South Asian Research Journal of Arts, Language and Literature (SARJALL)
Volume-8 | Issue-05
Original Research Article
Digital Pentecostalism: A Corpus-Based Lexico-Semantic Analysis of Christian Sermons on YouTube and Instagram
Beavens Ajiduku Ahmadu, Victoria Bala, Rejoice Elnathan Yargawa
Published : Oct. 7, 2026
Abstract
This study is a corpus-based lexico-semantic analysis of digital Pentecostal sermons mainly from YouTube and Instagram. It investigates how Pentecostal preachers use lexical items and semantic fields to establish their spiritual authority, mobilise influence, and negotiate faith identity within the platforms. The study relies on Corpus Linguistics, Lexical Semantics, and Digital Discourse Analysis, for the analysis of word frequencies, their collocational patterns, keyness, and semantic domains. Emphasis is given to how the YouTube long-form video and Instagram short-form reel shape lexical density, semantic compression, and the recurrence of key words such as ‘breakthrough’, ‘anointing’, ‘fire’, ‘dominion’, ‘favour’, and ‘destiny’. The analysis also locates the sermons in the wider socio-religious context of contemporary Pentecostalism, by highlighting how digital intervention rearranges religious discourse into short, quotable, algorithm-friendly units of belief. The findings reveal that digital Pentecostal discourse is summarily condensed into a noticeable lexicon of not just prosperity, but spiritual warfare accompanied with miracle. The semantic patterns vary systematically between the two platforms reflecting their communicative logics. The study submits that corpus-based lexico-semantic approach provides a route for the understanding the way digital Pentecostalism is linguistically constructed and circulated.