Page |68 to connect people in a religious service. linguists, the emphasis is on the Although joint participation in any event information contained within an (such as sports or theatre) may have utterance and the structure and form by some of the same effect as discussed by which this information is presented. Giin Semin, the content of language and Research questions often focus on the the intent of the messages in religious variety of ways the same message can be practice is often focused on developing framed and how listeners interpret such and strengthening social and spiritual messages. But little of this work connections. addresses the impact of the message Everyone knows someone who itsell. moved to another country, or to another The standard view of language part of their own country where speech processing is that we hear the sounds of patterns differ. After a period of time, in speech (acoustic patterns) that we the context of novel speech patterns, translate mentally into words. The some people adopt the speech patterns meanings of these words are determined around them. This kind of linguistic and then the meanings combined convergence is well documented and is (through our knowledge of sentence moderated by social factors such as the structure) to result in sentence meaning. desire to be accepted or the attempt to be Given that a sentence typically occurs in persuasive.’ When people talk together, a context of other sentences (e.g., a one person’s speech can impact the way sermon) or in response to other speech another person talks in order to promote (e.g., a conversation), this context is then social connection. Indeed, the same kind used to frame and reinterpret the of behavioral convergence is found over sentence meaning. the course of conversations for other : kinds of linouistic acti 12 Metaphor, irony, sarcasm, and BNE PE TID ALES ES a other figures are generally thought of as Information, impact, and being understood later in this process unde