Conversion Career

Using Gooren's conversion career model, this chapter demonstrates how a person's universe of discourse changes with increased participation in Goenka's Vipassana movement and identifies the linguistic markers of that change. The chapter is divided into four sections: preaffiliation context through biographical narratives; formal affiliation practices and their significance for conversion; sociocultural and institutional factors behind participants' rejection of the conversion category and Buddhist identity, with analysis of linguistic patterns; and commitment, depicting core member identity through meditators' language, reasoning, and self-representation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract This chapter adopts Gooren’s conversion career model as a heuristic framework to demonstrate how one’s universe of discourse changes with increased participation and identifies the linguistic markers of this change. The chapter is divided into four sections and is rich with data: the first section explores the participants’ preaffiliation context by looking at their biographical narratives. The next section examines practices that mark formal affiliation to Goenka’s movement and the significance of these for the process of conversion. The third section reflects on the sociocultural and institutional factors that harbour participants’ rejection of the category of conversion and the Buddhist identity. This section subsequently proceeds with detailed exploration of the participants’ language, and the linguistic patterns associated with their transition to conversion. The final section on commitment depicts the characteristics of a core member identity based on the meditators’ language, reasoning, and their self-representation or performance of the Vipassana meditator’s role.