1997, PhD dissertation, The Tension of Diglossia in Free and Liturgical Worship Renewal, The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA
Coordinator: Michael B. Aune
ABSTRACT
This is a sociolinguistic study of the relationship between “Good morning everyone . . . let’s start our worship with a word of prayer” and “The Lord be with you . . . let us pray.” In sociolinguistics, diglossia is the functionally differentiated use of an informal, “low” (L) variety and a formal, “high” (H) variety of language by a speech community. My thesis is that there is an inherent diglossic tension in worship renewal among English-speaking American Christians in both free and liturgical worship traditions. I argue that: 1.) the use of an everyday variety of English in worship discourse alongside a religious variety is a case of diglossia; 2.) this diglossia is inherently tensive, with no settled agreement on where H and L should each be used in worship discourse, or how formal H should be and how informal L should be; 3.) critiques of renewal efforts in both traditions evince this inherent diglossic tension; and 4.) this inherent diglossic tension correlates with an inherent underlying tension in the social identity of American Christians. I use critiques of the 1979 revision of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer as my primary example of liturgical worship renewal, and critiques of the contemporary (and especially “seeker-sensitive”) worship renewal movement among non-denominational evangelicals as my primary example of free worship renewal. By showing that this diglossic tension is inherent to renewal efforts in both traditions, I argue that this tension should be avowed and embraced in renewal efforts.
This study also provides: a detailed review and refinement of the concept of diglossia (analyzing Ferguson’s original 1959 proposal and its 1986 restatement by Britto; analyzing and refining Fasold’s 1984 codification of “Fishman’s [1967] Extension” as broad diglossia); a case study of a diglossic situation where, atypically, H and L operate in a single setting, and there is “leakage” between them without overall breakdown in the diglossic system; an extended consideration of the concept of “formality” as applied to discourse; and a comparative analysis of ritual, sociological, historical, and theological aspects of free and liturgical worship.
Russell Yee 