A Comparative Study of the Mood Choice in Sermons of Two Charismatic Church Preachers

Abstract

The study sought to do a comparative analysis of how two Charismatic preachers (Archbishop Duncan Williams and Pr. Mensa Otabil) use the clause as an interactive grammatical unit to establish interpersonal relationship between themselves and their congregations. The Mood system of the clausal units of four selected sermons was analysed. The fundamental categories of the system of Mood that were analysed are the Mood, Subject, Modality, Tense, Polarity and Vocatives. The analysis indicates that both preachers made use of all the Mood types, viz. Declarative, Imperative and Interrogative, although some of the Moods were used more often than others. The preachers also use both positive and negative polarity, as well as modality and vocatives in their sermon delivery. The study reveals dominance of declaratives in all the four sermons with sparse choices of imperative and interrogatives. The sermonic discourse is characterised by lack of reciprocity of interaction, the kind of interaction one will normally find in casual conversations. Although there is dominance of declaratives in the sermons, which is typically of sermonic discourse, and which do not usually establish interpersonalness in interactions, the choice of first person plural and second person as Subjects of some of the declaratives establishes interpersonal relationship between the preachers and their congregations. The study reveals that Otabil is more informative than Duncan in the delivery of their sermons but Duncan is more interactive and demanding and hence, more interpersonal, than Otabil. Duncan uses interrogatives, imperatives and vocatives more than Otabil does. Otabil, rather, makes more assertions than Duncan in their interaction with their congregants.