99 ‘EYES HEAR’ : NEHEMIAH 1,6 TO time of Nehemiah this was a perfectly normal form of address, perhaps a special convention to use in prayer. In a literal translation one “may sometimes encounter formulaic phrases which function as conventionalized expressions ” 31, which only appear strange when literally translated into a different language and cultural environment. Of course, we have the added distance of time to also contend with. Although this possibility cannot be completely discarded, the absence of the use of this phrase in other biblical or extra-biblical examples of prayer suggests that this cannot have been a well-known and often used linguistic convention. We have to a large degree discounted the first three options and must now look at the fourth option, namely that Nehemiah is deliberately making use of an unusual expression in a particular communicative attempt. A deliberate flaunting of linguistic conventions is always done for a reason. Often this is done with the intention of deceiving or misleading 32. However, in this case the speaker does not seem to have any intention of misleading the hearer/audience but rather wishes to “prompt the hearer to look for a meaning which is different from, or in addition to, the expressed meaning ” 33. Unusual semantic features are often used as relationship markers which indicate or reinforce relationship and/or social distance and status. Perhaps some of the strangest terminology is used as terms of endearment, as can be seen in a parent calling a child “my little sausage”. However, our unusual semantic feature in Nehemiah does not seem to be a term of endearment, although it is part of an invocation to God. Language is the medium or at least an important player in the formation of experience. Unusual semantic use can be a call to a shared memory or event of the past. This forms, what can be termed, relational memory triggers 34. We all have our own personal pragmatic dictionary or lexicon, acquired in childhood together with language properties, which helps us to compare the context of one situation with another 35. Many communicative strategies are attempts to call upon the hearer’s pragmatic dictionary or are intended to convince the hearer that the current situation is similar to one the speaker assumes the hearer has experienced in the past G. KASPER, “Pragmatic Transfer”, Second Language Research 8 (1992) 31 215. THOMAS, “Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure”, 65. 32 Ibid. 33 In biblical studies these “textual” triggers and allusions have often been 34 described under the category of intertextuality. For a more detailed discussion of this issue see C.J. KLINGBEIL, 35 “ Mirando más allá de las palabras — pragmática lingüística y su aplicación a los estudios bíblicos”, Entender la Palabra. Hermenéutica adventista para el nuevo siglo (eds. M. ALOMÍA et al.) (Cochabamba 2000) 123-135.