SONG AS SELF: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CHRISTIAN IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY CONGREGATIONAL SONGS

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the Protestant Christian population in Singapore has been on the rise. Specifically, the popular rise of “Charismatic” Christianity has also surfaced both in the discussions of laymen and in academic circles. Due to influences originating from the Charismatic Movement seeping into Protestant church spaces in other denominations (including more conservative ones), debates have also arisen regarding the orthodoxy of such “Charismatic” influences. More importantly, conflicts arising between those who agreed with the Charismatic Movement and those who were less in favour of it stemmed from differing identities that churches have built up since their establishment. Scholars from different disciplines (including theology) have attempted to examine, sometimes comparatively, the identities of these churches but seldom focused their attentions on understanding the identities of smaller, more community-sized churches and understanding it through worship song lyrics. Thus, this thesis aims to explicate the social identity of churches, specifically two community-oriented churches, through a linguistic and comparative analysis of worship song lyrics and whether each church’s selfstyled identity is reflected through sung lyrics. Stylistic models of analysis employed include Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar and Searle’s classification of speech-acts.