Funkcja ekspresywna we współczesnych tekstach homiletycznych

Abstract

Preaching scripts, as a peculiar act of interpersonal communication, fulfils cognitive, impressive and prophetical functions. Additionally, they also fulfil an expressive function which reveals the sender’s attitude towards the contents and essence of the message. This allows the sender to manifest their feelings and experiences and express their psychological condition. Emotions play an extraordinarily important role in the process of verbal influence upon the audience. Therefore, the effectiveness of preaching speech depends greatly on emotions. This article is a trial to look at the linguistic means employed in contemporary sermons, thanks to which preachers achieve a high level of expression creating a specific emotional climate. The analysed scripts were drawn from sermons delivered in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw and broadcast in the Polish Radio. The expressive function in the studied texts reveals itself mainly on lexical and syntactic grounds. Rhetorical figures also play an important part in achieving expressiveness of speech. The process of sermon communication achieves its human dimension thanks to emotional measures.