Theological Ideology as Discursive Practice in the Bible: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of Linguistic Patterns

Abstract

This paper examines theology ideology as a discourse practice in the Bible through a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The aim of the study is to explore the ways in which repeated linguistic patterns form theological sense, power, moral judgment and identity in the Bible. The context of the study is rooted in the recent interdisciplinary theory that knows sacred texts as theological and discursive artifacts in the ideological maintenance of which the ideological force of the patterned use of language is maintained. The study is methodologically quantitative corpus linguistics and qualitative CDA as it uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches. It was an authoritative English translation that was collected into a purpose-built biblical corpus broken into stratified sub-corpora (Old Testament vs New Testament; narrative vs. epistolary text) purposive stratified sampling. Sketch Engine and other analytical tools were used in identifying keywords, collocations, concordance patterns, dispersion, and semantic prosody. The theoretical framework is informed by the three dimension model of discourse advanced by Fairclough that allows one to analyze and discuss texts, discursive and social practices. The results demonstrate that the main theological ideas are not only systematically patterned across the genres and testaments but also the divine agency is always prefigured, moral judgment is evened by semantic prosody, and insider/outsider roles are discursively sustained. All these patterns are designed to naturalize theological authority and worldview ideologically. The paper suggests broader use of corpus-aided CDA in theological studies and comparative studies involving translation and religious customs in comparisons.