Ritual Communication [Hardcover]

Ritual Communication examines how people create and express meaning through verbal and non-verbal ritual. Ritual communication extends beyond collective religious expression. It is an intrinsic part of everyday interactions, ceremonies, theatrical performances, shamanic chants, political demonstrations and rites of passage.

Despite being largely formulaic and repetitive, ritual communication is a highly participative and self-oriented process. The ritual is shaped by time, space and the individual body as well as by language ideologies, local aesthetics, contexts of use, and relations among participants.

Ritual Communication draws on a wide range of contemporary cultures - from Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific - to present a rich and diverse study for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology and sociolinguistics.

Ellen Basso and Gunter Senft

1 Little Rituals
John B. Haviland

2 Everyday Ritual in the Residential World
N. J. Enfield

3 Trobriand Islanders' Forms of Ritual Communication
Gunter Senft

4 Like a Crab Teaching its Young to Walk Straight : Proverbiality, semantics and
indexicality in English and Malay
Cliff Goddard

5 Access Rituals in West African Communities: an Ethnopragmatic
Perspective
Felix K. Ameka

6 Ritual and the Circulation of Experience
Suzanne Oakdale

7 Communicative Resonance across Settings: Marriage Arrangement,
Initiation and Political Meetings in Kenya
Corinne A. Kratz

8 Ritualised Performances as Total Social Facts: the House of
Multiple Spirits
Ingjerd Ho?m

9 Pengunjuk Rasa (expression of feelings) in Sumba: Bloody
Thursday in its Cultural and Historical Context
Joel C. Kuipers

10 Civility and Deception in two Kalapalo Ritual Forms
Ellen B. Basso

11 Private Ritual Encounters, Public Ritual Indexes
Michael Silverstein

12 Kant?mpranku awi?nkanam enk?mturnai& While I sing I am SittinlSz