Category: Discourse

Discourse is a specific instance of writing or oral communication (a communicative event). “Discourse Analysis” is a label given to any of a variety of approaches to analyzing such communicative events. Discourse analysts seek to explain the coherence of texts beyond the sentence boundary.

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Thomas Hudgins' Discourse Analysis of John 17

I have added the following article by Thomas Hudgins to A Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics.

Hudgins, Thomas W. “An Application of Discourse Analysis Methodology in the Exegesis of John 17.” Eleutheria: Vol. 2: Iss. 1 (2012), Article 4.

Here’s the comment I made on it there:

Hudgins applies discourse analysis methodology to the seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel. The familiar prayer of Jesus in that chapter has traditionally been analyzed in terms of the three referents (Jesus, his contemporary disciples, and future disciples). Hudgins, however, gives greater attention to the “mainline verbs,” shifting the focus to Jesus’ requests and final commitment. By giving greater structural significance to these verbs, he is able to present a fresh understanding of the structural division and natural outline of Jesus’ prayer.

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SBL Greek Langauge and Linguistics Site

On June 30, while I was away at a retreat in the mountains of North Carolina with my daughter, Mike Aubrey announced over at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ that the Greek Language & Linguistics section of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) has a new website up and running. You can find that site at

http://greeklanguageandlinguistics.wordpress.com/

The site has preliminary abstracts for the papers that will be presented in November.

Here’s what the site says about its purpose:

This site has an informational purpose. While it provides some information from past meetings, it will mainly serve to post announcements about future meetings of the Section at SBL and provide details of the papers to be presented.

This seems to hint that more information on the papers will be forthcoming, but it’s hard to tell.

The Greek Language and Linguistics Section of the SBL holds two sessions at each meeting of the SBL. One is an “Open Session” often presenting papers on a wide variety of topics. The other session is “Thematic,” that is, focused on a single theme. This year’s thematic session will focus on discourse markers. If you are interested in discourse studies and their relation to Linguistics, you will want to read the abstracts for the “Thematic Session.” Follow the link above and scroll down to find them.