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Accepted Paper:
The rhythm of semiotic landscape: hopeful soundscapes and language ideologies among Nepalese followers of a Japanese New Religion
Marilena Frisone
(University of Padua)
By looking at how space, language ideologies and sounds are combined during a ritual performed by Nepalese followers of Tenrikyō, this paper intends to show how semiotic landscapes have the effect of shaping the subjectivity of practitioners, connecting them to a different place and hoped-for time.
Paper long abstract:
Every morning Nepalese followers of the Japanese New Religion called Tenrikyō (“Teachings of the Heavenly Wisdom”) gather in a small room in Kathmandu, and perform a ritual consisting in singing and dancing codified songs in old Japanese, while also playing traditional Japanese instruments and performing specific hand movements. Ritual songs and gestures indexically refer to the main shrine in Jiba, Tenri city (Japan)—the place where, according to them, God the Parent created humankind—and bring it present in the “here-and-now” (Silverstein 2004) of the space of performance in Nepal. Based on fifteen-month fieldwork, this paper intends to expand the concept of semiotic landscape in two directions, by looking at the specific temporalities it produces, and the language ideologies it entails. We will see how by singing and dancing the ritual, Nepalese followers enter a new temporality based on Tenrikyō teachings, which is future-oriented, towards the realisation of an ideal Joyous Life—conceived by them as a possible future for Nepal, imbued with hope for development and reconciliation of “tradition” and “modernity”. But they also participate in a new space, characterised by a different soundscape and specific gestural practices, subscribing to a language ideology which considers Japanese as the privileged medium for expressing Tenrikyō truths. I will thus show how, by including ritual space and language, the materiality of the instruments and their sounds during the ritual performance, semiotic landscapes have the effect of shaping the subjectivity of practitioners, connecting them to a different place and hoped-for time.