This paper presents the cosmological neuroscientific view that Jesus was probably an extraordinary human being blessed with a Soul able to not just understand the divine nature of the world but also to communicate in ...This paper presents the cosmological neuroscientific view that Jesus was probably an extraordinary human being blessed with a Soul able to not just understand the divine nature of the world but also to communicate in some ways with its ultimate essence,which he identified in public as Moses’God but seemed to feel in his deepest moments that God is Spirit permeating the universe with love and truth.His teaching turned out to be a revolutionary new worldview identifying love,forgiveness,magnanimity,service for others,respect for truth,resistance to evil,trust in God and pursuing primarily spiritual treasures instead of material ones-as the expressions of human life’s true meaning.This necessarily led him to confrontations with his society’s leaders,who,both unreceptive to his challenging worldview and fearful for losing their power over the people’s minds,arrested him and arranged his death by crucifixion.Yet,by accepting this fate as unavoidable and going through his suffering with grace and understanding,he achieved the best’s admiration that soon transformed into worshipping him and finally into the creation of Christianity:a new religion moving forward human evolution,however with the cycles of glory and corruption so characteristic to our species.The paper implies Jesus’system of thoughts as a unique sound in the great symphony of civilization on Earth while it also harmonizes with the sounds of the Ten Commandments,the Sermon at Benares,the Tao Te Ching,the Koran,as well as those of the philosophies of Alexander von Humboldt,Alfred Russel Wallace,Rabindranath Tagore,Kahlil Gibran,Albert Schweitzer,and their likes.展开更多
Sermon as a religious discourse thrives on the use of prosodic features which give extra information to enhance understanding of utterances in oral discourse. This paper investigates the prosodic innovations that mani...Sermon as a religious discourse thrives on the use of prosodic features which give extra information to enhance understanding of utterances in oral discourse. This paper investigates the prosodic innovations that manifest in the sermons of selected Pentecostal pastors in Southwest Nigeria. It also identifies some prosodic features in the selected sermons and relates them to their themes. Data was sourced from one sermon-VCD tape each by Pastors Kumuyi(Inf-Kum), Adeboye(Inf-Adeb) and Bishop Oyedepo(Inf-Oyed). The tapes were played back to extract some prosodic features in the sermons;these were analyzed using the pitch extraction software, PRAAT. Analyses of the data reveal that preachers put extra prosodic force on some words in order to emphasize the focus of their messages. But while Inf-Oyed and Inf-Adeb use higher pitch for accented words and lower pitch for non-accented, Inf-Kum uses the same pitch of voice for both. Additionally, the subjects’ vowel length(SV-L) rendition appeared longer than what obtains in native English. Moreover, there are specific prosodic features characterizing each preacher’s doctrinal persuasions: Inf-Oyed deploys emphatic stress with enthusiastic voice;Info-Kum uses a relatively same level of voice pitch while Info-Adeb’s renditions are generally slower in tempo. The paper concludes that Nigerian Pentecostal sermons are replete with prosodic features deployed for achieving thematization of messages and doctrinal identity construction.展开更多
A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermo...A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermonizing in thirty-one (31) selected lyrics of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (SAB) of the Fuji fame in Nigeria’s music industry,using Jacob Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Act theory and Kecskes’ (2010) Socio-Cognitive Approach.A surprising depth of sermonizing in various categories,including social,economic and political sermonizing acts were found paramount in his lyrics.The socio-economic sermonizing act relates to family matters,managing marital conflict,child training and upbringing,value of hard work and dedication to duty,family planning,and such other personal values as showing gratitude for being alive and well,honesty,patience,peacemaking,respect for all,leading a responsible life,helping people,resisting doing evil,wishing others well and cooperating in doing good,the ultimate good judgement of God,being prayerful,inevitability of death,destiny,etc.The political sermonizing act calls for unity,peace,progress,political will,creating an enabling environment by the government,protecting democratic norms and the rule of law,and the need to look inward for an all-round national development.This paper concludes that SAB,beyond being an entertainer,is also a master sermonizer,as his sermonizing acts are deep,comprehensive,and revolve around building not only a complete,prosperous human figure but also a prosperous and peaceful nation.The lyrics,which qualify him as a Music Prophet,have something timeless,fresh and refreshing for all categories of people,particularly Nigerians.The limitation to his lyrics is that they are originally produced in Yoruba language;the import of the sermonizing act,however,is universal.展开更多
The main purpose of this paper is to identify the function and the lexical features of the sentence in the delivery of information of waqaf and zakat in Malaysia based on the background,participants and goals.A sample...The main purpose of this paper is to identify the function and the lexical features of the sentence in the delivery of information of waqaf and zakat in Malaysia based on the background,participants and goals.A sample of the Friday sermons issued by the Malaysian Department of Islamic Development in 2009 has been selected;this contains information concerning waqaf and zakat resilience in the Malay language.The unit of analysis is the sentence of the paragraph.The approach of analysis is based on the functionalism in sentence and lexical features of the Malay language proposed by Asmah Haji Omar(2000;2005).As discussed in this paper,both the function and the lexical features of the sentence are able to link the background,participants and goals with the enhancement of the language users’awareness in the delivery of information of waqaf and zakat.展开更多
文摘This paper presents the cosmological neuroscientific view that Jesus was probably an extraordinary human being blessed with a Soul able to not just understand the divine nature of the world but also to communicate in some ways with its ultimate essence,which he identified in public as Moses’God but seemed to feel in his deepest moments that God is Spirit permeating the universe with love and truth.His teaching turned out to be a revolutionary new worldview identifying love,forgiveness,magnanimity,service for others,respect for truth,resistance to evil,trust in God and pursuing primarily spiritual treasures instead of material ones-as the expressions of human life’s true meaning.This necessarily led him to confrontations with his society’s leaders,who,both unreceptive to his challenging worldview and fearful for losing their power over the people’s minds,arrested him and arranged his death by crucifixion.Yet,by accepting this fate as unavoidable and going through his suffering with grace and understanding,he achieved the best’s admiration that soon transformed into worshipping him and finally into the creation of Christianity:a new religion moving forward human evolution,however with the cycles of glory and corruption so characteristic to our species.The paper implies Jesus’system of thoughts as a unique sound in the great symphony of civilization on Earth while it also harmonizes with the sounds of the Ten Commandments,the Sermon at Benares,the Tao Te Ching,the Koran,as well as those of the philosophies of Alexander von Humboldt,Alfred Russel Wallace,Rabindranath Tagore,Kahlil Gibran,Albert Schweitzer,and their likes.
文摘Sermon as a religious discourse thrives on the use of prosodic features which give extra information to enhance understanding of utterances in oral discourse. This paper investigates the prosodic innovations that manifest in the sermons of selected Pentecostal pastors in Southwest Nigeria. It also identifies some prosodic features in the selected sermons and relates them to their themes. Data was sourced from one sermon-VCD tape each by Pastors Kumuyi(Inf-Kum), Adeboye(Inf-Adeb) and Bishop Oyedepo(Inf-Oyed). The tapes were played back to extract some prosodic features in the sermons;these were analyzed using the pitch extraction software, PRAAT. Analyses of the data reveal that preachers put extra prosodic force on some words in order to emphasize the focus of their messages. But while Inf-Oyed and Inf-Adeb use higher pitch for accented words and lower pitch for non-accented, Inf-Kum uses the same pitch of voice for both. Additionally, the subjects’ vowel length(SV-L) rendition appeared longer than what obtains in native English. Moreover, there are specific prosodic features characterizing each preacher’s doctrinal persuasions: Inf-Oyed deploys emphatic stress with enthusiastic voice;Info-Kum uses a relatively same level of voice pitch while Info-Adeb’s renditions are generally slower in tempo. The paper concludes that Nigerian Pentecostal sermons are replete with prosodic features deployed for achieving thematization of messages and doctrinal identity construction.
文摘A sermon is a talk or advice given by clergy in religious discourse.This sermonizing function,however,seems to have ceased to be an exclusive preserve of the clerics.This paper investigates this pragmatic act of sermonizing in thirty-one (31) selected lyrics of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister (SAB) of the Fuji fame in Nigeria’s music industry,using Jacob Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Act theory and Kecskes’ (2010) Socio-Cognitive Approach.A surprising depth of sermonizing in various categories,including social,economic and political sermonizing acts were found paramount in his lyrics.The socio-economic sermonizing act relates to family matters,managing marital conflict,child training and upbringing,value of hard work and dedication to duty,family planning,and such other personal values as showing gratitude for being alive and well,honesty,patience,peacemaking,respect for all,leading a responsible life,helping people,resisting doing evil,wishing others well and cooperating in doing good,the ultimate good judgement of God,being prayerful,inevitability of death,destiny,etc.The political sermonizing act calls for unity,peace,progress,political will,creating an enabling environment by the government,protecting democratic norms and the rule of law,and the need to look inward for an all-round national development.This paper concludes that SAB,beyond being an entertainer,is also a master sermonizer,as his sermonizing acts are deep,comprehensive,and revolve around building not only a complete,prosperous human figure but also a prosperous and peaceful nation.The lyrics,which qualify him as a Music Prophet,have something timeless,fresh and refreshing for all categories of people,particularly Nigerians.The limitation to his lyrics is that they are originally produced in Yoruba language;the import of the sermonizing act,however,is universal.
文摘The main purpose of this paper is to identify the function and the lexical features of the sentence in the delivery of information of waqaf and zakat in Malaysia based on the background,participants and goals.A sample of the Friday sermons issued by the Malaysian Department of Islamic Development in 2009 has been selected;this contains information concerning waqaf and zakat resilience in the Malay language.The unit of analysis is the sentence of the paragraph.The approach of analysis is based on the functionalism in sentence and lexical features of the Malay language proposed by Asmah Haji Omar(2000;2005).As discussed in this paper,both the function and the lexical features of the sentence are able to link the background,participants and goals with the enhancement of the language users’awareness in the delivery of information of waqaf and zakat.
