Hasselbalch asserts that current theories about the social background of Thanksgiving Hymns are unable to explain its heterogeneous character. Instead the author suggests a reading strategy that leaves presumptions about the underlying social contexts aside to instead consider the collection's hybridity as a clue to understanding the collection as a whole. Hasselbalch applies Systemic Functional Linguistics to four Hodayot compositions which show signs of hybridity. Analysis reveals that the speaker in some of the so-called leader hymns as well as in compositions not normally designated...

Hasselbalch asserts that current theories about the social background of Thanksgiving Hymns are unable to explain its heterogeneous character. Instead the author suggests a reading strategy that leaves presumptions about the underlying social contexts aside to instead consider the collection's hybridity as a clue to understanding the collection as a whole. Hasselbalch applies Systemic Functional Linguistics to four Hodayot compositions which show signs of hybridity. Analysis reveals that the speaker in some of the so-called leader hymns as well as in compositions not normally designated...