Metaphor, Context and Embedment in Neo-Pentecostal Rhetoric

Abstract

According to Hunt (2000), Neo-Pentecostal churches have as main characteristic the capacity for adaptation to different spatial-temporal contexts. Thus, in this article we work with the hypothesis that contextual sociopolitic transformations in the country, which occurs in the course of a decade, changed the textual-interactive production of Neo-Pentecostal sermons. We focus our attention on the use of metaphors, fundamental to the success of Neo-Pentecostal rhetoric (MARTINS, 2011, 2015, 2017). To achieve the outcomes, we analyzed the relationship between the metaphorical conceptualization of the category INVESTIMENT and the embedment (HANKS, 2008) of habitus (BOURDIEU, 1996) changes of the target public in two cults, one was ministered in 2007 and the other in 2017. The results show that in 2007 the speaker conceptualized INVESTIMENT in terms of a path. Already in 2017, the speaker conceptualized INVESTIMENT in terms of a choice. In our analyses we point out possible motivations to explain this difference and, in our conclusions, we suggest that in Neo-Pentecostal rhetoric embedment of the socio-political context into discourse produced effects in the argumentative strategies to persuade the audience to adhere to financial practices, such as the tithe and the offers.