Studying religious music at the grassroots level : a look into the discourse practices of Christian metal bands online

Religious issues are studied in various ways, most prominently by sociologists of religion. This paper suggests that in today’s world of globally intersecting webs of people, places, ideas and action, scholars and readers interested in religion will find themselves benefiting from cross-disciplinary approaches which help them to conceptualize and describe today’s phenomena at different levels. This paper describes how the emerging discipline of the sociology of language and religion may be applied to studying Christian metal bands’ discourse online. Although previous studies give a good idea of the structures, practices and tendencies in and related to Christian metal, little is reported on…

Epistemic, interpersonal, and moral stances in the construction of us and them in Christian metal lyrics

Abstract Religious groupings and subcultures both tend to have well-articulated interests, aims, and values that unite certain people but also alienate those who do not share their interests. The case is then made for the construction of difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This paper examines the construction of such a group boundary in the previously little studied context of the Christian metal (CM) music subculture. The focus of analysis is on the kinds of stances that are taken and attributed to ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the English lyrics of Finnish CM groups. The particular types of stance are related to questions of epistemology, interpersonality, and morality. The paper shows that the bord…

Bridging between the metal community and the church: Entextualization of the Bible in Christian metal discourse

Abstract For many metal music groups, the music and sounds play a more important role than language and the lyrics do. In the Christian metal (CM) genre, however, the verbal dimension has a significant status. Drawing on the concept of entextualization, the process of producing texts through extraction and relocation, this paper describes how CM groups craft their discourse (song lyrics plus textual contents on their websites) by drawing on pre-existing biblical texts while connecting them with the resources provided by the metal music culture. Entextualization is a fruitful way of looking into how the Bible is used on CM band websites for mediating between Christianity and metal music cult…

Kansallinen kyselytutkimus englannin kielestä Suomessa : käyttö, merkitys ja asenteet

Christian metal online : the discursive construction of identity and culture

Dialogicality and spiritual quest in Christian metal lyrics

Abstract: Christian metal (CM) music provides a good example of how religious discourse is undergoing change in today’s world. CM merges religion with popular cultural forms and ways of expression, thereby also transforming the meaning of religion and religious practice. However, the phenomenon has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention; most writers have treated CM as yet another example of North American Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). The present article takes a detailed look into what is “said” by Finnish CM groups with a particular focus on religious ideology in a context outside the original national and religious context of the genre. Drawing on the sociology of langu…

Entextualization and resemiotization as resources for identification in social media

Drawing on insights provided by linguistic anthropology, the study of multisemioticity and research in computer-mediated discourse (CMD), this chapter discusses how entextualization (Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Silverstein & Urban, 1996; Blommaert, 2005, pp. 46–8) and resemiotization (Iedema, 2003; Scollon & Scollon, 2004, pp. 101–3; Scollon, 2008) are key resources for identity work in social media. Three key arguments inspire and give direction to our discussion, each of them laying down touchstones for language scholars who wish to investigate identity in social media. First, for many individuals and social or cultural groups, social media are increasingly significant grassroots arenas for in…

Studying religious music at the grassroots level: a look into the discourse practices of Christian metal bands online

Religious issues are studied in various ways, most prominently by sociologists of religion. This paper suggests that in today’s world of globally intersecting webs of people, places, ideas and action, scholars and readers interested in religion will find themselves benefiting from cross-disciplinary approaches which help them to conceptualize and describe today’s phenomena at different levels. This paper describes how the emerging discipline of the sociology of language and religion may be applied to studying Christian metal bands’ discourse online. Although previous studies give a good idea of the structures, practices and tendencies in and related to Christian metal, little is reported on…

The use of English in the construction of Christian youth identities in a Finnish youth magazine

Christian Metal and the Translocal North

This chapter offers insight into one of the region’s vibrant metal cultures. The analysis begins by addressing the unique place of the Nordic region in the global networks of the metal genre since the early 1990s. Conceptually, the chapter explores how notions of locality are changing with the global circulation of Christian metal in social media services, most notably YouTube. The argument is that the geography of this religious youth pop culture is expanded by the media evolution, while a distinct sense of origin remains. The analysis highlights affordances of YouTube’s search engine–based global video platform, especially user production, sharing, and interaction. The case studies are Yo…

Epistemic, interpersonal, and moral stances in the construction of us and them in Christian metal lyrics

Religious groupings and subcultures both tend to have well-articulated interests, aims, and values that unite certain people but also alienate those who do not share their interests. The case is then made for the construction of difference between 'us' and 'them'. This paper examines the construction of such a group boundary in the previously little studied context of the Christian metal (CM) music subculture. The focus of analysis is on the kinds of stances that are taken and attributed to 'us' and 'them' in the English lyrics of Finnish CM groups. The particular types of stance are related to questions of epistemology, interpersonality, and morality. The paper shows that the borderlines b…