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Iconic Action—Redefining Ritual as Language in the Body

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Miyanaga K.

Dialogue and Universalism

2025

issue 1

195-207

This article redefines as iconic action what has been conventionally described as ritual. Beginning with the primary definition of “ritual as repetition,” the article describes iconic action as social construct built in the combination of iconic significations and cosmology, and shows that this structure is similar to that of the word and syntax in language. Repeating the iconic action in this structure, values and meanings in cosmology become assimilated into the practitioner. The icon as a signifier consistently evokes a specific emotion in the practitioner. In repetition, the consistent evocation of specific emotions stabilizes the pair relation between the icon-signifier and the emotion-referent, making their relation into a structure. In this structure, meaning and the values which icons carry become adopted into the platform of emotions by the practitioner. Cosmology is a condensed vision of the universe, in which icons stand out like keywords, representing in their images its major values and meanings. The performances become the embodiment of the cosmology and the expressions of these values and the meanings through action in the specific emotions. In repetition, the vision of the universe becomes held in the emotions and expressed through the actions of the body, the iconic action. A vision of the universe is lived in experience, “spoken” and expressed in, and by, the “language” of the iconic action of the individual performer. This structure becomes self-perpetuating, when the iconic action achieves spontaneity through repetition.

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1 Dialogue and Universalism

1 Miyanaga K.

1 2025

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Iconic Action—Redefining Ritual as Language in the Body