In A Discourse and Register Analysis of the Prophetic Book of Joel, Colin M. Toffelmire presents a thorough analysis of the text of Joel from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. While traditional explorations of Joel generally engage the book from an historical or literary perspective, here Toffelmire examines syntactic and semantic patterning in the book, and builds from there toward a description of the linguistic register and context of situation that these linguistic patterns suggest. This work also showcases the usefulness of discourse analysis grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics for the analysis of ancient texts.
Colin M. Toffelmire, Ph.D. (2014), McMaster Divinity College, is Assistant Professor of Old Testament Studies at Ambrose University. His publications include the edited volume The Book of the Twelve and the New Form Criticism, and “Form Criticism” in the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets.