Figurative language and persuasion in CPG sermons: The Example of a Gĩkũyũ televangelist

Abstract As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence” (Adams 2019:7). This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel (CPG), a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an explanation on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E (E51) language by Guthrie (1971). According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations.. The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach (Kopytowska 2015, 2022). Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way.