37.801, Confs: Perspectives at the Interface of Cognitive Linguistics and the Linguistics of Religion: New Spiritualities, Expressions and Methods (Germany)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-801. Fri Feb 27 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.801, Confs: Perspectives at the Interface of Cognitive Linguistics and the Linguistics of Religion: New Spiritualities, Expressions and Methods (Germany)

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Date: 24-Feb-2026
From: Elias Schmitt [dgkl2026 at uni-bremen.de]
Subject: Perspectives at the Interface of Cognitive Linguistics and the Linguistics of Religion: New Spiritualities, Expressions and Methods


Perspectives at the Interface of Cognitive Linguistics and the
Linguistics of Religion: New Spiritualities, Expressions and Methods
Short Title: DGKL

Date: 31-Aug-2026 - 02-Sep-2026
Location: Bielefeld, Germany
Meeting URL:
https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/linguistik-literaturwissenschaft/forschung/arbeitsgruppen/germanistische-grammatikf/dgkl2026/

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Cognitive Science; Discourse
Analysis; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics

Submission Deadline: 06-Apr-2026

Please submit your abstract as a PDF (max. 500 words excl. references)
until 6 April 2026 to:
dgkl2026 at uni-bremen.de
A selection of the contributions are intended to be published in an
anthology.
„Religion and Spirituality are among the most language dependent of
human activities“
(Bouma / Aarons 2004: 351).
Following this premise, both German-language research in the
Linguistics of Religion (Fritzsche et al., eds. 2023, Lasch/Liebert
2025) and the English-language discourse on the nexus of language and
religion (Richardson et al., eds. 2021; Chilton/Kopytowska, eds. 2018)
converge. The construction, dissemination and internalisation of
religious and spiritual ideas, defined as concepts with transcendent
orientations such as God, energy, after-life, eternity, are tied to
the human ability to create and imagine through the power of language.
Another common ground between the two research traditions is the
integration of Cognitive Linguistic approaches and theories to further
explore religious language use. Accordingly, key handbooks
(Lasch/Liebert, eds., 2017; Richardson et al., eds., 2021) and related
studies address, among other things, phenomena such as metaphor,
conceptual blending, agency, narrative, ritual, and the
identity-forming potential of linguistic practices in religious
discourse.
Even though both research traditions choose a wide definition of
religion that integrates all belief systems with transcendent
orientation, most studies have yet concentrated on the so-called world
religions: Judaism (i.a. Kämper 2017), Christianity (i.a. Richardson
2013), Islam (i.a. Smailagić 2024), Buddhism (i.a. Gao/Lan 2018), and
on Hinduism (i.a. Mishra 2017). In contrast, minority and bricolage
religions and New Age spirituality remain underrepresented.
Despite decreasing affiliations to institutionalized religions and
secular transformations of different societies, the need for
spirituality and its expression hasn’t extinguished (Liebert 2024). In
light of the dynamics of postmodern societies, spiritual and esoteric
communities face the challenge of handling changes in the field of
politics, culture and media while still addressing existential
spiritual desires (Baumgertel 2024). In this context, religiosity
appears in hybrid and individualised forms intervened with new form of
media and popular culture (Knobloch 2009).
For the panel at DGKL 2026, we aim to address this desideratum by
exploring how these dynamics influence the ways in which language
shapes religious and spiritual world views on a cognitive level
(Richardson et al. 2021: 9). Can the already described linguistic and
cognitive patterns also be observed in contexts of minority religions
and bricolage spirituality – or does a different picture emerge?
In addition to focussing on smaller religious communities and informal
spiritual offers rather than on established religions, we are
interested in contrasting different languages in multi- and
translingual settings. From a Cognitive Linguistic perspective, we
want to ask the question how transcendent concepts are structured
differently by multiple languages.
Furthermore, the panel focuses on methodological matters on Cognitive
Linguistics of Religion and Spirituality. How can analysis of
multimodality, interaction, ethnographic interviews, participatory
observation, Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis (Trochemowitz
2024; Schmitt 2023) give new insights into cognitive dimensions of
religion and language? We invite participants to share their
methodological reflections, data and empirical experience regarding
this matter.
References:
Baumgertel, L., 2024. Topoi in der Esoterik: Linguistische
Perspektiven auf esoterische Sprache, in: Krell, M., Böhme, T. (eds.):
Sächsische Realitäten : Analysen aktueller Protestphänomene der
radikalen Rechten in Sachsen. Dresden und München. Thelem
Universitätsverlag und Buchhandlung, pp. 310–337.
Bouma, G. D., Aarons, H., 2004. Religion, in: U. Ammon, U., Dittmar,
N., Mattheier, K. J. / Trudgill, P. (eds.): Soziolinguistik
(Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 3: 1). 2. Aufl.
Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 351–354.
Chilton, P., Kopytowska, M. (eds.), 2018. Religion, language, and the
human mind. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Fritzsche, M., Roth, K., Lasch, A., Liebert, W.-A. (eds.), 2023.
Sprache und Religion: Tendenzen und Perspektiven, Sprache und Wissen.
De Gruyter, Berlin; Boston.
Gao, X., Lan, C. 2018. Buddhist metaphors in the Diamond Sutra and the
Heart Sutra: A cognitive perspective, in: Chilton, P., Kopytowska, M.
(eds.). Religion, language, and the human mind. Oxford. Oxford
University Press, pp. 229– 262.
Kämper, H., 2017. Sprache in der jüdischen Religion, in: Lasch, A.,
Liebert, W.-A. (eds.), 2017. Handbuch Sprache und Religion. De
Gruyter, Berlin; Boston, pp. 69–91.
Knobloch, H. 2009. Populäre Religion: Auf dem Weg in eine spirituelle
Gesellschaft. Campus, Frankfurt am Main.
Lasch, A., Liebert, W.-A. (eds.), 2017. Handbuch Sprache und Religion,
Handbücher Sprachwissen. De Gruyter, Berlin; Boston.
Lasch, A., Liebert, W.-A., 2025. Religion und Sprache, Studienkurs
Religion. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden.
Liebert, W.-A., 2024. Graswurzelglaube: über neue Formen des
Religiösen und ihre Bedeutung für die Gesellschaft. Kösel, München.
Mishra, A., 2017. Sprachverkörperung Gottes, in: Lasch, A., Liebert,
W.-A. (eds.), 2017. Handbuch Sprache und Religion. De Gruyter, Berlin;
Boston, pp. 179–191.
Richardson, P. (2013). A Closer Walk: A Cognitive Linguistic Study of
movement and proximity metaphors and their impact on certainty in
Muslim and Christian language. University of Birmingham.
Richardson, P., Mueller, C.M., Pihlaja, S., 2021. Cognitive
linguistics and religious language: an introduction. Routledge, Taylor
& Francis, New York London.
Schmitt, E., 2023. Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus
als Ausgangspunkt einer Neuformulierung der religionslinguistischen
Idealtypen, in: Fritzsche, M., Roth, K., Lasch, A., Liebert, W.-A.
(eds.), Sprache und Religion: Tendenzen und Perspektiven. De Gruyter,
Berlin; Boston, pp. 9–30.
Smailagić, V., 2024. Deutsche religiöse Kommunikation des Islam: Ein
Desiderat ohnegleichen, in: Attig, M., Jacob, K., Müller, M., Vogel,
F. (eds.), Netz und Werk. Zur Gesellschaftlichkeit Sprachlichen
Handelns. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston, pp. 371–386.
Trochemowitz, J., 2024. Linguistische Diskursethnographie als Zugriff
auf das Praxisfeld Queer-Gottesdienst. Online-Only Publikationen des
Leibniz-Instituts für Deutsche Sprache, 8, pp. 74–85.



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