How Do Differences in Gospels Affectsemantic and Sociolinguistic Level

This paper analyses the impact of the diversity of the canonical gospels and their linguistic and discourse characteristics on the semantic and sociolinguistic levels. Attention is focused on several examples from the gospels in which the differences are extremely evident because the choice of lexis, syntactic structure or content is very different for each gospel writer. Special attention is given to the semantic layering of the gospel messages and their adaptation to the target communities, which affects the sociolinguistic level. Specifically, how parameters such as status, occupation, specific audience, etc., influence the writing style of every gospel writer is analysed. In addition, how differences were reflected in the definition of the course of reading in the field of liturgy and what influences the sentences from gospels had on the field of liturgy are shown. The Croatian translation of the New Testament by Bonaventura Duda and Jerko Fućak was used for the analysis. The computer version (www.biblegateway.com) English Standard Version (ESV) was used for translation into English. The results indicate that the differences between the gospels do not represent contradictions but rather enrich the understanding of the Christian tradition and enable a wider understanding of the uniqueness of the gospel message.