Variation and variables in religious glossolalia

Psychopathological explanations oversimplify religious glossolalia. An analysis of the use of glossolalia reveals that the speaker manipulates linguistic variables with considerable delicacy in response to role, purpose of the speech act, and setting of the speech act. Examined from a cultural point of view, glossolalia is another 'language' in the Pentecostalists' linguistic repertoire. (Glossolalia, Pentecostalism, speech pathologies, paralinguistics, language of religion.