Regulación transcripcional de la lignificación

The conflict domain included a variety of concepts all related to this idea and involved the metaphors of struggle, challenge, wrestle, battle, trial, and test. None of these references from the participants was in a physical sense but rather used in a metaphorical sense. The most common metaphor in this domain was struggle, occurring a total of 92 times throughout the interviews, yet 55% of these instances occurred in the final interview (see Table 6.3). This is likely due to the fact that I explicitly prompted the usage by asking, “Have you struggled with anything that has affected your walk?” As I explained in section 6.2 above, I chose to include community “buzz words” occasionally throughout the interviews in

order to identify myself as a community insider, but I had not realized the extent of the metaphor usage when I developed the interview questions. For example, I included the conflict metaphor struggle and the journey metaphor walk without recognizing them as metaphors at the time. None of the students responded with surprise or confusion when I asked this question, and many had ready responses or even preempted my question by talking about these issues before I had the chance to ask.

Table 6.3 Conflict metaphors Conflict Metaphors Frequency Total #1 #2 #3 #4 Struggle 12 17 12 51 92 Challenge 4 2 2 9 17 Wrestle 0 3 0 7 10 Test 0 0 3 5 8 Battle(field) 0 1 5 1 7 Trial 0 4 2 0 6 Stretched 2 0 0 1 3 Crush 0 0 0 2 2 Warfare 0 1 0 1 2 Fight 0 2 0 0 2 Attacked 1 0 0 0 1 Grappling 1 0 0 0 1 On guard 0 0 1 0 1 Confront 0 0 0 1 1 Red flag 0 0 1 0 1 154

The primary topic that participants spoke about with regard to conflict was their relationship with God, and they used a variety of conflict metaphors to describe these issues. For example, Alex talked about how he was “just struggling to see God clearly” (#2, line 46), and Dylan mentioned one of his friends “was being spiritually attacked” (#1, line 357). Joshua talked about the benefits of attending the weekly early morning prayer walk because he “was struggling, wrestling – how am I doing with my faith?” (#2, line 144). Maddie spoke of “spiritual warfare” (#4, line 6) and her desire to “confront evil” (#4, line 34). Moreover, Johanna added the element of Satan’s agency when she stated, “I need to be on guard for

everything because there might be something that Satan throws at me” (#3, line 54). With both Maddie and Johanna, they intensified the conflict metaphor by adding the opposition to their relationship with God and by taking action against it. The usage of military metaphors within this domain echo Sawin’s (2013) study that analyzed the discourse of a men’s Bible study as well as an older study that examined military imagery frequently used by

Evangelical men in the Promise Keeper’s movement (Donovan, 1998). Additionally, many of the conflict metaphors in the Old Testament relate directly to military imagery, in terms of both offense and defense (Charteris-Black, 2004, pp. 207-208).

Within the conflict of relationship with God, participants spoke about the conflict they experienced within themselves. This was often a vague reference to struggling in general: “I love Delight because we’re just open and honest about prayer requests and things that we’re struggling with in our life” (Helen, #3, line 50). But they also provided specific issues about which they were having a difficult time, like self-confidence, feeling loved by parents, or keeping their “hearts” in the right place. For example, Melissa stated, “I really struggle with self-doubt” (#1, line 274); and Lydia, an adoptee at a young age, admitted, “I have been told I’m loved, which is something I struggled with, by my parents” (#4, line 32). Ultimately, these issues affected their trust in and relationship with God. Some participants took up the military imagery when talking about these self-conflicts. Kirk wanted to confirm that his evangelism activities had the appropriate motivation when he said, “That’s really the battle I constantly have…doing this for the right reason” (#3, line 18).

However, students also talked about friends with whom they felt comfortable enough to share their challenges and how that contributed to their ability to experience development in their relationship with God and with others. Helen spoke enthusiastically about her friend, Jeannie (another participant in this study): “If I had to think of one person to go to if I had a

big problem, or like one person I really want to talk to when I’m struggling, it’d be her” (#3, line 56).

In addition to discussing the challenges in their relationships with God and within themselves, participants also described difficulties in typical life issues for university students: homework or classes, finding balance, and discerning the future. Alex confessed, “My last class was a bit of a struggle” (#2, line 14), while Shannon’s reference was slightly more serious: “[Going to church on Sunday] is something that I’m struggling with and trying to balance that well with my homework and new friendships and just all of this” (#1, line 154). For Charlotte, classes in her major “challenged [her] academically” (#4, line 4), but she also talked about feeling overwhelmed with not knowing the future, “so that would test [her] in [her] faith” (#4, line 26). She concluded, “I’m still kind of struggling with that” (#4, line 28).

The metaphor of struggle is certainly not unique to the IWU community, yet the frequent usage by twenty-five of the thirty-one participants demonstrates its place in the linguistic repertoire of the community. Michelle reflected during the final interview, “At the beginning [of the year], my faith was really tested” due to her “major adjustment” to IWU (#4, line 28). She also had a moment where she began to say “hard” but then switched mid- utterance demonstrating her understanding of this piece of the linguistic repertoire at IWU: “I need to be more intentional in my prayer life – that’s one I have a hard—I struggle with” (#4, line 74). Moreover, other conflict metaphors play a role in enabling members of the

community to articulate the challenges they experience in their efforts to develop relationships with God, others, and themselves.