Ritual Communication and Linguistic Ideology
A Reading and Partial Reformulation of Rappaports Theory of Ritual
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2214232 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joel Robbins (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 591-614 |
| Publication date | 2001-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/322557 |
| OpenAlex | W1578435870 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 65 |
| References cited | 60 |
This article examines Roy Rappaports theory of ritual from the point of view of recent work on linguistic ideology. Rappaports theory, I argue, can best be understood as an attempt to marry the performative approach to ritual to one that regards ritual as a form of communication. Rappaport effects this synthesis through an argument about the indexical qualities of performatively produced signs and goes on to argue that because ritual produces indexical signs, it is a uniquely trustworthy channel of communication. Because language is an untrustworthy channel of communication, prone to carrying misrepresentations and lies, people turn to ritual to make up for languages shortcomings. Here, Rappaports argument requires reformulation. His assumptions about language reflect a particular linguistic ideology. Where that ideology is in force, ritual will likely play the role he suggests, but where it is not, ritual will be evaluated differently. I illustrate this with examples from Melanesia and the history of Christianity in the West. The force of this reformulation is an insistence on the need for any theory of ritual as communication to situate its claims in relation to broader issues of linguistic ideology and cultural constructions of communication
Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Ideology · Indexicality · Linguistics · Performative utterance · Politics · Relation (database · Sociology · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Towards an Ideology of Gesture
The Rituals of Pragmatics
The Bible Meets the Idol
The Eternal Return of Conversion
Appropriated and Monolithic Christianity in Melanesia
Scripture Study as Normal Science
Possession and Confession
Anxious Transcendence
Les rituels de consécration des statues de Bouddha et de naq en Birmanie
Reading as Gift and Writing as Theft
Rethinking the Anthropology of Ethiopia through Culture and Ritual
Forgetting Conversion
The Effectiveness of Ritual
Materializing the Self
Renewable Icons
‘Smoke in the Hills, Gunfire in the Valley’
Laughter and Truth in Fiji
‘Yams Have No Ears!’
Ritual as а Subject of Religious Reflexivity in British Social Anthropology and Catholic Traditionalism
Bøn
The Word as an Icon
The pragmatics of reading prayers
Embodied Spirituality
Public speaking as cultural ideal
Leading through ritual
Rock Art and Ritual
Combating prejudice and racism
Rappaport, Revisited
Varieties and transformations in emic interpretations of Catholic rituals in contemporary Podhale
Ritual Syntax Revisited
Books, articles, chapters
Independence Day in a would-be Christian nation
T'áalk'u' Iknalítico
The Sound and Meaning of God's Word
Practical belief and the localization of Christianity
Suspicious minds
On Knowing Faith
Remembered and Forgotten Gods
Whydatnow
Good Dances Make Good Guests
Introduction
Como sabemos o que é verdade? O caso do mana em Fiji
Unearthly Powers
Danger of words
Cobo and tabua in Fiji
Aesthetics, Intuition, and Reference in Fijian Ritual Communication
God Is Nothing but Talk
A semiotics of comedy
New Paths in the Linguistic Anthropology of Oceania
Ritual and Oratory Revisited
On Dicentization
In the Name of the Nation
How to Say Things with Wars
Major and Minor Chronotopes in a Specialized Counting System
Becoming a Christian in Fiji
Fiat speech, fiat infrastructure
Dancing the Word
Two ways of being the Body of Christ
A Space That Will Never Be Filled
Magical Laments and Anthropological Reflections
Plazas, Performers, and Spectators
Afterword
From Sprinkling to Immersion
Language at the Limits of the Human
Evangelical Conversion and the Transformation of the Self in Amazonia and Melanesia
Linguistic communication and speech acts
Guardians of the flutes
Day of Shining Red
Sincerity and Authenticity
Remotely Global
A Theory of Semiotics
A Musical View of the Universe
Selected Papers from the "American Anthropologist" 1946-1970
The give and take of everyday life
Discourse and social change
Language Ideologies
The fame of Gawa
Signs in Society
Introduction Language Ideology as a field of inquiry
The Making of Great Men. Male domination and power among the New Guinea Baruya
Seeker Churches
Encompassing Others
Die protestantische Ethik und der "Geist" des Kapitalismus
The Self in Self Decoration
Ritual in Early Modern Europe
Human Ethology 1 . Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt,New York
Meaning and Force
The Voice of The Tambaran
Reading the Skin
Of Relations and the Dead
In Favor of Deceit. A Study of Tricksters in an Amazonian Society
La producción de los grandes hombres
The Sociology of Georg Simmel
The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France
Shouts, shrieks, and shots
Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation Is religion an extreme form of traditional authority
On the Metonymic Structure of Religious Experiences
A Musical View of the Universe
Asiwinarong
Ritual and Knowledge Among the Baktaman of New Guinea
A Social History of Truth
Religious Language
Reading the Skin
The Problem of Efficacy
Performativity in Ritual
The Power of Rights
How to Do Things with Words
Indeterminacy and history in Britton Goode's Western Apache placenames
Ecology and the Sacred
Secrecy, Ambiguity, and the Everyday in Kabre Culture
Language, Ideology, and Political Economy
Ritual Wailing in Amerindian Brazil
Ritual As Communication
The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy
From Fetishism to Sincerity
Speech Acts
| Unique citing works | 65 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,32 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2024 (27) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 64 |