Perspective choice and frames of reference in the storytelling of a Japanese traditional festival, Nishiure Dengaku. by Hiromichi Hosoma (University of Shiga Prefecture)

Abstract



The traditional agricultural festival "Nishiure Dengaku" (lit. the "agricultural festival of Nishiure") is based on the worship of Kannon and takes place in the Nishiure area of Misakubo-cho, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The spatial arrangements of the 33 performances that comprise the main festival are deeply related to the ritual meaning of the event.

In this study, I refer to two conversations between the betto (the master of the festival) and researchers, in which he discussed the sequence of the performances, to illustrate how gesture and speech are used to express the space of the festival.

In Conversation 1, the betto made errors in speech when he tried to describe the lighting system used for the dancing space. His utterances after these errors seemed to be a typical repair sequence designed to utter the word "torch." However, detailed analysis of the video recording of this conversation revealed that the sequence included gesture phrases expressing an unspoken ritual, the Ohhunawatashi (Boat Crossing), in which the holy fire crosses from the temple to a large torch. Moreover, while the absolute reference frame was maintained in the gesture phrases, the perspective choice (Emmorey 2002) of the phrases changed dramatically; that is, the betto changed the scale of his phrases from small-size at mid-chest level (diagrammatic space) to large-size at eye level (viewer space) to express the Ohhunawatashi.

Nineteen days later, I asked the betto to rotate the arrangement of our interview seats by 90 degrees (to change the atmosphere) and to talk about the performances again. In Conversation 2, the betto described the Ohhunawatashi briefly in his speech. While the absolute reference frame of gesture phrases stayed the same after the seat rotation, the perspective choice changed when he described the movement of the torch crossing.

I concluded that the process of describing the torch in Conversation 1 was not merely a linguistic repair sequence but a process of coordinating gesture and speech that included reference to environmental factors to recall the dynamic movement of the performance.

(ISGS 2007 @ Northwestern University, Illinois, USA)



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