature of religious reality”
(p.51). If someone wants to know more about Christianity, one should attend a worship meeting in which the relationship between God and the believer is accentuated.
2.3 Christianity in the U.S.
There is an article by anthropologist Tanya M. Luhrmann (2004) who claims that God has been perceived to be more personal today in the U.S. She says: “…congregants – even in ordinary middle-class suburbs – learn to have out-of-the-ordinary experiences and
4 to use them to develop a remarkably intimate, personal God. This God is not without majesty. But he has become a pal” (p. 518). Based on Luhrmann’s claim, I expect to find more representations of love, intimacy and closeness in current Christian songs than in songs sung in the period from the seventeenth to nineteenth century.
Luhrmann says that “in the last 30 or 40 years, middle-class U.S. citizens have begun to worship their God(s) in a markedly different manner than before” (p.518). She focuses primarily on the way the congregants speak about their relationship with God and about the bodily experience and how it helps them to develop an intimate relationship with God. I will only look for intimacy with God in the worship songs and whether it has changed since the nineteenth century. I will examine how the current and early worship songs differ in their use of language and what the difference says about principles found in the songs. I will also test Luhrmann’s hypothesis, based on the investigation of sermons, interviews and Christian materials, on investigation of worship songs. Stubbs says that this is a process of para-replication which is a repetition of an experiment with new data of the same kind or of a different kind so that one can “see whether [findings] were an artefact of one single data set” (p. 124).
5 3 Discourse analysis
3.1 Defining discourse
The discourse is the object of the present work so that defining of the term will be helpful.
However, there is no simple unifying definition as the term is understood in very different ways and seen from various points of view. One reason is that there is vagueness connected with abstract terms such as discourse, knowledge or communication. Another reason is that the term discourse is used in various disciplines with different meanings which can be confusing. Also, the experts in individual disciplines such as sociology or linguistics cannot agree on one unifying definition for discourse. Moreover, discourse has been used not only as a term in scientific disciplines but also has become an ordinary expression in the everyday language which counts discourse among “plastic words”
(Pörksen, 1988) that are words that are transferred into various areas with speakers not knowing their definitions (Niehr, 2014, p.7).
Regarding linguistics and the structuralist perspective, Thornborrow and Wareing
(1998) argue that discourse “is used to refer to any piece of connected language, written or spoken, which contains more than one sentence” (p. 240) which is a very general definition and is widely applicable. Further, Martin and Rose (2003) claim that discourse is “meaning beyond the clause” (p.1). It means that “syntax, morphology and phonology” are of less importance and “the norms of cohesion” are in focus instead (Partington,
Taylor & Duguid, 2013, p. 2).
Another view by Carter (1995) is the distinction between discourse and text where discourse is simply connected to speaking whereas text is connected to writing (p.39). It is based on the notion that the central focus of studying discourse should be the interaction which takes place generally more in speaking than writing (Partington et al., 2013, p.3).
6 Also, Halliday (1985) defines discourse from the functional perspective as
“language that is doing some job in some context” (p.10) so that one can say that “all language communication is discourse” (Partington et al., 2013, p.3). Some scholars claim that discourse creates social relations which means that there are numerous kinds of discourse, also called “discourses” (Gee, 1999, p.4-5), “as there are social settings and purposes, each with its own set of norms” (Carter et al., 1997, p.318). Professor Bates explains it as follows: “We live in discourse as fish live in water. Systems of law consist of discourse. Diplomacy consists of discourse. The beliefs of the great world religions consist of discourse…we eat discourse (mouth-watering menu-language, for instance like
“flame-roasted peppers drizzled with truffle oil”), we drink discourse…” (Lodge, 2008, p. 32). One can see that, from this point of view, one simply lives in discourse and comes into contact with it on a daily basis.
The worship songs can be defined as discourse from various perspectives because they consist of connected language. Even though the worship songs to be analyzed are already written, they can function as words in the spoken language that are chosen by the speaker to convey his or her own opinions, feelings and attitudes to someone else. The worship songs are also chosen either by a community or by individuals to convey their opinions, feelings and attitudes to God and to other believers and non-believers. Besides that, worship is one of many discourses as it has its special social settings and purposes.
3.2 Defining discourse analysis
Discourse analysis can be understood as a technique or a method used to analyse text corpora in order to understand the meaning of the texts that are found in the corpora
(Busse, 2013, p. 38) and to grasp the semantic dispositions, implications and potential conditions that are characteristic of individual statements (Busse & Teubert, 1994, p.23).
Discourse analysis is thus a thorough analysis that investigates the texts in various
7 aspects. Also, there is no primary and unifying procedure or technique with which one can analyze discourse as Spitzmüller and Warnke (2011) say that there is no generally accepted method, as well as prevailing topic preferences or even consensual criteria
(p.121).
However, one can probably find one notion that unites all concepts and theories of discourse analysts and that is rejection of objective, language-free knowledge of reality which is orientated only on the objects as such (Gardt, 2007, p.36). Gardt (2007) also claims that discourse analysis belongs to philological-cultural-scientific tradition which examines linguistic relations in the context of philosophical, religious, political, social, economic, technical-scientific, aesthetic and everyday-world relations (p.39). The analysis of language can therefore help one understand the reality that one lives in. The analysis of worship songs in the present work will examine linguistic relations in the context of religious relations.
Besides that, discourse analysis in the structural perspective “attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts” (Stubbs, 1983, p.1) which allows one to study the texts of worship songs. In the functional view, discourse analysis is “the analysis of language in use” (Brown & Yule, 1983, p.1).
Scholars, among them also James Paul Gee, who focus on discourse in terms of the social interaction describe discourse analysis as “studying the set of norms governing how activities are normally conducted using language, what kinds of language behaviour are normally permitted and not permitted and are normally frequent or infrequent, in a certain social setting” (Partington et al., 2013, p.3). In this work, I will also focus on the social interaction that takes place when singing the worship songs – who are the participants of
8 the interaction and what kinds of language behaviour applies when singing the early and when singing the current worship songs.
The interaction described in the present work is a little bit untraditional because it involves the author of the worship songs, singers, other singing believers, unbelievers and
God who is at the center of worship. There are certain roles that can be ascribed to participants between which the interaction takes place in the speech acts in the religious discourse such as “the principal who bears the responsibility for what is said, the author who formulates the actual words, the animator who utters them, the proximal addressee of the utterance, the target to whom the words are ultimately directed, and the overhearer” (Goffman, 1981; as cited in Keane, 1997, p.58). I will examine which role/s is/are performed by God and believers in the early and current worship whether it has got shifted or not.
Last but not least definition of discourse analysis provided by Partington et al.
(2013) is as follows: “Discourse analysis studies how language is used to (attempt to) influence the beliefs and behaviour of other people” (p.5). This definition however represents a rather critical approach of discourse analysis that will not be part of this work.
9 3.3 Defining corpus linguistics
Nordquist (2016) says that a corpus is linguistic data collected with the intention of doing
“research, scholarship, and teaching” (What are corpora in language studies?). The data should be authentic which means that “the materials [are] not specially designed for classroom use” (Richards, 2010, Series Editor's Preface) but occur naturally and provide authentic language both for researchers and English learners.
Some scholars argue that corpus linguistics is a methodology which is “a set of tools and general practices and ways of using those tools for the purpose of language analysis” with which other scholars disagree because they see this view as very simple and not describing all aspects (Partington et al., 2013, p.6). For instance, Leech (1992) says that “computer corpus linguistics defines not just a newly emerging methodology for studying language, but a new research enterprise, and in fact a new philosophical approach to the subject” (p.106). It means that the process of analysing data is so revolutionary and dominant that it also changes the way researches think about the issue.
Taylor (2008) provides in his work various names that have been used to describe corpus linguistics: “a tool, a method, a methodology, a methodological approach, a paradigm, or a combination of these” (Partington et al., p.7).
One may define corpus linguistics as “that set of studies into the form and/or function of language which incorporate the use of computerised corpora in their analyses”
(Partington et al., p.5) and it also contributes greatly to discourse analysis. It is a part of text linguistics as it aims for “describing the interactions between writers/speakers and readers/hearers as evidenced in the linguistic trace, that is, the texts that these interactions leave behind” (Partington et al., p.5). Besides that, a very important task of corpus linguistics is description of the organization and functions of the language in the texts which is, in fact, grammar (Partington et al., p.5).
10 There is also a special part of corpus linguistics that is called “meta-corpus linguistics” which deals with the description of the corpora. The process of compilation of the corpora and/or annotation are at the centre of attention (Partington et al., p.6).
There are miscellaneous corpora that have been used for studying the usage of
“single lexical items (lexicology and dictionary making), typical phraseologies of a discourse type, textual cohesion, authorial style, figurative meaning, evaluative meaning, social, political, cultural and religious ideologies as expressed in text, and much else”
(Partington et al., p.6). My research topic does not fall directly into any of these categories so that it can widen the field of study of corpora linguistics. Its focus is the shift in the degree of intimacy in worship songs and thus the shift in the believers’ perception of God or the shift in their values so that it maps the reality that we live in.
Some corpora can be characterized as synchronic as they include language data from a certain period that is considered contemporary at the time. The present work deals with a corpus that contains contemporary data but also analyzes data from the period between 1698 and 1810 which makes the analysis diachronic. Stubbs argues that all corpus linguistics is inherently diachronic (Partington et al., 2013, p.6) because “it studies what has frequently occurred in the past” (2007, p.131). Also, he thinks of corpus linguistics as of inherently quantitative and of inherently sociolinguistic (Partington et al., p.6) as it studies “real communicative acts in a discourse community” (Stubbs, 2007, p.130-131). Finally, Hoey (2005) understands corpus linguistics as inherently psycholinguistic since it focuses on “how linguistic items can be used to communicate meanings” (Partington et al., p.6).
11 3.4 Methods used in discourse analysis
Even though some scholars define discourse analysis as a technique or a method, one can also use the word method(s) to describe the individual instruments or steps that are part of discourse analysis. However, one cannot apply these methods blindly for the purpose of doing a mechanical analysis of discourse. Their application depends both on peculiarities of individual corpora and on the research question(s) of the discourse analyst
(Niehr, 2014, p.66).
A research group around the linguist Georg Stötzel from Düsseldorf developed a certain strategy that has been successfully applied since then in numerous researches when doing discourse analysis. In a methodically oriented paper, the members of the group – Karin Böke, Matthias Jung, Thomas Niehr and Martin Wengeler (2000) – justify to what extent three levels of analysis – lexicon, metaphors and argumentation – represent relevant discourse constituents and how these are analysed exactly (p.18).
In the present work, I will analyze the lexicon and metaphors and use the findings of Böke et al. However, I will not include the argumentation analysis because, according to Klein (1980), argumentation is a linguistic process that makes an issue that is questionable by the society an issue that is accepted as valid by the society (p.19).
Regarding the argumentation, the validity of claims is dealt with by using the reasoning that serves as a rational means of clarification (Niehr, 2014, p.100). Since there is presumably no attempt at pushing through a questionable issue in worship songs that became or have become widely popular among Christians, the analysis of arguments will be left out.
12 3.4.1 Lexical analysis
There is a long tradition of the analysis of words and their usage in linguistics or else in philology. For example, there is the keyword research that was conducted already in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, larger works such as by
Meyer (1900) and Ladendorf (1906) were published. However, the works that apply discourse analysis are quite different from the early keyword researches. They analyze word usage based not on its occurrence in individual texts but on its occurrence in the collections of texts that are composed of individual texts that are connected intertextually
(Niehr, 2014, p.71).
There is a very well-known distinction between corpus-driven and corpus-based approach (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001) originally coming from corpus linguistics that is very important by the analysis of the lexicon. A corpus-driven approach is understood as an inductive method that searches for linguistic phenomena found in the corpus without any previous hypotheses. The analyst notices certain patterns only in the course of analysis which can then function as a basis of a hypothesis (Niehr, p.71). Bubenhofer (2009) says that this approach is thus characterized by the attempt to conceive the corpus as a data stock in which structures are made visible with suitable methods that are classified afterwards. This makes it possible to reveal structures that are more or less concealed in discourse and, at the same time, based on empirical evidence, create categories that do not have to necessarily correspond with existing linguistic category systems (p.100,102).
In contrast to the corpus-driven approach, the corpus-based deductive approach makes use of a corpus with the intention of checking a hypothesis in empirically acquired material. The analyst tries to find out whether the phenomenon that is searched for appears in the corpus and if does then where, how often and how (Bubenhofer, p.100).
13 This distinction should be understood in a heuristic way because one cannot imagine a purely inductive approach without having any presuppositions. On the contrary, the corpus-based approach always poses a risk of finding only that in the text corpus which agrees with the to-be-tested hypotheses (Niehr, p.72). Bubenhofer (2009) further says that the data that contradict the to-be-tested hypothesis and yet are too marginal to change the hypothesis, are often pronounced to be exceptions caused by a language variety. The corpus-driven analysis offers a different approach that makes the data a starting point of the theory (p.101). Bubenhofer therefore suggests that one makes use of both perspectives so that there can be an interplay of induction and deduction
(p.102).
This present work approaches the corpora with a to-be-tested hypothesis which means that it will be primarily focused on finding specific linguistic phenomena.
Therefore, the approach will be mainly corpus-based. However, based on Bubenhofer’s suggestion, findings of the corpus-driven analysis will be also presented.
Concerning linguistic pattern recognition in a corpus, Niehr (2014) says that quantitative abnormalities can be easily detected by means of appropriate queries. Since discourse analysis aims at recognizing patterns in language usage, for example, a frequency research offers good possibilities for recognizing such patterns such as looking for the emergence of a new expression in discourse, the avoidance of certain expressions, or the repression of an expression in favor of an alternative description (p.72). In the present work, I will look for expressions in current worship songs that represent an intimate relationship between believers and God and that are found not as frequently or not at all in early worship songs.
By discourse analysis, it is necessary to include not only the quantitative but also qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis determines how often a lexical item occurs but
14 the numbers cannot tell everything and the results can be misleading. Therefore, one should evaluate the results in terms of content as well which is demanding but it helps to provide reliable pieces of evidence (Niehr, 2014, p.61). That means that the lexicostatistical evaluations should be checked and interpreted by means of concrete evidence from the corpora (p.72). Niehr adds that it is not necessary to provide the interpretation of all examples. The interpretation of significant samples can also show patterns and linguistic trends and it can lead to verified insights into discourse (p.74).
Bubenhofer (2013) suggests that, when interpreting, one should evaluate the frequencies with which lexemes appear in the defined surroundings of a specific lexeme with statistical means. The result is a list of collocating words which occur frequently together with the defined lexeme (p.112). It is necessary to interpret the data afterwards as well which makes the whole process a qualitative analysis based on qualitative data
(p.129).
By the discourse analysis, it is important to take the size of the corpus into consideration. One should compare approximately equally extensive corpora. In this work, two corpora are compared of which each contains one hundred songs which means that the number of characters is approximately the same. Also, in my view, the size of the tested corpora can be considered representative in terms of song popularity.
There are numerous possibilities that can be used when doing the lexical analysis with the help of a corpus tool like Sketch Engine that I will work with. One can run a simple query whose results will be shown as so called “KWIC-Index (keyword in context)” (Niehr, 2014, p.77). In this case, the key words are displayed together with their contextual surroundings in lines as concordances where they are highlighted with a different color. In order to get the most exact results, one should refine the query as much as possible by searching for other word forms of the same lexeme, for other parts of
15 speech that have the same meaning as the original lexeme or by using the symbol for
“wildcards” in the entry which produces composites (p.77). The interpretation that is only based on the frequency information requires a qualitative analysis that takes into account the actual use of the lexeme (p.78).
Another possibility of lexical analysis is ascertainment of the frequency of certain multiword units, so called n-grams. For example, if one searches for multi-word units with three words in maximum, one will find “clusters” (p.78) of three words that are particularly frequent and thus typical for the corpus and can disclose interesting facts about the corpus.
3.4.2 Metaphor analysis
Lakoff and Johnson provide in their work, Metaphors we live by, understanding of metaphors that has been widely accepted among linguists and has been important for the discourse research as well (Niehr, 2014, p.93). Based on numerous examples, Lakoff and
Johnson point out that metaphors should not be understood simply as poetic ornaments which are merely used as special rhetorical instruments. Rather, our thinking is rooted in metaphors. Following this theory, metaphors have a cognitive function. They structure our thinking, speaking and acting in a certain manner on every-day basis. Lakoff and
Johnson (1980) explain that people do not usually realize that they think and act in this way because this conceptual system is very automatic for them. One can reveal the system of thinking by examining the language because it is the same for communication as well as thinking and acting (p.3).
One of the examples of metaphorical concepts that Lakoff and Johnson provide is the concept “ARGUMENT IS WAR” (p.4). When having an argument, people wage war against each other. They defend their position, attack weak points, win or lose the argument, shoot down or demolish arguments, use a strategy, etc. One can say that the
16 western culture understands the concept of argument as war. Knowles and Moon (2006) suggest a term “source domain” for describing the concept of WAR. It is basically “the concept area from which the metaphor is drawn.” ARGUMENT is then a “target domain” that is “used for the concept area to which the metaphor is applied” (p.26).
The conceptual metaphors help one live in his or her own culture by structuring the actions one would like to perform (Lakoff & Johnson, p.4). Böke’s (1996) explanation is that people tend to structure a concept metaphorically by terms of a different concept
(p.440), therefore such metaphors can be called “structural metaphors” (Lakoff &
Johnson, p.14). Lakoff and Johnson further argue that the conceptual metaphors are not simply an issue concerning words and thus the external form. They say that, most importantly, they are the basis for “human thought processes” (p.6).
Besides structural metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson distinguish also another type of conceptual metaphors like “orientational metaphors” that “organize a whole system of concepts with respect to one another” (p.14). They relate to spatial oppositions such as
“up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow [or] central-peripheral” (p.14). With the help of orientational metaphors, the concepts are bound to the spatial orientations based on physical and cultural reality. For example, the concept HAPPY is bound to the spatial orientation UP which can result in the phrase “I’m feeling up today” (p.14). These oppositions can however differ in various cultures.
There are also “ontological metaphors” that help one understand “events, activities, emotions, ideas” and other experiences in terms of “entities and substances”
(Lakoff & Johnson, p.25). One of the examples presented is “THE MIND IS A
MACHINE” (p.27). These metaphors enable one to come to terms with one’s experiences which can then be quantified, referred to or understood as a cause. Also, their aspects can be identified and an action can be carried out regarding them (p.26-27).
17 The ontological metaphors include a specific type of metaphors called “container metaphors” (Lakoff & Johnson, p.29). People use these metaphors to transfer the view of being containers that are limited by a surface and defined by “in-out orientation” (p.29) on objects around them. The conceptual metaphor “VISUAL FIELDS ARE
CONTAINERS” is an example of container metaphors that involves expressions such as
“the ship is coming into view,” or “he’s out of sight now” (p. 30).
Lakoff and Johnson say that personification is a special and probably the most evident type of ontological metaphors because understanding of the experience is based on the physical object, more specifically a human being. The nonhuman experience is thus described in terms of “human motivations, characteristics, and activities” (p.33).
There are examples such as “life has cheated me,” or “his religion tells him that he cannot drink French wines” (p.33). However, these ontological metaphors can vary according to the human aspects that are selected. In cases, such as “inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy,” “our biggest enemy right now is inflation,” or “inflation has outwitted the best economic minds in the country” (p.33), the conceptual metaphor is not only “INFLATION IS A PERSON” but it can be far more particularized, namely,
“INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY”. Because of this concept, one can imagine what to think about the inflation and what the best reaction toward it could be (p.34).
The conceptual metaphors are characterized by their systematicity that involves two aspects. The first aspect is that the metaphors can form systems in which individual metaphors are related to each other via “subcategorization” (Lakoff & Johnson, p.9). The metaphors such as “TIME IS MONEY, TIME IS A RESOURCE, and TIME IS A
VALUABLE COMMODITY” (p.9) create a coherent system where logical “entailment relationships” are established. The most specific concept TIME IS MONEY entails another, more general, concept TIME IS A RESOURCE that entails the most general
18 concept TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY. Also, this system of entailment relationships among metaphorical concepts relates to “a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts” (p.9).
The second aspect of systematicity of conceptual metaphors is “highlighting and hiding” (p.10). Some metaphors enable one to concentrate on a particular aspect of the concept, or highlights it, and at the same time, other aspects of the same concept are not taken into account, or they are hidden. Due to this, one concept can be understood with the help of another (p.10,13).
Discourses which are held over several years are suitable for carrying out diachronic investigations and for showing the development of language usage from which conclusions can be drawn about the thinking, feeling and desire of a society (Niehr, 2014, p.96). If one analyzes metaphors of a discourse in this aspect, their reality-mirroring as well as reality-constituting function can be recognized (Böke, 1997, p.192). The metaphor analysis in the present work will thus show whether the thinking, feeling and desire of the society of American worshippers have shifted over the years.
3.5 Discourse analysis and religion
Discourse analysis has been used as an acceptable and well-known method in various fields of study which can be noticed in journals such as Discourse & Communication or
Discourse & Society. However, Wijsen (2013) says that there has been a lack of discourse analysis of religion that would be conducted systematically with the help of methods. One of the reasons may be the peculiarity of language used in religious studies that tries to describe the supernatural concepts that are beyond words. Also, there are researches studying religion who think that discourse has just become fashionable in the academic world (p.2).
19 It has become evident that discourse analysis is necessary “at the 20th conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) at Toronto, 15–21
August 2010” (Wijsen, 2013, p. 3). There was a noticeable influence of the neurological and biological approach in the presented studies. It was considered rather regressive as this approach was predominant in religious studies at the beginning of the 20th century attempting to make generalizing statements irrespective of the context and history. The scientists saw discourse analysis as a good alternative because it takes society into consideration. Due to this, “an IAHR-related Network for Discursive Study of Religion” was established encouraging others to make use of discourse analysis.
One could say that studying religious issues from the discourse-analytical point of view has been a needed perspective in the academic world in the past few years. This present work can be thus a contribution to the contemporary academic discussion.
20 4 Analysis
4.1 Data
Luhrmann’s claim that God becomes more intimate in contemporary U.S. relates to last fifty years (p. 519). For the comparison with top one hundred current worship songs found on SongSelect, I have chosen songs from the period between 1698 and 1810 because there is a very representative sample of early worship music in the book called The Core
Repertory of Early American Psalmody which contains one hundred and one Protestant sacred pieces most often printed from 1698 to 1810 in the U.S. (Crawford, 1984, p.ix-x).
I have chosen these sources because both contain songs that were or have been considered popular and were or have been sung in the U.S. so that the comparison is appropriate.
According to Stubbs, it is also important to focus on the background of production and perception of the texts by doing the comparative analysis (1996, p.83). The worship songs to be analyzed were written, most presumably, by Christians passionate about Jesus
Christ aiming to worship God so that their songs once belonged or belong among the popular worship songs.
4.1.1 Early worship songs
The early worship songs can be divided into three groups based on a period of time in which they were published. The first period is between 1698 and 1760 when “tune supplements, anthologies of textless tunes designed to be bound in at the bacs of metrical psalters,” (Crawford, p.x) were printed most often. The pieces that appeared in these publications were of British origin and were intended for public worship in Protestant
Christian gatherings. At the end of this period, there were only 85 pieces of worship music published in the English-speaking colonies from which 27 pieces were chosen for The
Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody (Crawford, p.x).
21 The second period between 1761 and 1790 is characteristic of the tune supplement replacement by bigger tunebooks that focused on music teaching. Also, more and more complicated pieces were composed as the level of musical education got increased. There were as well first worship pieces of American origin that were published in the tunebooks more and more often. These changes resulted in a greater number of various kinds of songs that were more difficult to compile for the tunebooks. The factors that the compilers took into consideration concerned religion, art, economy, education and personal and general preferences. The Core Repertory contains 73 songs out of 1,222 new songs from this period (Crawford, p.x).
The third period between 1791 and 1810 is important mainly due to the dramatic increase of newly printed songs; there were altogether five times as many new songs as in the previous two periods of time. There were however several issues that negatively influenced their circulation. First, the reform movement at that time did not favor the new songs because it questioned the quality of work of composers born in America and it preferred European and European-like worship pieces. Also, the Federal Copyright Law forbid to publish songs as freely as before without the author’s consent which made the publishing of new songs more complicated. Last but not least, professional publishers used an advanced way of printing and replaced small entrepreneurs who had been publishing the worship music until then. They published primarily music that was already well-known and thus well-salable. Due to these issues, the Core Repertory sample contains only five new songs out of almost 6,000 new songs of this period (Crawford, p.x).
The Core Repertory was created “by counting tune printings, with a printing defined as the appearance of a composition in one edition or state of one tunebook”
(Crawford, p.x). If it was possible to prove somehow that a collection of tunes was
22 transformed in a way (there are differences between the old and new collection), then the tunes in this collection were considered to be new printings. Crawford says that the number of tunes in the Core Repertory, 101 songs, is “workable and convenient” and that this number of songs can constitute a representative sample (1.5 percent of the overall number of new tunes) (p.xi). However, I will leave out one worship piece listed in the book like the last one as the amount of songs should be comparable with the amount of
100 current worship songs on the current most popular worship song list. Altogether, the corpus of early worship comprises 26,056 tokens.
Crawford does not insist that the sample is called “the 101 most popular” (p.xi) worship songs because the period from 1698 to 1810 is too long to be able to show which song was popular at a certain moment of that period. One should also be careful to consider “most frequently printed” songs to be “most popular” (p.xi) because when a song did not get into the Core Repertory because it was printed one time less than another song that was however included in the sample, it does not mean that it was an unpopular song
(p.xi). One could thus say that the Core Repertory is as representative sample of popular songs of a period longer than a century as possible.
4.1.2 Current worship songs
A representative sample of current popular worship songs that can be compared with the
Core Repertory sample can be found on the website SongSelect. The sample is provided by Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) which is an organization that, besides other activities, sells licenses to churches world-wide in order to legally
“reproduce the words of hymns and worship songs” (Christian Copyright Licensing
International).
CCLI started its activity as Starpraise Ministries in 1984 in the U.S., in Oregon, so that its cooperation with American churches has a long tradition. At present, CCLI
23 cooperates with more than 250,000 churches world-wide (Copyright licensing for labels and publishers) which means that they can therefore keep track of the most preferred songs that are sung or listened by a great number of people all over the world, and in the
American Protestant churches as well. The list of the most popular songs on SongSelect is called “CCLI Top 100 – CCLI Rank” (CCLI Top 100) and is updated regularly. The present work analyzes a list of songs that was updated in April 2017. Altogether, the corpus of current worship comprises 24,679 tokens which makes it only slightly smaller than the corpus of early worship.
4.2 Lexical analysis
4.2.1 Methodology
This part of the analysis will be corpus-driven which means that I will look for the most frequent words and collocates of the worship songs from both periods and will critically analyze the outcome regarding the close relationship between God and believers.
4.2.2 Results
The results provided by the Sketch Engine show that most of the first places on the list of the most frequent words are taken by personal and possessive pronouns. K.M. Weiland, who mentors authors so that they can write efficiently, says that pronouns can play an important role in creating “a sense of camaraderie and intimacy between one character and another and between characters and readers” and that the author should use them as often as possible, provided that they can be understood in the context, in order to produce a realistic text (Are you benefiting from the intimacy of pronouns?). I suggest that the pronouns foster intimacy not only between characters and readers of novels but also between God and singers of worship songs. The comparison of the pronouns used in the worship songs could reveal interesting information about the close relationship between
24 believers and God expressed in the worship songs and about their roles. I will find out which of the participant roles of religious discourse – the principal, the author, the animator, the addressee, the target and the overhearer – can be ascribed to God and believers and whether they have got shifted in the current worship songs.
1 The overview of the most frequent words in 2 The overview of the most frequent words in early worship songs current worship songs Word Frequency (tokens) Word Frequency (tokens) the 1,076 the 1,069 and 1,060 you 714 to 456 I 583 of 446 your 522 his 444 of 517 my 346 and 471 thy 292 in 426 in 289 to 422 all 230 my 396 with 225 is 314 their 214 our 301 he 209 God 293 God 188 we 284 I 185 lord 273 is 162 will 237 lord 156 all 230 a 152 me 204 shall 145 for 198 our 141 are 170 praise 121 love 157 that 117 with 146 from 116 be 146 him 112 sing 144 on 106 name 143 for 105 praise 142 are 105 that 129 they 94 holy 127 let 91 a 127 ye 90 us 125 who 90 his 122 your 89 on 116 we 88 Jesus 116 when 85 he 115
25 The most frequent pronouns found in the early and the current songs differ so that some frequent pronouns found in the current songs (e.g., me) are not present in the table showing the most frequent words in the early songs. Due to this, the next table presents all personal and possessive pronouns occurring in the songs and thus the difference in their frequency.
3 The overview of personal and possessive pronouns in the early and current songs Early s. Early s. Current s. Current s. Word (tokens) (relevant tokens) (tokens) (relevant tokens) his 444 416 122 122 my 346 280/66 396 396 thy 292 241 18 18 their 214 diverse 13 4 he 209 203 115 115 I 185 140/37/6 583 583 our 141 141 300 300 him 112 107 57 57 they 94 diverse 5 1 ye 90 diverse 4 4 your 89 1/34 522 504 we 88 88 284 284 me 67 60/7 204 204 thou 59 42 5 5 thee 52 41 9 9 it 51 0 108 0 us 45 45 125 125 them 44 diverse 5 5 thine 31 30 1 1 you 27 diverse 714 690 mine 18 14/4 12 12 its 17 0 5 0 Ours 8 6 0 0 Yours 0 0 12 12
4.2.2.1 his, he, him
The pronoun his with 444 tokens is the most frequent pronoun in the early songs. In 416 cases, the singing believers refer to God or Jesus (examples 1, 2). These cases are called
“relevant tokens” in the table because they are significant for the comparison as they
26 relate to the close relationship between believers and God. In the rest of the cases, the pronoun refers, for example, to a human being (3), a sinner (4), etc. The pronoun his occurs in the current songs only 122 times which is 3.4 times less than in the early songs and it always means “God’s” (5) or “Jesus’” (6).
1) “Let them adore the Lord, and praise his holy name…” (Amherst).
2) “The depths of earth are in his hand…” (Angels Hymn).
3) “Man is but vanity and dust in all his flower and prime” (Bangor).
4) “While the false flatterer at My altar waits, his hardened soul divine
instruction hates” (Landaff).
5) “How great is our God, age to age He stands, and time is in His hands (How
great is our God lyrics).
6) “There in the ground His body lay” (In Christ alone).
Further, I searched for the co-occurrence of his related to God/Jesus and pronouns related to believer(s) – my/I/our/we/me/us/mine – that would clearly express the intimate approach of believers toward God in the worship songs. I counted all instances in which the co-occurring pronouns are a part of the same thought that stretches either over a half of a sentence or over more sentences and between which there is a relation and interaction.
In the early songs, his occurs together with my 7 times (7), with I 13 times (8), with our 11 times (9), with we 12 times (10), with me 4 times (11), with us 4 times (12), and with mine once (13). In the current songs, his occurs together with my 13 times (14), with I 14 times (15), with our 11 times (16), with we 11 times (17), with me 3 times (18), and with us 4 times (19). That means that the early songs contain altogether 52 instances and the current songs 56 instances of such co-occurrence which is almost the same amount.
27 7) “…her noblest life my spirit draws from his dear wounds, and bleeding side”
(Bath).
8) “Here I behold his inmost heart, where grace and vengeance strangely join”
(Bath).
9) “…with gifts his hands are filled; we draw our blessings thence” (Bethesda).
10) “His flock and pasture sheep are we” (Angles Hymn).
11) “He calls me his adopted child, the object of his love” (Norwich).
12) “…and when like wandering sheep we strayed, he brought us to his fold
again” (Denmark).
13) “…since he is mine and I am his, what can I want besides” (Aylesbury)?
Current songs:
14) “My name is graven on his hands, My name is written on His heart” (Before
the throne of God above).
15) “But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection” (How deep the
father’s love for us).
16) “Behold our God seated on His throne” (Behold our God).
17) “So we lift up a shout for His fame and renown” (Ben Cantelon: Saviour of
the world).
18) “He pulls me close with nail-scarred hands, into His everlasting arms” (Rend
Collective – Boldly I approach (The art of celebration) lyrics).
19) “And His mercies never cease, but follow us through all our days with the
certain hope of peace” (Come people of the risen king).
Regarding he, the pronoun appears 209 times which means that it still one of the most frequent pronouns in the early songs. It refers to God (20) or Jesus (21) 203 times. There
28 are 115 cases of he referring to God (22) or Jesus in the current songs which is almost a half of the amount of he in the early songs.
20) “For he's our God, our shepherd he” (Angels Hymn).
21) “Thence He arose, ascending high, and showed our feet the way”
(Canterbury).
22) “Our God is a great big God and he holds us in his hands” (Great big God).
I also searched for the co-occurrence of he related to God/Jesus and pronouns related to believer(s) – my/I/our/we/me/us/mine – that would clearly express the intimate approach of believers toward God in the worship songs. In the early songs, he occurs together with my 13 times (23), with I 2 times (24), with our 11 times (25), with me 5 times (26), with us 9 times (27), and with mine once (28). In the current songs, he occurs together with my
11 times (29), with I 4 times (30), with our 10 times (31), with we 7 times (32), with me
7 times (33), with us 9 times (34), and with mine once (35). The early songs thus contain altogether 41 instances and the current songs 49 instances of such co-occurrence which is almost the same amount.
23) “…when in distress to him I called, he to my rescue came” (Psalm 34).
24) “If e'er I go astray, he doth my soul reclaim” (Aylesbury).
25) “For he's our God, our shepherd he” (Angels Hymn).
26) “He calls me his adopted child” (Norwich).
27) “Thus he awakes our hearts to grief, and gives us joy by turns” (Sutton).
28) “…since he is mine and I am his, what can I want besides” (Aylesbury)?
Current songs:
29) “He will my shield and portion be” (Amazing grace lyrics).
29 30) “I know that while in Heaven He stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart”
(Before the throne of God above).
31) “For He made us a way by which we have been saved, He's the Savior of the
world, so we lift up a shout for his fame and renown” (Ben Cantelon: Saviour
of the world).
32) “He's known me and he's loved me” (Great big God).
33) “He calls us now to follow Him” (The servant king lyrics).
34) “For I am His and He is mine – bought with the precious blood of Christ” (In
Christ alone).
The pronoun him is less frequent in the worship songs but there is a big difference between the early and current songs. There are 112 occurrences of him in the early songs, of which 107 tokens are relevant as they relate to God (35) or Jesus (36). One can find no more than 57 tokens od him (37) in the current songs which is again one time less than in the early songs.
35) “Submit to God's Almighty sway, for Him the heathen shall obey”
(Greenfield).
36) “Whose heart is pure, whose hands are clean, Him shall the Lord the Saviour
bless” (Hartford).
37) “Come bow before Him now with reverence and fear” (Be still).
In order to find out the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God that is expressed in the worship songs, I searched for the co-occurrence of him related to
God/Jesus and pronouns related to believer(s) – my/I/our/we/me/us/mine. In the early songs, him occurs together with my 3 times (38), with I 4 times (39), with our twice (40), with we 8 times (41), with us 7 times (42). In the current songs, him occurs together with
30 my 3 times (43), with I 3 times (44), with our 7 times (45), with we 10 times (46), with me twice (47), with us 10 times (48). The early songs altogether contain 24 instances and the current songs 35 instances of such co-occurrence which is almost the same small amount.
38) “Through him my heart, undaunted, dares with mighty hosts to cope” (St.
David’s).
39) “But shall I therefore let him go, and basely to the tempter yield”
(Habakkuk)?
40) “Crown him ye martyrs of our God, who from the altar call” (Coronation).
41) “We'll join the everlasting song, and crown him Lord of all” (Coronation).
42) “It was His portion, it was the part Of Him who made us all” (Milford).
Current songs:
43) “Behold Him there, the risen lamb, my perfect spotless righteousness” (Before
the throne of God above).
44) “Oh may I then in Him be found” (Cornerstone chords).
45) “We will fix our eyes on Him, our soul's reward” (By faith).
46) “We will glorify, we will lift Him high, we will give Him honour and praise”
(Jesus is the name we honour Sunday songs).
47) “For God the Just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me” (Before the
throne of God above).
48) “He calls us now to follow Him, to bring our lives as a daily offering” (The
servant king lyrics).
It can be observed that the early songs favor the usage of his, he, and him for addressing
God/Jesus substantially more than the current songs do. Altogether, the early songs
31 contain 726 tokens of these pronouns compared to 294 tokens in the current songs. This usage could reflect the believers’ approach to God and the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God – they were used to sing about God more than in the current songs which shows the importance of God’s participant role of an overhearer in the early songs. Interestingly, despite the greater use of his, he, and him in the early songs, the degree of intimacy expressed by the co-occurrence of these pronouns related to God/Jesus and the personal and possessive pronouns of the first person related to believer(s) in the early and current songs is approximately the same.
4.2.2.2 my, I, our, we, me, us, ours, mine
Even though the pronoun my is the second most frequent pronoun with its 346 tokens in the early songs, it does not surpass my, the fourth most frequent pronoun, with its 396 tokens in the current songs. Interestingly, 280 tokens of my related to believer (49,50) and
66 tokens of my related to God/Jesus (51). On the other hand, all 396 cases of my relate to believer (52,53) in the current songs.
49) “Thus will I lift my hands to pray, and tune my lips to sing” (Montgomery).
50) “My willing soul would stay in such a frame as this, to sit, and sing herself
away to everlasting bliss” (Lisbon).
51) “‘Here, saith the Lord, ye angels, spread their thrones, and near me seat my
favorites and my sons: Come, my redeemed, possess the joy prepared, ere time
began; 'tis your divine reward’” (Judgment).
52) “Bless the Lord oh my soul, oh my soul, worship His Holy name” (10,000
reasons).
53) “I'll never know, how much it cost, to see my sin, upon that cross” (Here I am
to worship lyrics).
32 In order to find out the degree of the intimacy in the relationship, the information about the occurrence of my related to believer that collocates with God/Jesus and other expressions that represent God/Jesus will be helpful. There are altogether 67 instances of this collocation in the early songs (54,55) and 91 instances in the current songs (56,57).
54) “I to my God my heavenly King, immortal hallelujahs sing” (Bridgewater).
55) “I'll praise my Maker while I've breath” (Psalm 46).
56) “My God, my Savior has ransomed me” (The Lord‘s my shepherd).
57) “Ageless one, you're my rock of peace” (Faithful one).
The pronoun I can be found 183 times in the early songs of which 140 instances are used when a believer (58) is speaking, 37 instances are used when God/Jesus (59) is speaking and 6 instances are used when an angel (60) is speaking. There is a great shift in the use of I in the current songs as there are altogether not less than 583 tokens which is 3.2 times more than in the early songs. All of them are used when a believer (61, 62) is speaking which is 4.2 times more than in the early songs. Interestingly, the current songs do not contain God’s/Jesus’ or angel’s direct speech at all as it was customary in the early songs.
58) “That awful day will surely come, the appointed hour makes haste, when I
must stand before my Judge, and pass the solemn test” (Windsor).
59) “'Twas then I paid that dreadful debt, which men could never pay” (Sutton).
60) “The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shown around. ‘Fear not,’ said
he, […] ‘glad tidings of great joy I bring glad tidings of great joy I bring to
you, and all mankind’” (Sherburne).
61) “Then I shall bow in humble adoration” (How great thou art).
62) “Your majesty, I can but bow, I lay my all before you now” (King of kings
majesty).
33 To see the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God, I searched for the co-occurrence of I related to believer and you/your/yours/thy/thou/thee/ thine related to God/Jesus in the worship songs.
In the early songs, there is the co-occurrence of I and your 9 times, I and thy 11 times (63), I and thou once, I and thee 8 times (64), and I and thine twice. There are in total 31 instances when I meaning believer occurs together and interacts with personal and possessive pronouns of the second person related to God/Jesus. In the current songs, there is co-occurrence of I and you 141 times (65), I and your 99 times (65), and I and yours 6 times (66). There are in total 246 instances in which I meaning believer interacts with pronouns related to God/Jesus in the current songs which is 8 times more than in the early songs.
63) “Just and holy is thy name, I am all unrighteousness” (Hotham).
64) “My everlasting All, I've none but thee in heaven above” (St. Anne).
65) “I am as loved by you as I could be in the full assurance of your love” (When
I was lost (There is a new song)).
66) “I am Yours and You are mine” (Happy day lyrics).
The possessive pronoun our is solely related to singers, and thus believers, in both the early and the current songs. The early songs contain 141 occurrences (67) and the current songs contain more than twice as many, 300, occurrences (68) of this pronoun. At the same time, the our collocates with God or other expressions representing God 35 times in the early songs (69) and 155 times in the current songs (70) which is 4.43 times more than in the early songs.
67) “How blessed are our eyes that see this heavenly light” (Winter).
34 68) “In Your Presence all our fears are washed away, washed away” (Hosanna
(Praise is rising) chords).
69) “Nor would we wish the hours more slow to keep us from our Love”
(Canterbury).
70) “Our God, You reign forever, our hope, our strong deliverer” (Everlasting
God lyrics).
The pronoun we does not appear as frequently in the early songs – 88 tokens (71) – as in the current songs – 284 tokens (72). It is always related to the singers and thus believers which can show the awareness of believers’ identity in their relationship with God.
Regarding the close relationship between believers and God, I searched for the co- occurrence of we related to believers and you/your/yours/thy/thou/thee/thine related to
God/Jesus or God’s/Jesus’ between which there is a direct relation and interaction in the worship songs. The pronoun we occurs together with thy 16 times, with thou once (73), with thee 3 times (74), and with thine 4 times in the early songs. There are in total 24 instances of this co-occurrence. The pronoun we occurs together and interacts with you
69 times (75), with your 43 times (76), and with yours twice. This is in total 114 instances which is 4.8 times more than in the early songs.
71) “For we our voices high should raise, when our Salvation's Rock we praise”
(Angels Hymn).
72) “'Cause when we see You, we find strength to face the day” (Hosanna (Praise
is rising) chords).
73) “How frail are we, how glorious thou” (Brookfield).
74) “Almighty Power, to thee we bow” (Brookfield).
75) “And it's You we adore” (Waiting here for you).
35 76) “Lord of all the earth we'll shout Your name, shout Your name” (At your name
(backing track) lyrics).
There are 60 tokens of the pronoun me related to believer and 7 tokens of me related to
God/Jesus in the early songs. 204 tokens of me related to believer can be found in the current songs which is 3.4 times more than in the early songs. I searched for the co- occurrence of me related to believer and you/your/yours/thy/thou/thee/thine related to
God/Jesus in order to see the degree of the intimate relationship between believers and
God expressed in the worship songs. In the early songs, me occurs together with thy 9 times (77), with thou 3 times (78), with thee once, and with thine once (79) which is altogether 14 instances of this co-occurrence. In the current songs, me co-occurs with you
103 times (80) and with your 39 times (81) which is in total 142 instances, 7.4 times more than in the early songs.
77) “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly” (Hotham).
78) “Lord! thou wilt hear me when I pray; I am forever thine” (Buckingham).
79) “Thine hand conduct me near Thy seat, to dwell before Thy face” (Rochester).
80) “You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me”
(Here I am to worship lyrics).
81) “For Your endless mercy follows me, Your goodness will lead me home” (The
Lord‘s my shepherd).
The pronoun us is related to believers in both the early and current songs. us is not very common in the early songs as there are only 45 tokens of it. Also, only 125 tokens of us can be found in the current songs. The co-occurrence of us and you/your/yours/thy/thou/thee/thine related to God/Jesus will help one see the degree of the intimacy in the worship songs. In the early songs, us occurs together with thy twice
36 (82) and with thee once (83) which is in total only three instances. In the current songs, us interacts with you 53 times (84) and with your 27 times (85) which is altogether 80 instances which is as much as 27 times more than in the early songs.
82) “While truth and mercy, joined in one, invite us near thy face” (Virginia).
83) “And kindly lengthen out our span, till a wise care of piety fit us to die, and
dwell with thee” (Psalm 100 (New)).
84) “Hosanna, hosanna, You are the God who saves us” (Hosanna (Praise is
rising) chords).
85) “Lord have Your way, Lord have Your way with us” (Consuming fire lyrics).
The possessive pronoun ours appears 8 times related to believers in the early songs but never in the current songs. In 6 cases (86), ours has the meaning of the collocation our
God/Jesus which reflects the intimate relationship between believers and God/Jesus.
86) “The Lord of Hosts conducts our arms, our tower of refuge in alarms; our
father's Guardian God, and ours” (Greenfield).
The pronoun mine with 18 tokens is the least frequent possessive pronoun in the early songs. 14 tokens are related to believer and 4 tokens to God/Jesus. Regarding tokens related to believer, mine has the meaning of the collocation my God/Jesus only once.
However, the tokens of mine related to God/Jesus do not have the meaning of my believer.
Further, in the current songs, mine has the meaning of the collocation my God/Jesus 7 times (87).
87) “But God, who called me here below, will be forever mine” (Amazing grace
lyrics).
37 After the analysis of the personal and possessive pronouns my, I, our, we, me, us, ours and mine, one can say that current believers tend to be much more aware of their identity and emphasize their part in the relationship with God more than earlier believers through the greater use of the pronouns. Also, it can be observed that the close relationship between believers and God is much more represented in the current songs than in the early songs as there are far more instances of personal and possessive pronouns of the first person related to believer(s) occurring together with personal and possessive pronouns of the second person singular related to God/Jesus. Another observation is that the current songs contain greater amount of collocations such as our and God/other representations of God and my and God/other representations of God than the early songs and by that they express believers’ intimate approach toward God.
4.2.2.3 their, they, them
There are 214 tokens of the pronoun their in the early songs and only 13 tokens in the current songs. Further, there are 94 tokens of they in the early songs and only 5 tokens in the current songs. Finally, there are 44 tokens of them in the early songs and 5 tokens in the current songs. One can see that these pronouns are very common in the early songs but they are almost missing in the current songs. However, their occurrence does not tell much about the intimacy in the relationship between believers and God. In the early songs, their, they and them are often related to people in general (88), Israelites (89), unbelievers (90), animals (91), things (92), believers (93), etc. In the current worship songs, there are merely 1 token of their, 1 token of they and 1 token of them related to believers (94) which however does not contribute to understanding of the intimate relationship between believers and God. Due to this, I will not deal with these pronouns in depth.
38 88) “Shall the vile race of flesh and blood contend with their Creator God”
(Brookfield)?
89) “They forty years my patience grieved, though daily I their wants relieved.
Then - it is a faithless race, I said, whose heart from me has always strayed”
(Angels Hymn).
90) “His stubborn foes his sword shall slay, and pierce their hearts with pain”
(London New).
91) “Fierce lions lead their young abroad, and, roaring, ask their meat from God”
(Bridgewater).
92) “There ships divide their watery way” (Bridgewater).
93) “His chosen saints to grace, He sets them up on high” (Portsmouth).
94) “Over all the world, His people sing, shore to shore we hear them call the
Truth that cries through every age” (Come people of the risen king).
4.2.2.4 thy, your, thou, thee, thine, you, yours
This part is very important as the possessive and personal pronouns of the second person singular related to God/Jesus can reveal a personal and intimate way in which believers approach God.
Thy appears, as the third most common pronoun in the early songs, 292 times of which 241 tokens (95,96), a significant majority, are related to God/Jesus. Even though this pronoun is archaic today, it appears 18 times (97) in the current songs, always related to God/Jesus, which is 13.4 times less than in the early songs.
95) “The heavens declare thy glory Lord, in every star thy wisdom shines” (All
Saints).
39 96) “My God, accept my early vows, like morning incense in thy house”
(Winchester).
97) “Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me” (Great is thy faithfulness)!
There is a great difference in the use of your in the early and current songs. There are merely 89 tokens of your in the early songs of which only one token (98) is related to
God/Jesus. Most of the time, your is used there to address people in general, heavenly gates, sinners (99), etc., thus nouns in plural. In the current songs, one can find 522 tokens of your of which most of them, 504 tokens (100, 101), are related to God/Jesus. 16 tokens are used to address believers.
98) “The bounties of thy love shall crown my following days; nor from thy house
will I remove, nor cease to speak your praise” (Aylesbury)!
99) “Sinners, awake betimes; ye fools, be wise; awake, before this dreadful
morning rise: Change your vain thoughts, your crooked works amend”
(Judgment).
100) “Set apart for You, my Master, ready to do Your will” (Refiner’s fire
lyrics).
101) “I've been born again, into your family, your blood flows through my
veins, I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God” (No longer slaves
(radio version) feat).
Regarding the pronoun thou, it can be found 59 times in the early songs of which 42 tokens (102) are used for addressing God/Jesus. Only 5 instances (103) of thou related to
God/Jesus can be found in the current songs which is 8.4 times less than in the early songs as it is considered archaic today.
102) “Be thou, o God exalted high” (Psalm 100 (Old)).
40 103) “As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be” (Great is thy faithfulness).
The pronoun thee belonging also to archaic words appears 52 times in the early songs of which most of them, 41 tokens (104), address God/Jesus. The current songs contain only
9 tokens (105) of thee that are related to God/Jesus which is 4.6 times less than in the early songs.
104) “Almighty Power, to thee we bow; how frail are we, how glorious thou”
(Brookfield)!
105) “You alone are my heart's desire, and I long to worship Thee” (As the deer
lyrics).
There are 31 tokens of thine of which 30 tokens (106) have the function of addressing
God/Jesus in the early songs. Only 1 token (107) of archaic thine can be found in the current songs.
106) “Lord! thou wilt hear me when I pray; I am forever thine” (Buckingham).
107) “Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth Thine own dear presence to
cheer and to guide” (Great is thy faithfulness).
The pronoun you is much more common in the current songs than the previous pronouns; it is even the most frequent pronoun and the second most frequent word in the current songs with its 714 tokens of which 690 tokens (108, 109) refer to God/Jesus. In the early songs, you is not used in the connection with God/Jesus at all but is used to address believers 10 times (110), people in general 5 times (111), shepherds 5 times, kings and judges 3 times, unbelievers once, and animals once.
41 108) “This is amazing grace, this is unfailing love that You would take my place
that You would bear my cross, You laid down Your life” (This is amazing
grace).
109) “Thank you for the cross, thank you for the cross, thank you for the cross,
my friend” (Once again lyrics).
110) “Hail him who saves you by his grace, and crown him Lord of all”
(Coronation)!
111) “To you, in David's town, this day is born of David's line, the Saviour, who
is Christ the Lord” (Sherburne).
The last pronoun to be analyzed in this part is yours that does not appear in the early songs at all and it appears 12 times (112) in the current songs in which yours is always meant to address God/Jesus.
112) “Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your
Kingdom's cause” (Hosanna (Praise is rising) chords).
To sum it up, the early songs contain altogether 355 tokens of the possessive and personal pronouns of the second person singular that are used to address God/Jesus directly.
However, one can find in total 1239 instances of these pronouns in the current songs which means that it is 3.5 times more than in the early songs. Due to this, one can say that the intimacy in the relationship between God and believers is more expressed in the current songs by using such pronouns. The authors and singers of the early songs were not as much used to approach God/Jesus so directly, in a personal and intimate way, as the authors and singers of today’s worship songs.
In the tables 4 and 5, it can be observed that the personal and possessive pronouns of the second person singular are used to address God/Jesus in 354 out of 550 cases, which
42 is 64%, in the early songs. In the current songs, these pronouns are used to address
God/Jesus in 1239 out of 1281 cases, and thus in 97% of the cases, which is significantly more than in the early songs. Based on that, some participant roles of the discourse can be determined. The believers are animators who sing the songs. The ultimate target is
God in both early and current worship songs because they were designed to worship God in the first place. However, the proximal addressee sometimes differs in the early and current worship songs. In the early songs, the pronouns show that the proximal addressees are people – believers, unbelievers, nations or people in general – but also animals and things in 36% of the cases which means that God is not directly addressed and has the role of an overhearer. In 64% of the cases, the proximal addressee is God/Jesus and believers and unbelievers are overhearers. In the current songs, the pronouns are used to address God/Jesus in 97% of the cases which is substantially more than in the early songs and other believers or unbelievers are overhearers. In the rest of the cases, the believers are proximal addressees and God is the overhearer. The current songs therefore show a higher degree of intimacy between God and believers than the early songs.
4 The overview of pronouns used to address God/Jesus in the early songs All tokens Addressing God/Jesus Addressing God/Jesus thy 292 241 83% your 89 1 1% thou 59 42 71% thee 52 41 79% thine 31 30 97% you 27 0 0% yours 0 0 0% in total 550 354 64%
43 5 The overview of pronouns used to address God/Jesus in the current songs All tokens Addressing God/Jesus Addressing God/Jesus thy 18 18 100% your 522 504 97% thou 5 5 100% thee 9 9 100% thine 1 1 100% you 714 690 97% yours 12 12 100% in total 1281 1239 97%
4.2.2.5 it, its
The amount of it and its is not relevant for describing the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God in the worship songs because they refer neither to believers nor to God.
4.2.2.6 Conclusion
Pronouns occupy the first positions on the frequency word list which means that they are significant constituents of the worship songs. There are four outcomes of the lexical analysis that show the different degree of intimacy in the early and current worship songs
(the table 6). The first outcome is the overall number of personal and possessive pronouns found in the songs. The early songs contain altogether 2723 personal and possessive pronouns of which 1969 instances are relevant – related to the participants of the close relationship, to either God or believer(s). The current songs contain in total 3607 personal and possessive pronouns of which 3437 are relevant instances.
One can see that almost all pronouns in the current songs are relevant for the analysis of the degree of intimacy whereas the early songs contain much more pronouns that are related to someone or something else than God or believers. Based on what
Weiland says about pronouns fostering intimacy and familiarity, there is a difference between saying “God is wonderful” and “you (God) are wonderful”/ “he (God) is
44 wonderful.” One could thus say that the more pronouns related to God or believer(s) are used in the songs, the higher the degree of intimacy can be recognized in the songs. The degree of intimacy is higher in the current songs than in the early songs as the overall number of relevant personal and possessive pronouns is 1.8 times bigger than in the early songs.
The second outcome concerns the co-occurrence of pronouns related to God and pronouns related to believer(s) (e.g., “I am his and he is mine”) which shows the interaction and relation between God and believers. It gives a believer a sense of belonging to God and of God belonging to him/her. Altogether, there are 189 cases in the early songs and 699 cases in the current songs which is 3.7 times more than in the early songs. Due to this, it can be said that there is more interaction and relation between God and believers by using personal and possessive pronouns and thus a higher degree of intimacy between God and believers in the current songs than in the early songs.
This result is further supported by the number of my, our, ours and mine (third outcome) collocating with God/Jesus or other expressions that should represent him. 109 tokens of these pronouns in the early songs and 253 tokens in the current songs collocate with God/Jesus which is 2 times more than in the early songs. These results show that the current songs favor much more relating believer(s) to God and relating God to believer(s) so that a believer has a sense of belonging to God and of God belonging to him/her.
6 The overview of the results Early songs Current songs Number of pronouns 2723 3607 Number of relevant pronouns 1969 3437 Co-occurrence 189 699 Collocations 109 253
The fourth outcome is related to participant roles in the discourse of the worship songs.
God has more often the role of the overhearer in the early than in the current songs and
45 has more often the role of the proximal addressee in the current than in the early songs.
This means that the early songs are more often about God than the current songs and that the current songs are more often directed at God than the early songs which reflects a higher degree of an intimate relationship between believers and God in the current songs than in the early songs.
4.3 Metaphor analysis
4.3.1 Methodology
In this part, I will do the corpus-based analysis and look for specific words that are strongly associated with conceptual metaphors that represent a close and personal relationship with God. God may be understood in very abstract terms which is also a case of an entry in a dictionary that says that God is “the supreme or ultimate reality: such as a) the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe; b) the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit: infinite Mind” (Merriam-Webster). In order to see the representations of close and personal relationship with God in worship songs that is described in an abstract way, I will use ontological conceptual metaphors that will bring the concept nearer.
Ontological metaphors that make use of personification for describing the concepts help one understand certain abstract experience – the target domain – in terms of a human being and his or her motivations, characteristics, and activities that are familiar to people – the source domain. The target domain is thus CLOSE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BELIEVERS AND GOD who however exists in three persons which may be understood within the theological concept of Trinity.
Christians believe in the concept of Trinity that is defined in the dictionary as “the union of three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost) in one Godhead, so that all the three are one God as to substance, but three persons as to individuality” (Webster’s
46 1913 Dictionary). The Trinity concept is thus connected with the construction of the target domain because, besides GOD, all three persons – FATHER, JESUS CHRIST, and
HOLY SPIRIT, could appear in the target domain instead of GOD.
Concerning the human aspects of GOD, Luhrmann says that “God is not only first principle, an awesome, distant judge, a mighty force” but also a person whom one can meet and build friendship with by spending time together with him through Bible reading and prayers. God is also someone who communicates with the believer through the Bible or specific feelings (p.525). She says that God is considered by believers to be “spouse…, boyfriend (for women), buddy (for men), close friend and pal (for both)” (p.525). Falling in love with a woman is compared by a congregant in the article to falling in love with
God where God is the perfect partner (p. 523). I do not expect to find words such as buddy, pal or boyfriend describing God because they are rather unfitting for worshipping
God but they nicely illustrate believers’ closeness to God.
The Bible is a great source in which one can look for human aspects that will bring the concept of CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BELIEVERS AND GOD nearer.
Neville (2001) says that there are two senses of God’s paternity; one sense is the
“conception of God as father of Jesus as Son of God exclusively” (p.26) as can be seen, for example, in the Gospel of Matthew: “All things have been committed to me by my
Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the
Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (New International Version (NIV),
Matthew 11.27) and another is “the conception of God the Creator as father of all people” which is related to one of the Persons of Trinity (p.26). This is said in the verse: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (NIV, Genesis 1.27). Finally, God is compared to Father of those who got to believe in Jesus Christ which is described by John: “Yet to all who did receive him
47 [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
– children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (NIV, John 1.12-13) which is essential for this analysis. One can thus say that God is Father of his children, believers, between which there can be a very close relationship in the same way as there can be a very close relationship between an earthly father and his children. The conceptual metaphor is thus, as follows: CLOSE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BELIEVERS AND GOD IS CLOSE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN CHILDREN AND FATHER. Due to this, Father used for designation of
God and words strongly associated with the relationship between Father and his children could be found in the worship songs and will be now searched after.
With the help of the Sketch Engine and the National British corpus, I used a word sketch which is a tool that “shows the word’s collocates categorised by grammatical relations such as words that serve as an object of the verb, words that serve as a subject of the verb, words that modify the word etc.” (Word sketch). After entering father and child one by one into the field “lemma” of the word sketch, collocations occurring often with them were displayed. The collocates that are strongly associated with the concept
CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDREN AND FATHER expressing a kind of interaction or communication between them are listed here:
▪ father as subject of x – teach, speak, reply, come, love, tell, say
▪ father and/or x – son, daughter
▪ father as object of x – please, honor, adore, love, kiss, obey, visit, remember, tell,
hear, join
▪ modifier (x) father – loving, dear, beloved, proud
▪ object (x) of father – help
▪ adj subject (x) of father – fond, proud, pleased, present, good
48 ▪ object (x) to father – belong, talk, speak, listen, write, close, letter, return, turn,
say, go
▪ object (x) with father – live, relationship, stay, work, go
▪ object (x) by father – encourage
▪ object (x) from father – learn, letter, receive, hear
▪ object (x) for father – love, wait, work
▪ object (x) about father – talk, know, think
▪ object (x) at father – smile, look
▪ object (x) between father – relationship
Child:
▪ child as object of x – teach, protect, help, encourage, adopt, love, feed
▪ modifier (x) child – dependent (on father)
▪ child and/or x – parent, son, daughter, teacher
▪ child as subject of x – learn (st from father), receive (st from father), enjoy
(father’s presence), stay (with father), respond (to father)
▪ object (x) of child – parent, need, fond, care, father
▪ child’s x – need, home, future
▪ object (x) for child – care, affection, safe, best, gift, search
▪ object (x) with child – interaction, work, relationship
▪ child in x – need (of father)
▪ adj subject of child – alive (because of father), welcome, happy, dependent, aware
(of father’s love), sensitive (to father’s voice)
▪ object (x) to child – talk, listen, gift, speak, belong, parent, explain
▪ child of x – parent, father
▪ child with x – parent
49 ▪ object (x) in child – interested
▪ child at x – home
▪ object after child – look
▪ object (x) about child – know, think
▪ object (x) at child – look
▪ object between child – relationship
There is another place in the Bible that speaks about a close relationship with God, or in this case Jesus Christ who says: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (NIV, John 15.15). Jesus compares the believers to friends so that the relationship between Jesus Christ and believers can be described as friendship. The conceptual metaphor is thus, as follows: CLOSE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BELIEVERS AND JESUS CHRIST IS CLOSE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRIENDS. Therefore, the word friend used for designation of Jesus Christ or the believer and other words strongly associated with the concept CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRIENDS could be found in the worship songs. The word sketch showed these collocates:
▪ Modifier (x) of friend – close, best, closest, dear, good, trusted, personal,
lifelong, dearest, great, loyal, honorable
▪ Friend and/or x – lover, admirer, companion, partner, mentor, patron
▪ Friend as object of x – thank, visit, invite, meet, become, assure, tell, ask,
remain, join, contact, greet, persuade, make
▪ Friend as subject of x – comfort, laugh, stay, live, reply, recognize, visit, lend,
surround, tell, say, confirm, share, speak, attend, come, arrive
50 ▪ Friend of x – father
▪ Object (x) of friend(s) – the best, help, advice, attention, name
▪ Object (x) with friend – stay, chat, agree, drink, conversation, communicate,
contact, lunch, dinner, holiday, live, share, evening, play, discuss, talk, sit,
relationship, walk, night, week, go, word
▪ Object (x) to friend – grateful, chat, goodbye, tribute, talk, listen, thanks, letter,
belong, loyalty, write, speak, visit, turn, send, say, know, go, give, way
▪ Possessor (x) – dad, father, child
▪ Adj subject of friend – aware, right, correct, surprised, pleased, interested,
willing, happy, good
▪ Friend’s x – face, advice, attention, voice, eye, name, party, hand
▪ Friend in x – need, home
▪ Object (x) by friend – comfort, surround, accompany, miss, support, make tell,
give
▪ Object (x) for friend – wait, gift, party, look
▪ Object (x) from friend – help, call, hear, visit, advice, letter, support, question,
come
▪ Friend for x – reply, answer, comment, help, support, life
▪ Friend with x – child
▪ Friend to x – reply, answer
▪ Object (x) as friend – regard
▪ Object (x) at friend – smile, look
▪ Object (x) on friend – rely, call
▪ Object (x) about friend – talk
▪ Object (x) in friend – confide
51 Last but not least, the Church, or the believers, is compared to the bride of Christ several times in the Bible. For example, one can read in the book of Revelation: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (NIV, Rev. 19.7). Here, the bride is Church, or the believers, and
Lamb is Jesus Christ who can be thus compared to a groom which results in the conceptual metaphor: CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BELIEVERS AND JESUS
CHRIST IS CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.
Therefore, the words bride or (bride)groom and other words strongly associated with the concept CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM could be found in the worship songs. Following collocates were shown in the word sketch:
▪ Modifier (x) of bride – blushing, beautiful, lovely
▪ Bride and/or x – groom, bridegroom
▪ Bride as object of x – wed, kiss, marry, meet, bring, see, help, lead, become,
come, know, find, tell
▪ Bride as subject of x – enjoy, look, come, go
▪ Bride’s x – parent, father, name, hand
▪ Object (x) of bride – parent, father
▪ X back bride – bring
Bridegroom:
▪ Bridegroom’s x – name
▪ Bridegroom and/or x – dancing, covenant, wedding
▪ Bridegroom as object of x – wonder, meet
▪ Modifier (x) of bridegroom – waiting, handsome, perfect
▪ Bridegroom as subject of x – rejoice, overwhelm, enter, receive, choose, stand
52 ▪ Object (x) of bridegroom – arrival
▪ Bridegroom modifies x – look
▪ Object (x) for bridegroom – cook, exist
▪ Object (x) with bridegroom – over-pleased, reunite
▪ Object (x) by bridegroom – overwhelm
▪ Groom as subject of x – smile, accompany, arrive, stand, return, speak,
sit, lead, come, run, look
▪ Groom as object of x – follow, tell
▪ Groom’s x – name
▪ Object (x) to groom – turn
I will then compare the frequency of these collocates that represent the relationship between father and children, the friendship, and the relationship between bride and groom in the worship songs from both periods and qualitatively analyze the results.
When counting the instances, I do not strictly follow the grammatical form of the patterns found in the word sketch of the Sketch Engine (e.g., “adj subject of child”).
Rather, I look for the same or similar meaning of the patterns in the collection of worship songs. For example, if I look for the word help in the worship songs that would be the object in the pattern “object (x) of friend” where friend represents God I would count the instance “help of God” as well as the instance “God’s help” which has the same meaning.
Besides that, grammatical categories are not a deciding factor for counting instances. For example, if the pattern concerns child that represents believer, I would count all nouns, either singular or plural, that stand for believer. Also, the worship songs very often use pronouns, various metaphorical and metonymical expressions to refer to God/Jesus/Holy
Spirit or believers. Due to this, I, for example, consider “thy sanctuary” in the sentence,
“Thy sanctuary taught me so: On slippery rocks I see them stand, and fiery billows roll
53 below,” to be God. Then, there are some words such as come or speak that collocate with both father and groom of which both represent God. In such cases, I count only the first set of collocations.
4.3.2 Results
4.3.2.1 CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDREN AND FATHER
In this part, I look for words in the worship songs that frequently collate with father (=
God in the worship songs) and children (= believers in the worship songs) in the BNC corpus and are related to the close relationship between them.
A. father as subject of x
The early songs contain verbs such as teach (2), come (18), love (5) that frequently collocate with father and all of them express the interaction between believers and God.
The verb teach requires an object that is me (believer) in the example. The verb come, on the other hand, implies the location – “here where we, believers, are.” love also requires an argument, an object, that is missing in the example, though. One can however understand that the object of God’s love are all people, and also believers, based on the
Biblical context.
1. “Thy sanctuary taught me so: On slippery rocks I see them stand, and
fiery billows roll below! But, o their end, their dreadful end” (Greenwich).
2. “Messiah is come To ransom his own, And heaven and earth are at peace
3. Oh! the sweet wonders of that cross where God, the Saviour, loved and
died” (Christmas).
54 In the current songs, come (41), love (5), and tell (2) can be found. The verb tell requires the object – me (believer) in the example – which implies the interaction between God and believer as well.
4. “This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save”
(In Christ alone).
5. “He's known me and he's loved me since before the world began” (Great
big God).
6. “And You tell me that You're pleased, and that I'm never alone” (Good
good father).
B. father and/or x
The NBC corpus shows that father often collocates with son and daughter so I search for these nouns regardless of their connection with and/or. The words son and daughter perfectly portray the intimate relationship between God and believers. The early songs contain 12 tokens of son.
1. “There's no distinction here; come spread their thrones, And near me seat
my favorites and my sons” (Judgment).
2. The current songs contain son 4 times and daughter once.
3. “But now I am Your son, I am adopted in Your family, and I can never be
alone” (Father God, I wonder).
4. “Who makes the orphan a son and daughter? The King of Glory, the King
of Glory” (This is amazing grace).
C. father as object of x
In the early songs, one can find verbs such as adore (15), love (7), obey (8), tell (2) and hear (3) which require the object – father (God). All of them express believers’ intimate
55 approach of love and respect toward God. The verbs tell and hear portrait mutual communication that takes place among believers and God. In the sentence with obey, the object is “his power” which can be understood as a metonymical expression for God. In the case of tell, the object is a metaphorical expression – “sovereign grace” – for God. In the case of hear, the object is “thy gracious voice” which implies that one hears God.
Also, the subject is often very general like “earth's utmost ends” that however includes believers as well.
1. “When God appears, all nature shall adore him” (Landaff).
2. “My soul shall ever love thee well” (Dalston)!
3. “…earth's utmost ends his power obey” (Portsmouth).
4. “Yet humble souls may see thy face, and tell their wants to sovereign
grace” (Bridgewater).
5. “To sit one day beneath thine eye, and hear thy gracious voice, exceeds a
whole eternity employed in carnal joys” (Portsmouth).
One can find verbs such as please (1), honor (3), adore (19), love (18), tell (1), hear (4) in the current songs. When believers sing that they want to please God’s heart, they want to please God himself and when they “hear the voice,” they hear God. “Beautiful one” is a metaphor that nicely describes God.
6. “I want to please Your heart, what can I give, what can I bring, what can
I sing as an offering, Lord” (I will offer up my life lyrics)?
7. “This is my desire to honor You” (I give you my heart).
8. “Beautiful one I love, Beautiful one I adore, Beautiful one my soul must
sing” (Beautiful one lyrics).
9. “Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand” (Shout to the Lord lyrics).
56 10. “Lord, we tell You, You are holy, holy, holy” (Open the eyes of my heart
lyrics).
11. “I hear the voice that scatters fear, The Great I Am the Lord is here” (Rend
Collective – Boldly I approach (The art of celebration) lyrics).
D. modifier (x) father
In the early songs, one can find two modifiers of father implying intimacy – loving (6) and dear (4).
1. “Men, the dear objects of his grace, and he the loving God” (New
Jerusalem).
2. “One day amidst the place where my dear God has been, is sweeter than
ten thousand days of pleasurable sin” (Lisbon).
3. There are only two tokens of loving that connect with “King,” a frequent
name for God/Jesus in the current songs.
4. “Jesus, what can I give, what can I bring, to so faithful a Friend, to so
loving a King” (I will offer up my life lyrics)?
E. object (x) of father
The only word that fits this pattern is help even though it connects with a different preposition – from so that the meaning is slightly different. It appears once in the early songs and twice in the current songs.
1. Early s.: “All my trust on thee is stayed, all mine help from thee I bring”
(Hotham).
2. Current s.: “God I look to You, You're where my help comes from” (God
I look to you lyrics).
57 F. adj subject (x) of father
There is one slightly modified instance of this pattern in the early songs – “God is present
(help).” The word present describes the closeness of God to believers.
1. “God is our Refuge in distress, a present help when dangers press”
(Greenfield).
2. There is one token of pleased in the current songs that fits the pattern. If
God tells a believer that He is pleased, it implies that He is pleased with
the believer which reflects intimacy in their relationship.
3. “And You tell me that You're pleased, and that I'm never alone” (Good
good father).
G. object (x) to father
The verbs belong to and return to express a strong relation to someone or something.
Each verb appears once in the early worship songs and expresses thus an intimate relation with God. In the case of belong, there is “his Name” that refers to God. Also, praising someone is certainly very intimate in a relationship and therefore “the praise” of believers is an appropriate subject. Even though the preposition to after return is missing, one can imply from the context that the “the vilest sinner may return” to the Lord.
1. “To him address, in joyful songs, the praise that to his Name belongs”
(Angels Hymn).
2. “Life is the time to serve the Lord, the time to insure the great reward; and
while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return” (Wells).
3. In the current songs, there are 4 tokens of belong, one token of return, and
4 tokens of turn that connect with to God. In the example with belong,
hearts is a metonymy that refers to people who become believers.
58 4. “To You alone belongs the highest praise” (You alone can rescue lyrics).
5. “Hear the sound of hearts returning to You, we turn to You” (Hosanna
(Praise is rising) chords).
H. object (x) with father
There is no instance of this collocation in the early songs and there is one instance of live in the current songs that portraits an intimate and long-term relationship of believers with
God.
1. “To become like you in your death, my Lord, so with you to live and never
die” (Knowing you lyrics).
I. object (x) from father
The early songs contain 2 tokens of the verb receive that connects with from God which illustrates the dependency of not only believers but all “creatures” on God.
1. “And the whole race of creatures stands, waiting their portion from thy
hands. While each receives his different food” (Bridgewater)
There are 2 tokens of receive in the current songs.
2. “He comes to cleanse and heal, to minister His grace, no work too hard
for Him, in faith receive from Him” (Be still).
J. object (x) for father
This collocation is not included in the early songs but the current songs contain 5 instances of wait for God and 13 instances of wait upon God which has a very similar meaning.
1. “We're waiting here for You, I'm waiting here for You, You're the Lord
of all creation” (Waiting here for you).
59 2. “Strength will rise, as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord,
we will wait upon the Lord” (Everlasting God lyrics).
K. child as subject of x
Now, the collocations change as father (God) is replaced by child (believer). There is only one instance in which a believer is the subject of (rise to) respond that implies the interaction between believers and God in the current songs.
1. “And so with thankfulness and faith we rise to respond: and to remember
our call to follow in the steps of Christ as His body here on earth”
L. object (x) of child
There are altogether 15 instances of the collocation my/our father in the current worship songs that have the meaning of believer’s God or God of believer (= father of child) so that it fits the pattern and it reflects the loving approach of believers toward God. There is no such a collocation in the early songs.
1. “Thank you oh my father, for giving us your son, and leaving your spirit,
'til the work on earth is done” (There is a redeemer lyrics).
M. object (x) for child
The early worship songs contain 3 tokens of care and 3 tokens of gift that refer to believer.
However, the examples show that the form is quite different but the meaning is very similar. The examples imply that God cares for and has gifts for his child (believer).
1. “…make you his service your delight, your wants shall be his care” (Psalm
34).
2. “God is our sun and shield, our light and our defense; with gifts his hands
are filled; we draw our blessings thence” (Bethesda).
60 3. There are 2 tokens of care and 3 tokens of gift in the current songs.
4. “I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of Your
parenthood and Your loving care” (Father God, I wonder).
5. “Here in the love of Christ I stand. In Christ alone! - who took on flesh,
fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness” (In
Christ alone).
N. object (x) to child
There are 5 instances in the current songs in which believers ask God to speak to them which reflects their mutual communication.
1. “Speak , o Lord, as we come to You to receive the food of your holy word”
(Speak o Lord).
4.3.2.2 CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRIENDS
In this part, I look for words in the worship songs that frequently collate with friend (=
God or believer in the worship songs) in the BNC corpus and are related to the close relationship between them.
A. Modifier (x) of friend The adjective trusted appears twice in the predicative position and great 18 times in the attributive position in the early songs and both always refer to God. Believers express with these adjectives their praise and admiration for God which reflects their loving approach toward God.
1. “All power is his eternal due; he must be feared and trusted too” (Russia).
2. “Their mouths filled with praises of him, their great King” (Psalm 149).
61 3. The current songs contain closest (1) and best (1) in the attributive
position, and good (8) and great (66) in either the predicative or attributive
position.
4. “King of kings, majesty, God of Heaven living in me, gentle Saviour,
closest friend, strong deliverer, beginning and end” (King of kings
majesty).
5. “You're my all, you're the best, You're my joy, my righteousness”
(Knowing you lyrics).
6. “For He is good, He is above all things” (Forever lyrics).
7. “And my heart will sing, how great is our God, how great is our God”
(How great is our God lyrics).
B. friend and/or x In the early songs, Jesus (as friend) collocates with lover once and we (friends) occurs together with partners once. This reflects the friendly relationship between believers and
God.
1. “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly” (Hotham).
2. “There may we with thee remain, partners of thine endless reign”
(Middletown).
C. friend as object of x In the early songs, one can find verbs that connect with either God or believer – thank
God (1), visit believer (2), invite believer (2), meet God (1), and ask believer (2) – that express the interaction and communication between friends (God and believers).
1. “Into his presence let us haste to thank him for his favors past” (Angels
Hymn).
62 2. “O what is feeble dying man, or any of his race, that God should make it
his concern to visit him with grace” (Coleshill)?
3. “While truth and mercy, joined in one, invite us near thy face” (Virginia).
4. “How lovely, how divinely sweet, o Lord, Thy sacred courts appear! Fain
would my longing passions meet the glory of Thy presence there”
(Portugal).
5. “If I were hungry, would I ask thee food” (Judgment)?
In the current songs, thank God appears 21 times, meet God once, and ask God once.
6. “Great, great is the Lord, oh Lord, what more can we say, thank you,
thank you” (Thank you for saving me lyrics).
7. “When I stand in that place, free at last, meeting face to face, I am yours,
Jesus, you are mine” (Happy day lyrics).
8. “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find” (Karen Lafferty
– Seek ye first lyrics).
D. friend as subject of x The early songs contain verbs such as comfort (1) and lend (1) that frequently collocate with friend as a subject and express the interaction between believers and God.
1. “…ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me” (Hotham).
2. “I'll praise him while he lends me breath” (Psalm 46).
The current songs contain beside comfort (4) also surround (8) that implies the closeness between believers and God.
3. “You're the defender of the weak, You comfort those in need” (Everlasting
God lyrics).
63 4. “You surround me with a song” (No longer slaves (radio version) feat).
E. Object (x) with friend There is one instance of God walks with a believer (a friend) in the current songs.
1. “And by faith we'll walk as You walk with us” (Speak o Lord).
F. Object (x) to friend One can find 5 instances of believer (brings) tribute to God, 2 instances of believers’ thanks to God, and 12 instances of God gives something to believer that imply the interaction and respect in the relationship between God and believers in the early songs.
1. “Whilst God over all my haughty foes my lofty head shall raise; and I my
joyful tribute bring, with grateful songs of praise” (St. David’s).
2. “Loud thanks to our almighty King” (Angels Hymn).
3. “Give me one kind, assuring word to sink my fears again” (Windsor).
There are 4 instances of believers’ thanks to God and 38 instances of God gives something to believer or believer gives something to God which again shows the interaction and respect in the relationship between God and believers in the current songs.
4. “All glory, wisdom, pow'r, strength, thanks, and honor are to God our
King” (There is a higher throne lyrics).
5. “I will give You all my worship, I will give You all my praise” (David
Ruis – You’re worthy of my praise lyrics).
G. Object (x) by friend The early songs contain 4 instances of believer is supported by God that however occur in the active form that reflects the interaction between God and believers.
64 1. “Since strongly he my life supports, what can my soul affright” (St.
David’s)?
H. Object (x) on friend There is one instance of believer relies on God in the early songs that represents a close relationship.
1. “Happy the man whose hopes rely on Israel's God” (Psalm 46).
I. Object (x) in friend There is also one instance of believer confides in God in the early songs that represents a close relationship.
1. “A present help when dangers press: In Him, undaunted, we'll confide”
(Greenfield).
4.3.2.3 CLOSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRIDE AND GROOM
In this part, I look for words in the worship songs that frequently collocate with groom (=
God in the worship songs) and bride (= believers in the worship songs) in the BNC corpus and are related to the close relationship between them.
A. Bride as object of x In the early songs, there are 6 instances of God brings believers (to him) which indicates closeness between them. Then, there are 5 instances of God leads believers, one instance of God knows believers and God tells believers (something) which implies the interaction and intimacy between believers and God.
1. “He brings his people near, and makes them taste His love” (Lenox).
2. “Remember all thy grace, and lead me in thy truth” (Psalm 25).
3. “He loves his saints; he knows them well” (Psalm 46).
65 4. “Oh! tell me that my worthless name is graven on thy hands” (Windsor).
5. In the current songs, there is find (8) – God finds believers – besides bring
(6), lead (23), know (1) and tell (1) as in the early songs.
6. “Hold me close, Let Your love surround me, oh Lord, bring me near, draw
me to Your side” (The power of your love lyrics).
7. “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders” (Oceans lyrics).
8. “He's known me and he's loved me since before the world began” (Great
big God).
9. “You came down to find us, led us out of death” (You alone can rescue
lyrics).
10. “And You tell me that You're pleased, and that I'm never alone” (Good
good father).
B. Modifier (x) of bridegroom There are 14 instances in the current songs that relate perfect to God which shows believers’ admiration for him.
1. “You are perfect in all of Your ways, You are perfect in all of Your ways
to us” (Good good father).
C. Bridegroom as subject of x There is 1 instance of God chooses believer in the current songs that shows God’s loving approach toward believer.
1. “You have chosen me, Love has called my name” (No longer slaves (radio
version) feat).
66 D. Groom as object of x There is 1 instance of believer follows God in the early songs which shows a relationship between God and believers based on trust.
1. “Israel, his people and his sheep, must follow where he calls” (Newbury).
2. There are 11 instances of follow in the current songs.
3. “He calls us now to follow Him, to bring our lives as a daily offering of
worship to the Servant King” (The servant king lyrics).
4.3.2.2 Conclusion
To sum up, there are 167 words that collocate with the conceptual metaphors representing a close relationship between believers and God in the early songs. The current songs contain 379 words collocating with the conceptual metaphors that represent a close relationship between believers and God. This means that the current songs express a higher degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God. The biggest differences were in the number of adjectives praising God such as perfect or great and of instances believer thanks God, God leads believers and God gives something to believer or believer gives something to God.
67 5 Conclusions
I have noticed that current worship Christian songs are very intimate in their nature. I wanted to find out whether the degree of intimacy has changed over years or not.
Luhrmann claimed that, based on her findings, believers want to develop a remarkably close relationship with God so that I tested her claim on my set of data – 100 most often printed worship songs from 1698 to 1810 that were sung and played in the U.S. and 100 most popular worship sung all over the world and in the U.S.
The process of the analysis – the lexical and metaphor analysis – was based on the methods used by discourse linguists and partly modified in order to meet the needs of the research. The results of the analyses are, as follows:
First, the current songs contain about 1.8 times more personal and possessive pronouns that are related to the close relationship between God and believers than the early songs which makes the current songs more intimate and familiar than the early songs.
Second, there are about 3.7 times more cases of co-occurrence of pronouns related to God and pronouns related to believer(s) in the current songs than in the early songs.
Therefore, there is more interaction and relation between God and believers by using personal and possessive pronouns and thus a higher degree of intimacy between God and believers in the current songs than in the early songs.
Third, the number of my, our, ours and mine collocating with God/Jesus or other expressions that should represent him in the current songs is 2 times bigger than in the early songs. This means that the current songs favor much more relating believer(s) to
God and relating God to believer(s) so that a believer has a sense of belonging to God and of God belonging to him/her than the early songs.
68 Fourth, the participant roles of this religious discourse differ in the early and the current worship songs. God has more often the role of the overhearer in the early than in the current songs and has more often the role of the proximal addressee in the current than in the early songs. Therefore, the early songs are more often about God than the current songs and that the current songs are more often directed at God than the early songs which reflects more an intimate relationship between believers and God in the current songs than in the early songs.
Fifth, there are more than 2 times more words that collocate with the conceptual metaphors representing a close relationship between believers and God in the early songs.
This means that the current songs express more intimacy in the relationship between believers and God.
Altogether, today’s worship songs express a higher degree of intimacy in the relation between God and believers than the early songs. This outcome confirms
Luhrmann’s claim that today’s believers develop a very deep and personal relationship with God which however does not mean that believers of the 17th and 18th century did not have an intimate relationship with God. Nevertheless, today’s believers put more emphasis on the development of a personal relationship with God so that it has become a trend which can be noticed in various areas of Christian life. There could be more studies of religious discourse because they can help reveal things that are central to people’s life even today.
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Retrieved May 04, 2017, from 82 O praise the name (Anastasis) lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from worship-team.html>. Our God lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Our God saves lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from The Power of the cross. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from The power of your love lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from your-love-lyrics/>. Refiner’s fire lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Rend Collective – Boldly I approach (The art of celebration) lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from approach-the-art-of-celebration-lyrics/>. Resurrection hymn. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Robert Critchley – What a faithful God lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Robin Mark – Days of Elijah – live from Ireland lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from lyrics/>. 83 The servant king lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from king-lyrics/>. Shine, Jesus, shine (Lord, the light of your love) lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from light-of-your-love-lyrics/>. Shout to the Lord lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Speak o Lord. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Spirit break out lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from The stand lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Thank you for saving me lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from There is a higher throne lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from lyrics/>. There is a redeemer lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from This I believe (The creed) Hillsong Worship: No other name lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from believe-the-creed-hillsong-worship-no-other-name-lyrics/>. 84 This is amazing grace. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from This is our God lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from Waiting here for you. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from lyrics/>. When I was lost (There is a new song). (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from when_i_was_lost_there_is_a_new_song.html>. You alone can rescue lyrics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from 85 8 Resume The primary goal of the diploma thesis is to analyze the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God in the early (~17th-18th century) and current worship sung in the U.S. The thesis has two parts – the theoretical part refers about the role of religion in human life, defines discourse and the discourse analysis, and deals with methods used by discourse analysts. Then, I compared and analyzed 100 early and 100 current worship songs via the lexical and metaphor analyses in the practical part so as to find whether the degree of intimacy in the relationship between believers and God has been shifted over years. Resumé Hlavním cílem této diplomové práce je analyzovat míru intimity ve vztahu mezi věřícími a Bohem v dřívějších (~17–18. století) chvalozpěvech a současných novodobých chválách v USA. Práce má dvě hlavní části – teoretická část se zabývá rolí náboženství v lidském životě, definuje diskurz a diskurzní analýzu a zabývá se metodami používanými analytiky diskurzu. Následuje porovnání a analýza 100 dřívějších a 100 novodobých chval prostřednictvím lexikální analýzy a analýzy metafor v praktické části, a to za účelem zjištění, zda se míra intimity ve vztahu mezi věřícími a Bohem vyjadřována v těchto písních přes roky nějak změnila. 86