17.189, Review: Discourse An alysis/Socioling: Jul é (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-189. Fri Jan 20 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.189, Review: Discourse Analysis/Socioling: Julé (2005)

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1)
Date: 17-Jan-2006
From: Joseph Afful < jbafful at yahoo.com >
Subject: Gender and the Language Religion 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:46:27
From: Joseph Afful < jbafful at yahoo.com >
Subject: Gender and the Language Religion 
 

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

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 Julé, starts with a brief but 
illuminating introduction, 'Introduction: The Meeting of Gender, 
Language and Religion'. Allyson Julé 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 Julé 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 Julé'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 Julés' 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 Julé'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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