Metaphor and social positioning in religious online forums (C04)

• Subject Area: Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441126958

In this project, we analyze religious metaphors in online forum threads from the dual perspec-tives of computational linguistics and the study of religion. We will focus on the following three research questions: (1) Which explicit linguistic markers for meaning negotiation and non-literal meaning can be found in online religious forums? (2) How is metaphorical language and mean-ing negotiated overtly and covertly in the forum? (3) Whether and how are metaphors used to instantiate religious meaning and group membership in the online forums? Our analysis will be based on publicly available forum post.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1475: Metaphors of Religion. Religious Meaning-Making in Language Use
• Applicant Institution: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• Project Heads: Dr. Frederik Elwert; Professorin Dr. Tatjana Scheffler