Something borrowed
Wedding cakes as symbols in modern Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2465464 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Walter Edwards (Cornell University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 699-711 |
| Publication date | 1982-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Ethnologist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1525/ae.1982.9.4.02a00050 |
| OpenAlex | W1988715962 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 10 |
The incorporation of new-and especially borrowed-elements into existing rituals presents a problem for symbolic analysis: if the additions are to be understood as meaningful rather than random, it must be shown that the incorporated element has been coherently integrated into the already existing system of symbolic meanings. In order to understand one example of a borrowed element, the Western-style wedding cake in modern Japanese weddings, this paper begins with an examination of the symbolic distinctions operative in a variety of contexts of Japanese culture. It concludes that the cake can be seen as coherently integrated in terms of these distinctions into the wedding ritual, as a symbol of fertility, [symbolic anthropology, semiotics, marriage rites, ritual change, Japan
Aesthetics · Art · Element (criminal law · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Order (exchange · Political science · Semiotics · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Symbol (formal · The Symbolic · Variety (cybernetics · Anthropology · Computer Science · Culinary Culture and Tourism · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1985 - 2010 (26) |
| Highly cited | No |