MULTIMODAL MECHANISMS OF CONSTRUCTING SACRED MEANING IN DIGITAL LUTHERAN SERMONS (A FRAME-BASED AND NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE)

Abstract

The article presents a cognitive-discursive and multimodal analysis of contemporary German-language Lutheran sermons in the digital environment, aiming to identify the mechanisms of constructing sacred meaning under conditions of mediatized communication. The study is grounded in the integration of frame semantics, the theory of communicative genres, and interactional linguistics, which makes it possible to conceptualize the sermon as a socially situated speech event in which verbal, prosodic, and visual resources function in interdependent semiotic interaction. The empirical basis of the research consists of a corpus of authentic digital sermons selected from the online archives of the Evangelical Church in Germany across different liturgical periods and thematic cycles, representing video, audio, and text formats. The methodology combines qualitative cognitive-discursive analysis with elements of prosodic and visual description, as well as a double-coding procedure aimed at enhancing the intersubjective reliability of the findings. The analysis demonstrates that the dominant mechanisms of actualizing sacred meaning are hierarchically organized frames of “journey,” “service,” “community,” “presence,” and “hope,” which structure the narrative scenarios of the sermon and ensure the transfer of the biblical narrative into the current social context. It is shown that the multimodal synchronization of verbal markers with intonational and visual signals enhances the perlocutionary potential of religious discourse and contributes to the formation of the genre’s discursive memory in the digital space. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the development of an integrated analytical model that allows the digital Lutheran sermon to be described as a complex semiotic event in which sacred meaning emerges at the intersection of cognitive models, genre conventions, and media-conditioned communicative strategies. The results expand the theoretical scope of theolinguistics and cognitive-discursive analysis in the study of religious communication under conditions of digital mediatization.