Book review: Gender and the Language of Religion

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from Linguist-List,
Date: 17-Jan-2006


TITLE: Gender and the Language of Religion
PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2773.html

Reviewed by Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful, Department of English
Language & Literature, National University of Singapore

INTRODUCTION

This edited collection starts with the table of contents, followed by
brief notes on the contributors and acknowledgements. Next are two
important aspects: foreword and introduction. Fourteen papers (each
constituting a chapter) and are spread over three parts: a) Gender,
language patterns in religious thought, b) Gender and language use in
religious communities and c) Gender and language use in religious
identity. At the very end of the book is an index to assist readers in
easily locating topics of immediate interest.

SUMMARY

The editor of the collection, Allyson Jul, starts with a brief but
illuminating introduction, 'Introduction: The Meeting of Gender, Language
and Religion'. Allyson Jul offers a concise but persuasive exposition of
how gender, language, and religion are inextricably linked. The fourteen
papers then follow. Part 1: Gender, Language Patterns and Religious
Thought The first paper in this part, Tekcan's 'An Overview of God and
Gender in Religion', (pp.9-24) examines the notion of God in some major
world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The
thrust of Tekcan's paper is that these religions differ in the
genderization of the supernatural (godhead, deities, etc.). Tekcan argues,
for instance, that in Christianity, there is a great measure of masculine
centrality with respect to the godhead, whereas the issue of gender is not
highlighted in Buddhism as in the first place godhead is unimportant.

Next, in 'The Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates' (pp.
25-40) Francis Britto boldly challenges the notion of God from a feminist
perspective. This theme is organized around four issues: the challenge of
women scholars in religion; the maleness of the Judeo- Christian God; the
feminist challenge to this notion; and, finally, the need for alternatives
in discussing God. Farwaneh's 'Asymmetries of Male/Female Representation
in Arabic' (pp. 41-62) discusses linguistic variables such as personal
names, titles and address, and terms of reference in Arabic. Her analysis
suggests that through linguistic effects such as avoidance, semantic
shift, and incongruity, women are rendered invisible and denigrated.

In the last paper in this part, 'American Women: Their Cursing Habits and
Religiosity' (pp. 63-84), Timothy Jay shows the tenuous link between the
sacred and the profane through a discussion of a common speech act,
cursing. He makes a cross-cultural comparison, leading to the observation
that women generally curse less than men ostensibly due to religiosity and
sexual anxiety. He adds, however, that American women might change in
future as the church is now less powerful in censoring speech, including
cursing.

Part II: Gender and Language Use in Religious Communities Liao's 'Women
and Men: Languages and Religion in Taiwan' (pp. 87- 100), which opens this
part, explores the relationship between language choice and usage on the
one hand and the main religions practised in Taiwan on the other hand. Two
important conclusions are derived from this study. First, language (e.g.
Taiwanese and Mandarin languages, English, and Arabic) usage in Taoism,
Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam is influenced by pragmatic
considerations.  Second, women are noted to frequently participate in
church and temples in line with the need to stay connected.

Kniffka's paper, 'Women's Letters to the Editor: Talking Religion in a
Saudi Arabian English Newspaper' (pp. 101-132) in turn underscores the
culture-specific and religious-specific nature of both the letters women
write to editors and the editors' replies. But a more significant point in
this study is the use of the media as an avenue through which Islamic
women express their views, albeit with modification by male religious
editors. The next three papers are located within the Christian community.

Sage Graham's 'A Cyber-Parish: Gendered Identity Construction in an
On-Line Episcopal' (pp. 133-150) suggests that Christian women occupy
position of greater power in terms of their rate of participation and
their ability to shape group identities and expectations in conflict
management using an on-line interaction (ChurchList).

In the ethnographic study entitled 'Language Use and Silence as Morality:
Teaching and Lecturing at an Evangelical Theology College' (pp. 151-167)
Allyson Jul observes that the question-time session after lectures in a
theology college alienates female students, thus validating the
feminine/masculine verbal behaviour typical of evangelical Christianity.
After all, as the paper argues, the choice of lecturing and more
importantly how it is used highlight male domination.

In the last paper, 'The Children of God Who Wouldn't, but Had to' (pp.
168-184), Mooney shows how women are sexualized for men (especially, the
male religious leader) in a religious community, while men are not.

Part III: Gender and Language Use in Religious Identity The final part of
Jul's collection begins with Amy Peebles' paper entitled 'Restoring the
Broken Image': The language of Gender and Sexuality in an Ex-Gay Ministry'
(pp. 187-202). It investigates how a group of ex-gays in a Christian
ministry attempts to transform their sexual identity to conform to their
understanding of traditional Christian theology of sexual ethics.

Though the next two papers relate to the Islamic community, they are
located in different geographical areas: Britain and America. Fazila
Bhimji's '*Assalam u Alaikum*. Brother I have a Right to My Opinion on
This: British Islamic Women Assert Their Positions in Virtual Space' (pp.
203-220) examines the discursive practices of Islamic women in Britain an
on-line discussion. The analysis offers us a glimpse of women's complex
identities: religious, assertive, knowledgeable, and young. Shartriya
Collier's 'Inshallah, today there will be work:  Senegalese Women
Entrepreneurs Constructing Identities through Language Use and Islamic
Practice' (pp. 221-239) is more complex in thematic orientation as it
explores a nexus of issues such as language, religion, economics,
interpersonal relation, and power.  Collier argues that while maintaining
their Senegalese identity -- Wolof, French, and Arabic -- these immigrant
women need to negotiate an American identity through investing in and
using English.

The penultimate paper in the collection co-authored by Debra Cohen and
Nancy Berkowitz, 'Gender, Hebrew Language Acquisition and Religious Values
in Jewish High Schools in North America' (pp. 240- 256) explores the
possible gender differences in achievement, motivation, self-efficacy, and
general satisfaction within a Hebrew language course as applied to three
sub-cultures within the Jewish North American community. Three main
conclusions are derived from this study: a) girls are slightly superior in
second language learning; b)  girls have a more positive attitude towards
second language learning;  and c) there is a connection between attitudes
and achievement.

The final paper by Kalyani Shabadi 'Speaking Our Gendered Selves:
Hinduism and the Indian Women' (pp. 257-269) discusses gendered terms in
order to ascertain how gender identities are constructed in Indian society
with relation to Hinduism. While admitting gender bias in gendered terms
such as general masculine terms and taboo expressions, the writer supports
attempts by non-governmental organizations to empower men, arguing that
social change is not only desirable but also possible.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Rather than evaluate the papers on an individual basis, I will comment
on the overall collection.

The strengths of this collection can be seen in three areas: the use of
language, the element of variety, and organization. First, for readers who
share the same religious affiliation as the presenters, the use of
vocabulary, expressions, and terms are likely to be viewed favorably as
they do not only strike a note of familiarity but are also used with
conciseness and clarity. Moreover, because these papers are not replete
with religious terms, readers who do not share the same religious beliefs
as the presenters or do not subscribe to any religious beliefs are not
likely to be offended. Where the writers use religious- specific or
culture-specific terms, they take pains to provide explanations or
translations in parenthesis. Thus, in general, the language in all the
papers is reader-friendly.

The second key strength of this collection is how the editor brings
together varied papers in terms of topics and approaches. Of course, as
the title of the book indicates, it is the relationship between religion,
language, and gender that links all the papers together. Beyond this,
however, in order to add a touch of interest, the editor does a good work
by attempting to bring together papers that deal with different
geographical contexts (e.g. The United States of America, Britain, India,
and Taiwan). As well, the papers cover both mainstream and alternative
sexual orientations. Similarly, among the papers that are located in the
Christian community, minority groups often referred to as the New
Religious Movements or Cult as in Mooney's 'The Children of God Who
Wouldn't , but Had to' are included. In terms of approach, two kinds of
papers are generally noticed: the more theoretical (e.g. Tekcan) and the
empirical studies (e.g. Kniffka). While Tekcan's paper provides a very
broad but illuminating introduction to the collection, Kniffka's paper is
in every way illustrative of the more dominant empirical studies in the
collection.

The last strength of the collection lies in its organization. The editor's
introduction before the fourteen papers offers an important means of
preparing readers who may not be familiar with the scholarship in feminist
writings, women's studies, sociolinguistics, or critical discourse
analysis. Besides, in general, the division of the papers into three parts
seems to be well motivated, offering gradual transition from the more
general issues to the specific issue dealing with the construction of
identity in religious communities. Also, the differing use of metatextual
elements and the use of multimodal expressions such as tables and graphs
add to the perfect organization of Juls' collection.

Notwithstanding these strengths, there are two concerns. First, the
cautious reader is likely to question the basis of the labeling of the
three parts. The point is that the papers in Part 2 can also be said to
examine the construction of identities just as the papers in Part 3 do. It
is not clear to me why Graham's paper is found in Part 2. Could the
arrangement of the papers have been motivated by more than thematic
consideration? The second concern relates to the focus on major world
religions and women. A quick read through the papers, for instance, shows
that about six papers are devoted to the Judeo- Christianity community,
four to Islam, and the next four to other religions. Though this attempt
to widen the number of religions in the collection must be applauded, all
too often knowledge construction and dissemination have tended to neglect
the 'non-centre' areas such as Latin America and Africa. A more inclusive
collection could have covered other non-scripted religions in other parts
of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa; the inclusion of immigrant
Senegalese in America does not help much. Reading the collection, one also
sometimes has the feeling that most of the papers in the collection pay
much more attention to women than men. In this case, the title for the
collection seems misleading. In future, a collection on a similar theme as
treated in this book can be expected to be more inclusive in terms of
gender, sexual orientations, class, ethnicity, religion, economics, and
geography.

On the whole, Allyson Jul's 'Gender and the Language of Religion'
represents a useful collection of well-written papers by scholars of
varying backgrounds (measurement and evaluation, sociolinguistics,
education psychology, language education, theoretical and applied
linguistics, and communication). It can easily become a compulsory reading
for students in various interdisciplinary studies, people working in the
relevant disciplines, and for several others who want to broaden their
knowledge on the intersection between religion, language and gender. I
enjoyed reading every paper in this collection.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful is a research scholar at the last stage of
his doctoral studies at the Department of English Language and Literature
at the National University of Singapore. He recently submitted his
doctoral thesis on the interface between rhetoric and disciplinary writing
at the undergraduate level. His teaching and research interests include
(critical) discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, academic
writing/literacy, general linguistics, and the interface between
linguistics and literature. He has presented papers at international
conferences in the United Kingdom, the USA, Australia, and Singapore and
has papers that are currently being reviewed for publication.

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