Critical Discourse Analysis of Sectarianism in Congregational Speeches: A Literature Review

| ABSTRACT This study aims to elicit information on the discursive methods used by the speakers who lead the congregational groups under inquiry. Additionally, the research attempts to demonstrate if the congregational group's ideology affects the discourse of the dispute. The study of sectarianism in congregational speeches can be derived from Wodak and Meyer's (2001) and Renkema's (2009) perspectives. According to Wodak (2005), five tactics may be employed to expose the influence wielded by specific individuals or organizations. According to Wodak and Meyer (2001), strategy refers to a (more or less precise and more or less purposeful) sequence of behaviours, including discursive acts, used to accomplish a specific social, political, psychological, or linguistic aim. Analyzing the speech in sectarianism can help understand relevant and crucial issues revolving around the speech in congregational groups. Linguistically, it is hoped to assist media audiences of sectarianism in congregational groups to critically and consciously interpret it in congregational groups about this discourse.


Introduction
We live in a society where language significantly influences people's lives, views, and beliefs. It is impossible to overstate the importance of language in communication. Language has a vital role in successfully applying democratic governance in any country. "Language is employed to meet a range of requirements in every community, whether they are beneficial or harmful" (Eze, 2015). Language is viewed as a double-edged weapon that must be wielded with caution since it has the potential to both destroy and comfort. Ajalie (2007), as referenced in Obiora, Aboh, and Dioka (2021), observes that language can both construct and destroy a nation. Language, whether spoken or written, can influence or inspire people. Hate speech is any speech intended to diminish or diminish the respect accorded to an individual or group of individuals based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic origin. It also influences or conditions the individual to commit acts of violence.
Rigid religious ideas, which are frequently expressed in the form of dogmatic teaching, exert complete control over the beliefs of believers to the point where no alternative viewpoint is accepted. Human history is replete with catastrophic events brought about by radical religious doctrines, which resulted in the imposition of excessive or unjust actions against specific groups of people. The persuasive nature of religious discourse justifies and requires the incorporation of CDA principles into its studies to comprehend the discursive processes by which specific religious beliefs are produced and promoted. While religious discourse has received relatively little attention within CDA over the last two decades, there has been an ongoing interest on the periphery in examining how discourse shapes and reflects religious ideologies, what discursive strategies distinguish sermons and other religious discourse, and what discursive choices preachers make to persuade the audience (Kim, 2016).
This research aims to elicit information on the discursive methods used by the speakers who lead the congregational groups under inquiry. The strategy theory for the discourse examination is derived from Wodak and Meyer's (2001) and Renkema's (2009) perspectives. According to Wodak, five tactics may be employed to expose the influence wielded by specific individuals or organizations. According to Wodak and Meyer (2001), strategy refers to a (more or less precise and more or less purposeful) sequence of behaviours, including discursive acts, used to accomplish a specific social, political, psychological, or linguistic aim.
Additionally, the research attempts to demonstrate if the congregational group's ideology affects the discourse of the dispute. According to Maynard (2019), ideology has a discernible influence on many kinds of armed conflict. However, ideology is a relative novelty to conflict research as a theoretical construct, and scientists lack solid microfoundations for examining ideologies and their impacts.
Further, the research seeks to delineate the manoeuvring strategies used by congregational groups to convey sectarianism. Strategic manoeuvring may be accomplished by picking the most suitable alternative from the 'topical potential' connected with a specific debate stage, adapting to 'audience demand,' and using the most relevant 'presentational devices.' Both parties may be required to choose the information they are capable of handling, or that is most appropriate for them, establish the most pleasing viewpoint to their audience, and offer their contributions in the most effective manner possible (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002).
Moreover, this research seeks to illuminate the critical persuasive strategies used by congregational group speakers. The value of solid persuasive skills cannot be overstated. While a person with little or no persuasive ability may take many weeks to convince you on the same subject, someone with exceptional persuasive abilities might quickly persuade you with only one speech. Persuasive speech is used to enlighten, educate, and entice or inspire an audience to interact with or believe in something (Amadebai, 2021).
Finally, the study reveals the effect of contextual cues on congregational group speakers' methodological choices. "Our immediate surroundings have a real-time effect on our language comprehension," Dr Knoeferle (2019) explains. These contextual impacts vary according to our characteristics as language users, the relationship of words to their surroundings, and the process of comprehension to which they contribute." For instance, she claims that comprehension qualities such as age, literacy, and language abilities contribute to the modulation of contextual effects in language comprehension. Individuals' ages significantly impact how soon they integrate context into their comprehension.
"Preserve Christian values. Islam does not belong to Bavaria!" The tagline from an Alternative für Deutschland political billboard on the eve of the 2018 Bavarian state election exemplifies a trend highlighted by various experts in Western Europe: religion's return to party politics (Jakob Schwörer and Xavier Romero-Vidal, 2020).
Sectarianism has become a crucial component of spiritual development, as Khan (2017) notes. Sects exist due to disagreements over religion's belief system and practical interpretation. Sectarianism develops due to one sect's absolute claims of truth and its rejection of the rest. This phenomenon has been found in the majority of world faiths. Sectarianism, founded on differences of viewpoint and performance, is the result of various reasons. Theology, political issues, economic conditions, and social and cultural perspectives are contentious elements. This trend has manifested differently over time and space. Its relative position encourages inspection and investigation of its evolution over time and under various contexts and circumstances utilizing a variety of academic inquiry methodologies.
There is no widespread agreement on what constitutes hate speech. Rather than that, other writers propose parallel definitions. Hate speech is any utterance with an element of hatred against a person or a group, regardless of its technical direction. It is used to disparage an individual or a group based on their race, ethnic origin, or religious beliefs (BEROHS 2016). "Hate speech" is defined in UN legal settings as "expressions that encourage incitement to violence [...] based on the targets being associated with a particular social or demographic category" (UNESCO 2015). Another effort, the PRISM project, defines hate speech as "an attitude that seems to imperil the rights of an ethnic, religious, or national group, in flagrant violation of the principles of equal dignity and tolerance for cultural variations among human groups" (BEROHS 2016). Awan (2016) adds to the list of distinctions that serve as the basis for hate speech. He views it as disparaging someone based on their "race, ethnic origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or physical or mental impairment" in order to incite hatred and violence (ibid).
According to Alabi (2017), hate speeches are remarks that cause hurt or violence. They decided that hate speeches encompass all offensive language directed toward individuals based on their social status, gender, ethnic origin, race, or religion. According to Ukwueze and Uche (2015), hate speeches mock or target a person or group of people. They added that under the same countries' laws, hate speech is defined as prohibited verbal and nonverbal statements because they promote violence against or by a protected individual or group. According to Aboh (2019), hate speech can occur between ethnic groups or political parties and within an ethnic group or political party. There is a rising interest in the function of discourse in the study of sectarianism. The sectarianisation and de-sectarianisation literature strive to understand how actors develop and reconstruct various definitions of sectarianism to accomplish specific goals (e.g. Formichi 2014; Schmoller 2016; Mabon & Ardovini 2018; Neo 2020). Others employ discourse to free literature from prevailing primordial models that view sectarian identities as natural and related conflicts as chronic (e.g. Makdisi 2000; Wastnidge 2019; Wagemakers 2020).
Lindsay (2021) noted that if you watched the news over the weekend, you might have noticed rumours of disturbance in Glasgow in the aftermath of the Rangers' title victory. Videos of revelers celebrating in the city's streets appeared, as did footage depicting individuals using anti-Catholic slurs or other racial comments. Sectarianism is a term that refers to allegiance to a group (often political or religious), but residents of the United Kingdom may be familiar with the term about the violence and abuse between Protestants and Catholics. Additionally, sectarian conflict exists between Sunni and Shia Muslims. As anti-sectarianism charity Nil By Mouth points out, it is most frequently referred to as 'tensions and conflict between Protestants and Catholics dating back to the Reformation' -at least in the United Kingdom. 'Over the years, themes such as migration, politics, ethnic identity, and Ireland's partition have fed into it, creating a cocktail of rage, resentment, institutional prejudice, violence, and, unfortunately, murder,' adds David Scott, director of Nil By Mouth.
Numerous things can be construed as sectarian hate speech, and the law varies by country. However, David notes that the following terms are slurs or used in hate speech and 'maybe discovered written on walls or used to incite community tensions'.
Fenian: A pejorative slur applied to Catholics and Irish republicans.
Tarrier: An insulting epithet used to refer to Irish or Catholics.
Orange: A derogatory word for Protestants.
Taig: A pejorative epithet used to refer to a Catholic or an Irish nationalist.
Hun: A disparaging term used to refer to Rangers FC and its followers. It is a disparaging word for Protestants used by some.
F*** the Pope/Queen: As the two 'leaders' of Catholicism and the Church of England, the Pope and Queen are frequently targeted with slurs.
Whether or not anything is objectionable is contextual. For instance, some Irish may refer to themselves as Fenian, whereas orange is a neutral term that can be used negatively about William of Orange's victory over ousted King James II, a Roman Catholic, at the Battle of the Boyne. Additionally, these terms and phrases could be directed not at a member of either denomination but at someone considered to be for stereotypical reasons. 'While not directly hate speech, there are also 'dog whistle' words that frequently serve as proxies for sectarian judgments, such as "what team do you support?" or "what school did you attend?"' David continues (Ibid).
Using critical discourse analysis, Abbas (2020) attempted to reveal hidden nationalist attitudes in the American right-wing party's political discourse in the USA. The study aimed at identifying the discursive strategies used in the political discourse regarding nationalism and immigration, investigating the construction of in-groups and out-groups, clarifying the positive self-presentation and negative others presentation, showing the most common warrants used to justify nationalist rhetoric against immigrants and, setting conclusions. He investigated the construction of in-groups and out-groups and clarified the positive self-presentation and harmful others presentation. He showed the most common warrants used to justify nationalist rhetoric against immigrants and showed Western political actors' main similarities and differences in using discursive strategies. The model adopted for this study was the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA, Ruth Wodak and Colleagues). The model adopted for this study was the DHA as an approach of CDA (Riesigl & Wodak, 2001, 2009). The data were selected from a news channel on YouTube, CBS New York News channel, a press conference for Trump, the previous president of the USA. The press conference was held in Nov. 2018, where Trump discussed immigration and his policies regarding the caravans of migrants from Latino countries who were making their way towards the USA at the time. The results revealed that Trump named immigrants as part of the out-group and his people ingroup. Additionally, Trump presented immigrants with negative images and presented himself with a positive self-image. Furthermore, Nationalism in the USA is civic nationalism.
Maynard (2019) argued that ideology could be used as a weapon by conflict actors or as a source of genuine political and normative commitments. Neither method, however, reflects the variety of ways in which contemporary social science theorizes the causal relationship between ideas and action. Both seek to reconcile ideology's considerable influence on collective conflict with the relative rarity of 'genuine believers' on an individual level. This article addresses these issues by laying the groundwork for conceiving ideologies, assessing ideological change, and explaining how ideologies drive conflict behaviour. Ideology can influence conflict behaviour through four unique mechanisms -commitment, adoption, conformity, and instrumentalization -and clarify the role of both conflict forces and pre-existing ideological conditions in ideological transformation. These microfoundational claims incorporate current empirical evidence and lay the groundwork for developing more detailed explanations and middlerange theories about the role of ideology in armed conflict.
According to Sharaf Eldin (2014), persuasion is regarded as a crucial instrument in achieving the power of a speaker, and it plays a vital part in the achievement of the goal of any public or political speech or speechmaking performance. Amr Khalid delivers his speeches on specific topics relevant to their audience at a specific time and place, according to their schedule. The objective of their speeches is to inform, impress, stir the audience's emotions, or persuade and mobilize them to take action on their behalf. According to Simons (2001), persuasion is defined as "human communication intended to affect the independent judgements and acts of other people." Persuasion is a sort of attempted influence that is distinct from other forms of influence in that it aims to transform one's way of thinking, feeling, or acting. To look compelling, the speaker employs various rhetorical tactics throughout his discourse. A convincing speech demonstrates strength, impact, and vitality. However, studying the speaker's duty alone is insufficient, as persuasion is a transactional process involving both the speaker and the audience. The listener's stance must also be considered, as they may hold opposed opinions, making persuasion difficult in speech.
The context in which we engage with others influences our actions. This means that our perception of objects, language, emotions, and social signs varies based on their location. Your surroundings influence everything you do. An action's context is the situation surrounding it. Context analysis is critical for social interaction and perhaps survival. Your reaction relies on his facial expression (e.g., lifted brows, wide-open eyes) and the situation. External (is there anything scary nearby?) or internal (am I calm or scared?) Contextual cues help you understand any circumstance. Context influences all aspects of the brain, from vision to social interaction. Your mind is never isolated from reality. Context determines an object's, word's, emotion, or social event. There is no such thing as a neutral context. Contextual signals also aid in other instances. What works in one place may not work in another. Jokes are OK when studying with friends but not during exams (Baez, Garcia, Ibanez, Darius & Ram, 2018).

Critical discourse analysis
According to Kalsi (2017), CDA is a widely utilized approach for textual analysis, frequently studying the mediation of political discourse between the state and media entities. It is an approach that strives to expose hidden objectives and cast doubt on established frames of speech; it seeks to demonstrate how ideology operates in language and how this ideology precludes a realistic interpretation of an event, in this case, conflict, the most expensive of political activities. More precisely, CDA "is concerned with how discourse structures enact, affirm, legitimize, reproduce, or challenge power and dominance relations in society" (van Dijk, 2001).

Sectarianism
Sectarianism, whether religious or political, according to Roberts (2017:19), is "...the existence within a locality of two or more divided and actively competing communal identities, resulting in a strong sense of dualism that unremittingly transcends commonality, and is both culturally and manifest." According to this definition, sectarianism has contextual components, which means that to be sectarian is to live in a community where sectarianism exists in one social establishment, such as a religion, political agreement, or sports. These categories can indicate the various contexts in which sectarianism is practised and the various types of disputes that might lead to violence (Fregonese, 2020).

Discursive strategies
The many linguistic tools employed by an issuer or speaker to capture the attention of a receiving public in the context in which the message is communicated are referred to as discursive strategies. In other words, these linguistic resources are tactics utilized to elicit a response. Discursive strategies might differ depending on the speaker's aim and purpose for what he intends to produce in the listener. It is possible to argue that the use of these language tools is subjective and, to some extent, dependent on the substance of the message. On the other hand, discursive strategies can be of several forms, including descriptive, explanatory, narrative, argumentative, definition, and motivating. Each of them has a specific function, which is always to pique the interest and reaction of a specific audience (Nesaab, 2019).

Ideology
Ideology is a social or political philosophy branch that emphasizes both practical and theoretical aspects. It is a collection of ideas that strives to understand and transform the world. The term first appeared in French as idéologie during the French Revolution, when a philosopher named A.-L.-C coined it. Destutt de Tracy, as a shorthand for his "science of ideas," which he claimed to have derived from the philosophers' John Locke and Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, who believed that all human knowledge was knowledge of ideas (Cranston, 2021).

Strategic maneuvering
The concept of strategic maneuvering can be used to understand how the arguers' various choices contribute to achieving reasonableness while also attempting to obtain an advantageous outcome of the discussion. It can be used to understand how the arguers' various choices contribute to achieving reasonableness while also trying to obtain an advantageous outcome of the discussion. According to Aristotle, the pursuit of truth is the essence of reasonableness. Arguers strive to be persuasive to achieve a good end in the conversation. Because of the application of this notion, the examination of an arguer's reasoning can explain both the dialectical interest in retaining rationality and the lofty goal of being persuasive (van Eemeren, 2010).

Persuasive techniques
Persuasion is something we all deal with daily. Is it true that a salesperson has persuaded you to buy something that would not have been your first choice? If so, how many times do you believe this has happened? How often do you believe your friends or family members can persuade you to do something? Approximately how many commercials and adverts do you see or hear regularly? Because of this, it is easy to underestimate how frequently persuasive techniques influence us. Successful businesses and salespeople are well-versed in various persuasion techniques that they use to control our attitudes and behaviours to get us to spend money on their product or service. A person does not have to be in sales, however, in order to persuade someone (Crowell, 2021) effectively.

Context clues
One method of learning new words is by examining the context of the words surrounding them. The meaning of these words is inferred from what is occurring or has already been established in the text. Clues to the meaning of a word might take the shape of anything from a subtle hint to an explicit explanation, definition, or illustration. Synonyms, antonyms, word-structure clues, parallels (metaphors and similes), and contrasts can all be used as context clues (Nordquist, 2020).

Conclusion
The current study sheds some light on sectarianism in congregational speeches using critical discourse analysis approaches. Analyzing the speech in sectarianism can help understand relevant and crucial issues revolving around the speech in congregational groups. Linguistically, it is hoped to assist media audiences of sectarianism in congregational groups to critically and consciously interpret it in congregational groups about this discourse. This will help to understand how certain clues are conveyed through the discourse of sectarianism. It is essential to empower ordinary people through discourse analysis of sectarianism in congregational groups. Furthermore, the present study will help linguists and analysts to interpret the contextual clues of sectarianism in any discourse.