book review. joshua fishman and tope omoniyi

DOI 10.1515/ijsl-2013-0019 IJSL 2013; 220: 173 – 177

Book Review

Charting a new terrain

Joshua A. Fishman and Tope Omoniyi. Explorations in the sociology of language and religion. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2006.

History tells us religion and language are linked in diverse and numerous ways in diverse and innumerable communities. Yet the sociologies of language and of re-ligion have remained largely separate in scholarly research, and been studied as such by scholars of both areas. Explorations brings together these two hitherto distinct theoretical traditions of the sociology of language and that of religion to produce the first text that addresses a sociology of language and religion. A col-laboration between Joshua Fishman and Tope Omoniyi, the book explores possi-ble theoretical frameworks for interdisciplinary research into the fascinating and rich interface of these two disciplines.

The editors argue that there are themes common to these two social systems and a sociology that deals with both would be better equipped to construct “new methodologies and theoretical paradigms appropriate for the interface” (p. 3) of these disciplines. While earlier studies have recognized that the element of reli-gion may be inescapable in understanding the spread of a language, or the ele-ment of language undeniable in the spread of a religion, a study of a sociology of language and religion would illuminate the close interconnections between these fields which have emerged as strong identities in the contemporary world.

The essays included in the book are diverse and cover a wide geographical territory. The earlier classification of the area (by Sawyer and Simpson [2001]) had been thus: religions with their associated languages, sacred texts and trans-lations, specific religious languages and scripts, special language uses such as blasphemy or hymn, beliefs about language, and religiously initiated study of language. The two editors in Explorations adopt a looser structure suggested by Bernard Spolsky (2003). The essays are divided into three main groups: effects of language on religion, effects of religion on language and the mutuality of lan-guage and religion. A fourth group focuses on literacy, acknowledging the inti-mate connection that literacy has had with both religion and language through-out history. Such a division, by differentiating the groups not on the basis of a fixed characteristic, such as its sacredness or association, but on the dynamic characteristic of relationship between religion and language, effectively allows greater scope for interpretation of its primary materials.

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174 Book review IJSL 220 (2013)

Fishman, credited with being the founder-father of the sociology of language, and Omoniyi, a sociolinguist, approach the problem of setting up a scaffolding for this new subject from their own subjects. Fishman sets out a decalogue of theoretical perspectives that delineate the ways in which religion and language interact with each other. With illustrations drawn from his wide research and ex-perience in the phenomena of language in societies, these observations are sug-gested as hypotheses with which the new discipline may be approached for study. If the starting point of the sociology of language and religion was theo-linguistics, this decalogue of possible paradigms widens the study to the more complex and dynamic aspects of a socio-culture. Framed as possible principles which can illu-minate the dynamics between language and religion when they relate to each other, the decalogue addresses the characteristics of languages of religion, varia-tions between languages/dialects of the religious and secular kind, sanctity ac-quired by vernaculars when associated or not associated with religion, degrees of stability acquired by linguistic varieties linked with religion, the power of sancti-fied languages in resisting or encouraging modernization and ways in which reli-gious and linguistic varieties converge, co-exist, and influence each other. Such an attempt to give a theoretical framework to this new discipline will need to be followed up by studies that use these propositions so as to affirm or challenge them, to ascertain or question the assumptions underlying them, and to modify or supplement them with empirical support.

The group of essays that deal with the effect of religion upon language span both religious language and secular language. The essay by Gregory Meyjes dis-cusses the Bahá’í ideological focus on the oneness of mankind and its commit-ment to cultural diversity. This inspires their idea of a United Auxiliary Language even as it supports rights of all linguistic groups, minorities or otherwise. Tinatin Bolkvadze’s essay explores how the Eastern Christian tradition of considering all languages equal before God helped the vernaculars to achieve recognition through a struggle which transformed the linguistic struggle into a struggle for national cultures and national rights. Hans-Georg Wolf’s essay uses computer-ized corpora of data to show how religion helps retain the sub-Saharan African-ness of West African English, preventing it from becoming culturally Western-ized. A particularly rich essay in this section is by Oladipo Salami on Yoruba Pentecostal community. He gives an intricate exploration of petition prayers and investigates how the Yoruba people exploit language to create a God who harmo-nizes with their culture and their religious history. Revealing a different aspect of religion and language, Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu’s essay argues that religion plays a significant role in resisting the spread of English in South Africa. Kevin McCarron’s essay on the secularization of religious language by the Alcoholics Anonymous explores how the boundaries between religious spiritualism and sec-



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ular spiritualism can be blurred through imprecisions in language. With secular-ism becoming an increasingly powerful concept in many parts of the world, the acceptability of the secular-religion concept in modern times becomes signifi-cant. Jurgita Dzialtuvaite’s essay is on the Lithuanian immigrant community’s absorption into Scotland focuses on how religion affects the maintenance of lan-guage.

The second group of essays is on the mutuality of language and religion and depicts the correspondences in the dynamics of these two. This section begins with Omoniyi’s essay on “Societal multilingualism and multifaithism” which posits clear parallels between religious communities and linguistic communities. Omoniyi suggests using multilingualism and multifaithism as core concepts in mapping the territory of the new discipline. Arguing that similar social phenom-ena trigger, or are triggered by, diversity in societies that are multilinguistic and multireligious, he proposes studying multilingualism and diglossia in conjunc-tion with multifaithism and difaithia to understand how religion and language situate themselves in relation to the community and the state. Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande’s essay explores the fascinatingly plural multi-religious and multi-lingual communities of South Asia. She discusses “the ideology of hetero-glossia” (p. 154) as a consequence of modernization and the concept of composite identities in this plural environment. Her essay charts the changing equations between linguistic forms and faiths and demonstrates how power hierarchy and ideology of both religion and language play a role in determining the choice of language. John E. Joseph’s essay deals with the shifting role of languages in the identity construction of Lebanese Christian and Muslims. The changing relations between the many religious and linguistic communities are set against the chang-ing history to study the choice of language. Muhammad Amara’s essay asks what the effect has been on the language repertoire of Bethlehem with the migration, after a century of emigration of Christians and immigration of Muslims. Anya Woods’s essay examines the role of language in ethnic churches in the greatly diverse population of Melbourne. Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew studies the privileging of the powerful world languages within the cosmopolitan city-state of Singapore and the consequent decline in the religious and cultural practices of Chinese and Malay life in relation to this language-shift. Thus though official policies support cultural diversity, the imposition of English and Mandarin has meant the dwin-dling of Taoism and its related dialects. All the essays in this section deal with areas that are, or were, multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-religious, and there-fore complement Omoniyi’s theory about the link between multireligious and multilingual communities.

The third section includes four case studies of language having an influence on religion. Ghil‘ad Zuckerman’s “ ‘Etymythological othering’ and the power of



176 Book review IJSL 220 (2013)

‘lexical engineering’ in Judaism, Islam and Christianity” draws on studies of Jew-ish languages to reveal how lexical coinages and borrowings are used by commu-nities to construct their own identities and other those they are hostile to. Robert Carrasco and Florencia Riegelhaupt discuss a project in which elements of indig-enous American science were integrated into the school science curriculum. This reveals how the very concepts of science and religion are built into, or kept out of, the perceived ideologies of certain languages. The essay makes a strong case for the need of “collaboration and trust” (p. 271) between schools and the communi-ties they serve. Piotr P. Chruszcezewski’s and Annabelle Mooney’s essays deal with religious discourse and its role in the construction of identity. The first au-thor presents certain forms of Jewish religious discourse which he claims play a decisive role in the integration of the community. However, the vast number of Jews as well as the multilinguistic and multiracial features of this community would possibly need a more detailed and rigorous study to establish such a claim. The second essay by Mooney, “Maligned and misunderstood”, offers an intrigu-ing study of the language of marginal religious groups. She examines how their language “underpins epistemic concerns, and . . . thereby underpins action” (p. 292) both of which are in conflict with mainstream law which, like yet another religious group, has its own discourse and is embedded with its particular ideol-ogy.

The final two essays on literacy and religion deal with liturgical literacy and with the Shamanic literacy. Andrey Rosowsky’s essay demonstrates the continu-ing power of the classical Quranic Arabic in the domain of liturgical literacy against the literacy practices of the vernaculars of these UK Muslim communities. Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza gives us an excellent essay on the Shamanic lit-eracy of the Kashinawá Indians in the western Amazon area. He brings to the discussion the differences of perception regarding the written book, visions, con-version, diversity, preservation, writing and religion, which highlight the care that needs to be undertaken by “outsider” researchers, however well-meaning, into this area.

The majority of the essays in the volume are well-researched and well-grounded in empirical data. The essays both complement and supplement the propositions laid out by Fishman and Omoniyi as ways of approaching the study of the sociology of language and religion. With linguistic and religious identity growing increasingly powerful in the modern world, one hopes a study of these two social systems taken together will foster better understanding of these identity-makers.



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ReferencesSawyer, John F. A. & J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.). 2001. Concise encyclopaedia of language and

religion. Amsterdam: ElsevierSpolsky, Bernard. 2003. Religion as a site of language contact. Annual Review of Applied

Linguistics 23. 81–94.

Sipra Mukherjee, West Bengal State University, India, e-mail: mukherjeesipra @gmail.com



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book review. joshua fishman and tope omoniyi

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