Die religiöse Metapher als Zeichenprozess

Abstract

The text intends to understand the metaphor used in religious communication against the background of Peirce’s semiotics not as a single sign, but as a process consisting of different kinds of signs. For this purpose, it is first necessary to present the basic assumptions of this semiotic approach. Then, based on empirical material, the metaphorical process is reconstructed in which two different conceptual domains are mapped onto each other. Finally, the functioning of metaphors in a religious context is analyzed. As a result, the metaphorical sign process generally consists of the interplay between index and icon mediated in the symbol, and the oscillation between metonymy and metaphor. In religious use, a metaphor is the semantic concretization of the religious code, which consists in the distinction between immanence and transcendence. Religious meaning is created by the intertwining of a known (immanent) source domain with religion as an unknown (transcendent) target domain.