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Conversion narratives and construction of identity among Christians in Malaysia

Conversion narratives and construction of identity among Christians in Malaysia Conversion narratives in the form of testimony are powerful means of consolidating and strengthening one's new religious identity (Beit-Hallahmi, Prolegomena to the psychological study of religion, Bucknell University Press, 1989; Rambo, Understanding religious conversion, Yale University Press, 1993; Stromberg 1993, as cited in Emmons & Paloutzian, Annual Review of Psychology 54: 377–402, 2003). Using conversion narratives is common among Christians in testifying how they came to know Christ. The testimony usually presents two distinct identities of the speaker: before and after accepting Christ as Lord and savior. These two distinct identities are examined in this paper to see how speakers construct themselves in the form of testimony. This paper specifically analyzes the moves and lexical choices used in the narratives. To carry out the study, 15 recorded conversion narratives were used. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication de Gruyter

Conversion narratives and construction of identity among Christians in Malaysia

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References (10)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Subject
Articles
ISSN
0167-8507
eISSN
1613-3684
DOI
10.1515/mult.2011.015
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Conversion narratives in the form of testimony are powerful means of consolidating and strengthening one's new religious identity (Beit-Hallahmi, Prolegomena to the psychological study of religion, Bucknell University Press, 1989; Rambo, Understanding religious conversion, Yale University Press, 1993; Stromberg 1993, as cited in Emmons & Paloutzian, Annual Review of Psychology 54: 377–402, 2003). Using conversion narratives is common among Christians in testifying how they came to know Christ. The testimony usually presents two distinct identities of the speaker: before and after accepting Christ as Lord and savior. These two distinct identities are examined in this paper to see how speakers construct themselves in the form of testimony. This paper specifically analyzes the moves and lexical choices used in the narratives. To carry out the study, 15 recorded conversion narratives were used.

Journal

Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communicationde Gruyter

Published: Aug 1, 2011

Keywords: conversion narratives ; identity ; religion ; testimony ; moves ; lexical choices

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