Textual: Mormon returns to citing his direct source.
Sociological: Note the list of addresses: 1) friends, 2) brethren, 3) kindred, 4)people. It is easy to understand friends, kindred, and people. Benjamin would certainly have those that might be considered friends, and that category could include both those inside or outside of the definition of kindred. The term “kindred” clearly has a genealogical relationship. In Nephite society, kindred would be a tribal designation. The term “people” certainly refers to the entire assembly, not just the Nephite portion.
This leaves us with the term brethren as an oddity. The term is a kin term, indicating male siblings in the strictest sense. However, Benjamin cannot mean the term in this sense, because he specifically mentions kindred as another category. Why does Benjamin list two different kin-based terms? The answer must lie in the pseudo-kin usage of “brethren.” In the modern church, the kin terms “brother” and “sister” do not refer to actual kinship, but to the fictive kinship of association. We are brothers and sisters in the gospel – not in blood.
This usage in Benjamin’s address is probably this fictive kin usage. Fictive kin, or use of kin terms for social purposes is attested in the later Nahuatl language – Gardner, Brant “A Structural and Semantic Analysis of Classical Nahuatl Kinship Terminology.” Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl. 1982, 15:89-124). If these “brethren” are fictive kin, that gives reason for listing them as distinct from “kindred.” They were probably fictive, but who were they? Just as with the modern religious usage, it is probable that these are those who are already part of the community of believers – prior to this communal conversion. Benjamin’s “people” would consist of believing Nephites, and willing Zarahemlaites – some of whom must not yet have fully adopted the religion of the Nephites, even though they had elected to remain with Benjamin.
Rhetorical: Once again Benjamin uses the phrase “call your attention.” As with the previous instance, Mosiah 3:1, the purpose is to focus the attention of the people on his upcoming discourse. In this particular case, the physical events of falling to the earth and the influence of the Spirit would certainly have been dramatic, and have caught the attention of the crowd away from Benjamin and toward their own experiences.
We may suspect that Benjamin is now reconvening the assemblage once the effects of the Spirit had been allowed to be savored.