A grammar of transformation: Language used by non-religiously affiliated college students in describing life-changing experiences

The purpose of the Field Research Project is to answer the research question, “What is the language non-religiously affiliated Macalester College students use to describe life-changing/turning point experiences they have had?” Use of essays written by the students in preparation for an “unstructured interview,” conducted with students by the researcher, answered the research question.; Invitations to participate in the project were sent to a random sample of 200 Macalester College students. Twelve of the 200 participated in the research project. The participants were undergraduates between the ages of 18 and 24, all but one of whom claimed no religious affiliation at the time of the life changing/turning point experience.; The thesis includes an extensive discussion of religious language focusing on the challenge of describing experiences that exceed the descriptive limits of language. This discussion recognizes that language is both the words, phrases and metaphors as well as the underlying “grammar” or structure of the narrative describing the life changing/turning point experiences of the students.; Examining transcriptions of forty-five minute interviews with the students as well as material from essays written about the experiences, the author found five “languages” that emerged from the data. These “languages” included “the language of shipwreck, “the language of gladness,” “the language of amazement,” “the language of gratitude,” and the “language of testimony and confirmation.” The first three descriptive categories were drawn from metaphors used by Richard R. Niebuhr. The last was drawn from Sharon Daloz Park's work drawing heavily on the work of James Loder. Most of the language used by the students in their descriptions was not traditional “religious language,” but the pattern of the language and the grammar or underlying structure of the narratives fit closely with James Loder's “transformational dynamics.”; This thesis includes full transcriptions of the conversations with the twelve students as well as the essays written by the students.