• Elizabeth Wayua Mutunga

  Author

• Dr. Anashia Nancy Ong’onda

  Author

This paper examines liturgical language in „Christ is all‟ catholic prayer book. Language is a means through which we express religion experiences. However, religious language is complex and dynamic in terms of function, style, historical context, text and mode. Moreover, different people have different ways of saying prayers. This paper was set to investigate liturgical language in Catholic prayers. The study applied Halliday‟s model of functional grammar and employed a descriptive research design. Documentation and archival methods were used to collect data. Purposive sampling method was used to collect 33 catholic prayers from 330 prayers in „Christ is all‟ prayer book. Textual analysis was employed where the prayers were coded and interpreted. The study established that the linguistic structure of catholic prayers employed unique linguistic features that have various communicative functions. The study concludes that language in prayers expresses a particular religion identity. It is hoped that the findings of this study adds to data of existing studies of Theolinguistics.

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