A Three-Level Analysis of Religious Texts: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This study focuses on a three-level analysis of the two religious texts: the Bible and the Quran. The goal primarily is to do an objective and comparative analysis of the discourse used in the Bible and Quran texts. By using critical discourse analysis as a research tool, the study aims to describe, interpret and explain the discourse used in the two texts, and analyse its relation to other discourses and to social reality. Since the central concern in CDA is to trace “explanatory connections” (Fairclough 1992: 72, 80, 95) between language use (discourse) and social reality (structure), this study combines (the use of) micro- and macro-sociological analysis with linguistic analysis. In this article, one core theological theme “The Doctrine of Trinity” is selected for analysis and various Biblical and Koranic passages are drawn to corroborate a thesis about this particular theme. The findings of the study show significant linguistic as well as ideological differences between Christian and Muslim religious texts due to opposite ‘truth claims’ the two texts provide on the theme. The result is significant in distinguishing three types of value the formal features of the texts may have: the experiential, the relational, and the expressive.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, linguistic practice, discursive practice (interdiscursivity, intertextuality), social practice (hegemony, ideology), experiential value, relational value, expressive value

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-19-01

Publication date:October 31^st 2021