Salvation, Enlightenment and Awakening in Shaping Followers' Perception and Understanding of Their Faith: A Linguistic Exploration

Abstract

This paper examines how religious concepts of salvation, enlightenment, and awakening shape followers’ perception and understanding of their faith. Drawing on theories of language ideology (Woolard, 1998) and linguistic structuration (Giddens, 1979), it explores how linguistic and conceptual variations surrounding these key terms influence religious worldviews. A mixed methods approach integrates comparative-historical case studies, interviews, surveys, and textual analysis of three religious’ denominations. Findings reveal ideological divergences in the metaphorical framing of the key concepts, relating to differences in perceived resonances and definitions among followers. The study demonstrates that religious conceptual systems transmit between contexts via semiotic processes of indexicality and erasure, undergoing shifts in meaning. These ideological variations in turn contribute to divergent understandings of core principles across faith traditions. Ultimately, illuminating conceptual divergences and the symbolic processes by which they spread provides vital insight into religion’s cultural logic and diversity. The research contributes to theoretical models of religious language’s co-constitutive relationship with thought and experience. It offers an empirical approach employing cognitive linguistics and the sociology of religion to promote understanding across belief systems in an increasingly pluralistic world.