1) Describe a complex system.

We can serve the phonetics of the German language as a complex system. For years, in Germany
excited lots of dialects, and the pronunciation norm differed depending on the state. (origination)

But in some time a norm for all states was established. As a science, it developed at the end of the 19th
century. Wilhelm Vietor, Theodor Siebs, Eduard Sievers and others took the first step towards
codifying German pronunciation by studying German stage pronunciation and establishing rules for its
standardization. (changing)

But these works concerned stage pronunciation, as they took it as a standard, but it much differed from
the real pronunciation which was in common usage. Anyway, it was the birth of the German phonetic
standard norm.

Later it changed a lot once again, as lots of people realized that phonetics should develop in a
descriptive, but not a prescriptive way. It lead to the dictionaries created by Duden and Krech. They are
perceived as the father and mother of the real phonetics of the German language, as they began
describing the real pronunciation of German. (reaching the goal)

These dictionaries are still in use though they were created more than 40 years ago. They still conform
to current pronunciation norms, although there are some changes to the pronunciation norms, which
are still unstable or vary from region to region in Germany.

The term "Theolinguistics" first appeared in linguistic works in 1976. The

founder of Theolinguistics as a branch of linguistics is considered to be a Belgian

linguist, professor of English linguistics at the University of Brussels, Jean-

Pierre van Noppen, who declares that Theolinguistics is a branch of
linguistics, which "strives to describe how a human word can be used in relation to
God, as well as the way language functions in religious situations, in situations that
do not meet the rigid standards of direct one-way communication"

But!!!! the meaning of this term had nothing to do with the definitions
formulated later.
Further development

David Crystal included in his encyclopaedia "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of

Language" in 1987 the article "Theolinguistics". According to the definition of D.
Crystal, this is a term denoting
a science that studies the relationship "language: religious theory
and practice", an attitude explicated in the texts of church rituals, in
the language of Holy Scripture, in the texts of sermons, in prayers, in
the messages of church hierarchs and in individual utterances of
believers.
It should be noted, however, that 25 years later, in Whatever happened to
Theolinguistics? he notes with regret that after the bright appearance of
Theolinguistics in the scientific firmament in the 80s of the twentieth century, there is
currently a noticeable weakening of the interest of professional linguists in the
development of this young trend in linguistics. And as a result, Theolinguistics, in
comparison with other professional linguistics, which study the relationship of a
language with thematically related areas of application, has made little progress in its
scientific research since its appearance.
A program article declaring the fruitfulness of the potential interaction between

theology and linguistics is considered to be the work of A. Wagner, who sees two

perspectives for the functioning of the new discipline: linguistic and

theological.
1. In the field of language, within the framework of theolinguistics,
A. Wagner touches on the following issues: features of the religious language;
the problem of religious linguistic behaviour - religious forms of
communication; the specifics of the sphere of use of religious
language.
2. In the field of Christian theology, Theolinguistics would be an assistant in
solving problems related to modern systematics or practical-theological aspects, and
in historical terms, in solving problems dealing with historical and hermeneutic
phenomena. A. Wagner believes that one of the interesting areas for research in line
with Theolinguistics is the observed religious linguistic behaviour of the central
Christian form of communication - worship, the linguistic analysis of which is still
in its infancy.

Since worship is a highly complex phenomenon, the scientist proposes to carry

out a linguistic analysis of either its individual elements (prayer, liturgy, sermon,
hymn, etc.) or the interaction of these elements (sequence, their combinations,
penetration into each other, etc.). In addition, such a study, according to Wagner,
involves the analysis of all language levels without exception.

In Slavic linguistics, theolinguistics was developed at the turn of the 20th and
21st centuries in line with the trend of “integrating theological knowledge into the
worldview and culture”, which is increasingly manifesting itself in the modern
world.
The founders of Slavic theolinguistics believe that the creation of this new
linguistic discipline is connected with the impossibility within the framework of
traditional linguistics to obtain an adequate explanation of such intimate moments of
“theolinguistic reality as the creation of the world with a word, a paradise language,
glossolalia, the spiritual experience of smart doing (sacred silence), the liturgical
practice of the Church”.
In linguistics, which is based on a conventional understanding of the
relationship between word and reality, there are simply no appropriate conceptual and
categorical means for such an understanding.

Considering that in Slavic linguistics the idea of creating Theolinguistics as an

independent field of knowledge was born relatively recently, at the present stage of
its formation, there are several approaches to understanding the goals and objectives
of this discipline.
1. According to the 1st approach, the main task of Theolinguistics is to study
the role of the language of religion in society,
2. Another approach provides as the main task "the study of the "religious
language" in the narrow and broad sense". In a narrow sense, religious language
is understood as the language of moral and dogmatic theology, as well as ritual
language, the language of personal prayers, Holy texts, sermons. In a broad
sense, religious language also includes spoken language containing statements
about God, as well as the language of texts on a religious topic.
3. The third approach provides for the tasks of Theolinguistics to perform the
function of an intermediate link between religion, on the one hand, and society, on
the other.

If we focus directly on the meaning of the word theolinguistics, it is clear from its form that,
like the names of many other linguistic disciplines, it consists of two parts: ‘theology’ or the
prefix ‘theo-‘(prefix, prefixoid, first part of a compound word) and ‘Theo-‘ is derived from
the Greek word theos, meaning ‘God’, and linguistics refers to the science of language.
Thus, theolinguistics can be described as a branch of linguistics that studies the linguistic
peculiarities, methods, and differences of religious sources, doctrines, scriptures, and their
interpretations and commentaries. Explanatory dictionaries in other languages, whether in
form of hard copy or online, all give the form of ‘learning a religious language’.

In fact, the term was firstly used by the Belgian linguist Jean Pierre van
Noppen in 1981, and it is widely acknowledged as the ‘father’ of Theolinguistics.
It was not until 1995 that the English linguist David Crystal introduced it into his
encyclopedic dictionary as a linguistic term (Crystal, 1995). Noppen interpreted
the term, which he first used, as a science with a long and rich history,
encompassing all the means of expression, the development of the human language
within certain interests. It is a reflection of human efforts to understand God
through the study of language and its units. As noted above, different
interpretations of texts in religious sources have led to divisions within religions,
and religious institutions have come to the conclusion that a deeper approach is
needed. At first, the peculiar language of religious sources did not attract much
attention from theologians and philosophers. As a result of the growing debate and
controversy over religious discourse and related issues, linguists, anthropologists,
sociologists, and psychologists have also become involved in finding a solution to
the problem. As J.P. Noppen points out, ‘The interest in religious language, which
was later regarded as a revolution, led not only to a positive (one-sided) but also to
many fruitful studies of the fundamental problems of religion and its long-standing
problems in theology.’ (Van Noppen, 1981)

It is impossible for any expert who wants to conduct research in this field of
linguistics without referring to the significant work done by A.K Gadomski in this
regard. Even though some recognize him as the founder of theolinguistics in the Russian
Federation, his large-scale work played a key role in the development of Russian
Theolinguistics. According to him, it is ‘a science that studies the religious
words and terms reflected in languages and their meanings in a wide and narrow
range’ that emerged as a result of the interaction of religion and language
(Gadomski, 2007, 2004). However, in his earlier published articles, the term has
been interpreted slightly differently. It has been argued that theolinguistics is a
science that emerged as a result of the intersection of religion and language, that
religion is reflected in language, and that its manifestation is studied (Gadomski,
2004). It follows that Gadomski's definition of theolinguistics did not change, but
rather supplemented his commentary because it was a broader concept.
Prior to the use of the term theolinguistics, in language study used the term
‘religious language’, “language of religion’, ‘sacral language’, ‘religiousenlightenment
style’ to denote the interrelationships of religion, religious rites,
related customs, and languages. A number of words and phrases such as
‘confessional language’, ‘sacred language’ and so on were used. It can be noticed
that the above mentioned words are not synonymous with each other, but are terms
in the same lexical group. These words and phrases have been used in linguistic
sources since the first use of the tholinguistics. This is because while some
linguists do not prefer to use the term theolinguistics, others believe that it is only
one of the functional elements of language.
According to Postovalova, the ‘synthetic’ sciences emerge as a result of a
comprehensive study of language, along with such fundamental aspects as
understanding the world, culture and religion, which are an integral part of human
existence (social life). Sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, linguoculturology,
psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and linguo-personology, which study the
specific language of specific individuals, are examples of the above idea.
These include the newly formed synthetic theological-linguistic sciencetheolinguistics,
which is emerging as a result of the interrelated study of theology,
religious anthropology and linguistics. She defined the term as a branch of
linguistics that studies the relationship and interaction of language and religion.
(Postovalova, 2012).
We have studied the views of some linguists who have done considerable
work in this regard on the definition and interpretation of theolinguistics. In fact,
there are not many such specialists, but they are enough. We will try to provide
detailed information about their work in the next articles, because the main purpose of our
work is to shed light on what has been done in our country and the current
situation in this regard.

Metaphors in Theolinguistics

If we focus directly on the meaning of the word theolinguistics, it is clear from its form that,
like the names of many other linguistic disciplines, it consists of two parts: ‘theology’ or the
prefix ‘theo-‘(prefix, prefixoid, first part of a compound word) and ‘Theo-‘ is derived from
the Greek word theos, meaning ‘God’, and linguistics refers to the science of language.
Thus, theolinguistics can be described as a branch of linguistics that studies the linguistic
peculiarities, methods, and differences of religious sources, doctrines, scriptures, and their
interpretations and commentaries. Explanatory dictionaries in other languages, whether in
form of hard copy or online, all give the form of ‘learning a religious language.

It has by now become a widely accepted conviction that metaphor may constitute a
satisfactory model to demarcate the semantico-logical relationship between the divine
(including divine hypostases, actions, attributes, and the relations between the divine and
Man) on the one hand, and its human expression on the other. This mode of meaning
concords remarkably well with the conditions for meaningful, valid, and understandable
religious expression.
Metaphor is constituted by a metaphorical term or idea (the focus) within a context (the
frame). The focus has two references, what Max Black has called the principal subject (the
idea being referred to, in casu the divine) and the subsidiary subject (the thought used to
refer to it, in casu a thisworldly reality or relationship). Dualistic theories hold that the term
used metaphorically keeps its usual referential potential, thus retaining its known intension,
but at the same time takes on a second reference in context, which gives the metaphor its
special, plurisignificative status. Thus, the principal subject is spoken about in terms of the
subsidiary subject in such a manner that the resulting meaning involves interaction between,
or blending of the two (both of them intensional ideas, not extensional objects): the
subsidiary subject acts as a ‘filter’ through which the principal subject, or part of it, is
‘viewed’; the features of the subsidiary subject that are not applicable to the primary subject
constitute the ‘difference’, i.e. the sortal, semantic and/or pragmatic breach in isotopy, i.e.
the literal contradiction or irrelevance which acts as a clue that one may be in the presence
of a metaphor, whereas the mutually relevant features, acting in accordance with one or
several principles of assimilation (of which prior resemblance is only one), prompt the
construction of the eventual meaning of the metaphor: a new, ‘amalgamated’ meaning
which is, in some cases at least, altogether beyond univocal paraphrase.

This is what endows metaphor with the faculty to transcend the limits of literal, univocal
expression and thus to refer — albeit within the limitations of its own logic — to subjects
that lie beyond the edges of immediate reference. Thus, from a ‘mere ornament’, a ‘kind of
lie’ saying in an elaborate ‘false and misleading’ way what could have been expressed more
efficiently and more economically in straightforward terms, metaphor becomes a genuine
means of expanding the resources of available human language, so as to bridge the gap
between the known and the unknown, between the expressible and the ineffable, and to
include, notably, references to the divine or the otherworldly.

It is in this respect that an approach in terms of metaphor is to be recognised — as it

increasingly has been — as a useful contribution to the description of theography. Human
discourse about God has previously been characterised as responding to a logic other than
that of literal, univocal reference, and a number of appeals are found for a mode of meaning
transcending the narrow limits of univocity. The notion of ‘meaningful non-
propositionality’ encountered among the theological answers to the positivists accords
remarkably well with the idea of ‘significant self-contradiction’ in metaphor theory. To the
positivist, our human language is derived from our reference to, and experience of, objects
and relations in the realm of the empirical, and is therefore inapplicable in its ordinary sense
to what can not be identified with an object. The option leaves the linguist with the
possibility of interpreting human utterances about God as employed ‘in an unusual sense,
but in such a way that this sense can be understood on the basis of the already established
senses’. The procedure clearly calls for a view of metaphor in which the point of departure
is a familiar, man-centred meaning: the divine is then ‘construed as’, ‘viewed in terms of’
human, this-worldly categories and relations.
The philosopher, however, may feel dissatisfied with this explanation inasmuch as it fails to
state the cognitive implications of the logic chosen to account for theographic language. He
may justifiably ask how accurate a metaphorical utterance is held to be with regard to the
divine reality it is intended to refer to; whether it is able to convey any real knowledge of or
insight into the divine, and whether a metaphorical proposition can be attributed any
truthvalue.
Although the question falls outside the linguist's immediate concerns, the issue is hard to
dodge. Within the bounds of this study, however, it seems sufficient and consistent with the
adopted view of metaphorical expression to note that if theographic utterances convey any
knowledge or report any experience of the divine, they can only refer to the believed or
perceived aspect(s) of the total reality, while part of the divine ‘mystery’ and transcendence
is bound to remain beyond expression.
For the sake of completeness, it must be pointed out that beside the cognitivist and the
experiential-expressive accounts of religious language, there has in the late 20th century
emerged a third, postliberal view according to which theological and doctrinal language
need not posit a reality prior to its language but constitutes a cultural-linguistic process
which precedes and conditions (indeed constructs and regulates) religious experience. In
this perspective, the “truth” of theological propositions is to be assessed intertextually with
regard to their coherence within a system rather than with regard to any objective
(empirical) or subjective (experiential) reality.