Worship Weblog

Which Language Shapes How You Worship?

Posted by Joan Huyser-Honig

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Picture yourself alone in your car at a tollbooth in Mackinaw City, Michigan, gazing at the structure spanning the Mackinac Straits. Why does the German language see this span as  feminine (die Brücke), Spanish describe it as masculine (el puente), and English as gender neutral (bridge)? And why might someone else in the same location–say an Australian aborigine who speaks Guugu Yimithirr–think to himself the equivalent of “Pull your wallet from your southeast pocket, scootch a bit west and hand your fare to the attendant’s east hand”?

You’ll likely dream up similar thought experiments while reading linguist Guy Deustscher’s recent  New York Times Magazine article, ”Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” He reports new research that shows how mother tongues “influence our minds in different ways…because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.” By forcing you to attend to specific details and experiences that other languages don’t key in on, your language creates “habits of  mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world,” Deutscher writes.

Reading about linguistic twists may pique your curiosity about vertical habits, relational words that expand worship language, or about worship words too important to neglect, a topic Debra and Ron Rienstra explore in their book Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry. They recount how listening to a Christmas concert made their young son picture God as “either the big old mighty king far away up above or the nice boyfriend Jesus.”

 vertical habits, relational words that expand worship language.

      Worship Words Too Important To Neglect  about the book  Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry (Baker Academic, 2009) by Debra and Ron Rienstra.  Reports, for example, about how the names for God used in worship songs affect how children perceive who God is and what God does.

Vertical habits, relational words that expand worship language.

Tags: Debra Rienstra, Guy Deutscher, linguistic influence, Ron Rienstra, spiritualformation, vertical habits, world, worship language