Relational work strategies in conflict-motivated discourses in The Passion of Christ

Abstract

Communication between the Bible characters has recently gained ground in recent linguistic scholarship. Hence, linguistic studies on biblical texts have utilised semantic and stylistic tools in exploring the literariness of biblical texts, but the relational features of communication among biblical characters have not been accommodated enough. Therefore, the paper examines the relational work strategies and linguistic forms deployed in conflict-motivated discourses in the Passion of Christ (POC). The data comprises interactions extracted from St. John’s Gospel and subjected to descriptive pragmatic analysis. The findings reveal two major relational strategies: polite and politic/appropriate strategies and non-politic/inappropriate, over-polite and impolite strategies. The polite and politic strategies are exclusively associated with Christ while responding to prompts; non-politic is largely used by the crowd in its insistence to kill Christ; impolite by the Chief Priests in their interrogations, and over-polite by the soldiers while mocking Christ.