Email this article New-evangelization discourse in ELF immigration encounters: a case study
Abstract
Abstract - This paper investigates how the 'New Evangelization' process in the Roman Catholic Church is enacted through ELF by the Italian clergy offering spiritual and practical assistance to non-western immigrants newly-arrived in Italy. A case study explores how religious discourse reflects the two contact groups' different typological-syntactic, semantic and sociopragmatic features transferred to their respective ELF usage, as well as their different knowledge sustems and community values associated with the religious experience. It is argued that misunderstanding occurs when the clergy's culture-bound patterns of Possible-World Semantics, characterizing the counterfactual logic of their religious/metaphysical discourse in ELF, fail to account for the divergent ways by which non-western immigrants make religious sense of their existence. The conversational analysis shows how the New-Evangelization discourse requires from immigrants the activation of the two 'bimodal' cooperative maxims of 'suspension of disbelief', epistemically inducing them to believe that possible-world representations can be true, and 'experiential pliability', deontically compelling immigrants to adapt their actual-world experience to such counterfactual constructions, even though for the cultures of some African countries which immigrants come from religion is intrinsically connected with the referential domain of the actual world. Recognizing divergent ways of expressing the religious experience in different cultures may help 'new evangelizers' find alternative, 'hybrid' ways of conveying the Word of God through ELF, thus fostering true ecumenical communication.
Riassunto - Lo studio esamina come il processo di 'Nuova Evangelizzazione' nella Chiesa Cattolica Romana è messo in atto dal clero italiano attraverso ELF quando offre assistenza pratica e spirituale ad immigrati non-occidentali appena giunti in Italia. Il caso di studio esplora i modi in cui il discorso religioso riflette sia le differenti strutture tipologico-sintattiche, semantiche e sociopragmatiche dei due gruppi in contatto, trasferite nei rispettivi usi di ELF, sia i loro differenti sistemi di conoscenza e valori di comunità connessi all'esperienza religiosa. Si sostiene che i malintesi nascono quando gli schemi culturalmente marcati della Semantica dei Mondi Possibili utilizzati dai membri del clero - schemi che caratterizzano la logica controfattuale del loro discorso metafisico-religioso in ELF, non riescono a giustificare i modi divergenti attraverso cui gli immigrati non-occidentali attribuiscono un senso religioso alla propria esistenza. L'analisi della conversazione dimostra come il discorso della Nuova Evangelizzazione richiede algi immigrati l'applicazione delle due massime 'bimodali' di cooperazione: la 'sospensione dell'incredulità', che sollecita gli immigrati ad adattare la propria esperienza del mondo reale a tali costruzioni controfattuali, anche se per le culture di alcuni Paesi africani da cui provengono gli immigrati la religione è intrinsecamente collegata agli ambiti del mondo reale. Riconoscere i modi diversi di esprimere l'esperienza religiosa in culture differenti può aiutare i 'nuovi evangelizzatori' a trovare modi alternativi e 'ibridi' di veicolare la Parola di Dio attraversso ELF, così da favorire una vera comunicazione ecumenica.
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