The Language of Religion and the Language of Religious Studies

Abstract

The article deals with one of the important issues of the theory of religion – the issue of the language of religion and its relationship with the language of re­ligious studies. The language of religion is understood as a sign system that in­cludes linguistic units – words (names), compound naming conventions, phrase­ological units, sentences – which have religious meanings. Words (names) of the language of religion mean hypostatized beings, properties, connections, transfor­mations, as well as real objects, persons, actions, events with attributive proper­ties. The language of religion is a means of coding religious thinking, objec­tification and expression of religious consciousness, a means of religious communication. The language of religion is semantic and symbolic. The linguis­tic expression of religious consciousness is characterized by a certain syntag­matic, which is a set of syntactic intonation-semantic units. In these units, words, phrases, sentences and phonation, alliteration using techniques of sound expres­siveness are combined into semantic integrity. In the language of religion, satu­rated with analogies, words are often used allegorically; texts are replete with metaphor; allegories, archaisms, historicisms, antonyms are widely used. This language is characterized by emotional and evaluative tension, recitation, a pecu­liar intonational style, constant and multiple repetitions of the same linguistic units. Thanks to a language, religious consciousness turns out to be practical and effective, it becomes both social and individual reality. The language of religious studies is interpreted as a “language of the second order”, as a “metalanguage” of the language of religion. The article shows the need of correlating the mean­ings of the corresponding names in different national languages of religious stud­ies in the process of interlingual communication of scholars who represent dif­ferent national cultures