COGNITIVE-DISCURSIVE MECHANISMS OF ACTUALIZING SACRED KNOWLEDGE IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN-LANGUAGE LUTHERAN SERMONS: A FRAME-BASED AND NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article presents a cognitive-discursive analysis of German-language Lutheran sermons as a form of actualizing sacred knowledge in the context of contemporary mediatized communication and the transformation of the public reception of religious discourse. The aim of the study is to identify the framebased and narrative mechanisms through which biblical texts are integrated into the social experience of the congregation, acquire the status of collectively interpreted meaning, and function as a means of constructing confessional identity under conditions of a changed communicative situation. The theoretical framework draws on principles of cognitive linguistics, theolinguistics, interactional discourse theory, and the concept of communicative genres, which makes it possible to conceptualize the sermon not as a static text but as a processual speech event oriented toward the addressee and embedded in a broader sociocultural context. The empirical material consists of a corpus of authentic German-language Lutheran sermons selected from the digital archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany across different liturgical periods and thematic cycles. The methodological approach combines qualitative cognitive-discursive analysis with elements of pragmatic, interactional, and prosodic description, enabling the reconstruction of dominant frames, scenario roles, and narrative strategies involved in the actualization of biblical plots in contemporary communicative environments. The results demonstrate that the key mechanisms for actualizing sacred knowledge include the framing of experience, the narrative reinterpretation of biblical texts, and linguistic strategies for constructing a shared confessional identity. It is argued that the multimodal reception of sermons in the digital space contributes to the reproduction of the genre’s discursive memory, expands the interpretative horizon of the addressee, and enhances the perlocutionary potential of religious discourse.