Writing about Faith and Language Practices in Digital Spaces

Besides my recently published article on ‘the representation of Islam and Muslims in the YouTube videos of the American Muslim televangelist Baba Ali’, I am super excited that I contributed a chapter to the book  Faith and Language Practice in Digital Space which offers a timely contribution to the nexus of faith, language practices and electronic technology. The book is published by Multi-Lingual Matters and broadly speaking includes a variety of topics that draw on sociolinguistics and language practice, multi-modality and Critical Discourse Studies. Since not many books have explored the interaction between faith, language practice and online technologies, I would like to dedicate this blogpost to discuss the main themes in the book, including my chapter on Muslim televangelism in the West.  

The book comprises four main parts. Part I: Faith, Language and Social Media includes two chapters that explore the interaction between religion and social media, for example, 'how transnational faith communities employ Facebook as an important online resource for developing virtual transnational networks that support language ideologies'.

Part 2 Faith, Language and Transnational Online Practices investigates how 'language practice adapts itself to online contexts with transnational audiences' (p. 11). For example, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 explore the language and cultural practices of the Yoruba people, an ethnic group in Nigeria that has its own language and spiritual traditions. In addition, Chapter 5 examines the Yiddish virtual community on wikipedia.

Part 3 is entitled Faith, Language and Online Televangelism. It turns attention to televangelism, which has gained huge popularity over the past few decades. In Chapter 7, Omoniyi adopts a sociolinguistic approach to evangelism. Drawing on World Englishes, he shows how 'non-native varieties of English (e.g. of Nigerian English) can 'replace or at least mirror the global reach of standard varieties' (p. 13).
In Chapter 8 'Televangelists as religious celebrities: the changing face of religious discourse', I investigate the online performances of two popular televangelists (i.e. Baba Ali and Hamza Yusuf) and analyse their self-representation strategies. Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies, I  show how televangelists construct their online identities, using a variety of discursive and multimodal strategies, for example, the use of formal/informal language, camera shots, and frame size. I show that televangelism represents an example of ‘religio-tainment’ that can be contextualised in the broader genre of info-tainment.

Part 4 Faith, Language and Online Ritual investigates the changes that occur to rituals as they are performed online. In Chapter 9, Rajeshawi, explores online Satsang and online puja. In the language of Sanskrit, Satsang refers to gatherings aimed at meditation and spiritual awakenings, whereas puja refers to devotional worship in Hinduism. In her chapter, she marks the contrast between the flexibility of online practice as opposed to the fixity of offline ones (p. 14). Another chapter in this section is by Andrey Rosowsky on ‘online ‘Baya’a’ Practices within a Worldwide Sufi Order’. Rosowsky reveals that although pledging is traditionally an oral ritual, written text appears 'embodied, visual and shaped to support the ritual'.

I am really delighted that in 2017, my chapter on Muslim televangelists’ online performances came to light among a variety of interesting topics on many religious traditions and employing many approaches and conceptual framework. As such, it offers an important contribution to the domain of online technologies, language practices and faith.