Exploring Linguistic Landscapes in the Sacred Spaces of a Shinto Shrine

Ryan Barnes

Nagoya University

ryan@nagoya-u.jp

Agenda

  1. How can the LL show us what a community finds sacred?
  2. How does the LL express sacredness and other shared values in a community?
  3. Who are these sacred spaces for?

LL in Sacred Spaces

Alsaif, R. A. S., & Starks, D. (2019). Medium and domains in the linguistic landscapes of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40(1), 14–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2018.1461874 Coluzzi, P., & Kitade, R. (2015). The languages of places of worship in the Kuala Lumpur area: A study on the “religious” linguistic landscape in Malaysia. Linguistic Landscape. An International Journal, 1(3), 243–267. https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.1.3.03col Esteron, J. J. (2021). English in the churchscape: Exploring a religious linguistic landscape in the Philippines. Discourse and Interaction, 14(2), 82–104. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2021-2-82 Inya, B. T. (2019). Linguistic landscape of religious signboards in Ado Ekiti, Nigeria: Culture, identity and globalisation. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 9(9), 1146. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0909.11 Perera, N. (2016). Tamil in the temples – Language and religious maintenance beyond the first generation. Multilingua, 35(5). https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2015-0059 Wafa, A., & Wijayanti, S. (2018). Signs of multilingualism at religious places in Surabaya: A linguistic landscape study. Proceedings of the International Conference on Language Phenomena in Multimodal Communication (KLUA 2018). https://doi.org/10.2991/klua-18.2018.5 Woldemariam, H., & Lanza, E. (2012). Religious wars in the linguistic landscape of an African capital. In C. Hélot, M. Barni, R. Janssens, & C. Bagna (Eds.), Linguistic landscapes, multilingualism and social change (pp. 169–184). Peter Lang. Yusuf, K., & Putrie, Y. E. (2022). The linguistic landscape of mosques in Indonesia: Materiality ‎and identity representation. International Journal of Society Culture and Language, Online First. https://doi.org/10.22034/ijscl.2022.550006.2570

|————————-|————–|—————————————————–|——————————————————| | Coluzzi & Kitade (2015) | Kuala Lumpur | Mosque, Theravada Buddhist | Malay is minimal (except Islam), | | | | temple, Anglican & Catholic Christian | English is a “neutral” language |

church, Chinese temple, Hindu temple, Sikh gurdwara Other languages only used to highlight ethnicities
Esteron (2021) Manaoag, Catholic church English is the dominant language;
Pangasinan, Filipino secondary, and Pangasinan is minimally used
Philippines
————————- ————– —————————————————– ——————————————————
Alsaif & Starks (2021) Mecca, Grand Mosque Arabic: sacred domains;
Saudi Arabia English, Urdu, Farsi, etc. for banal domains
————————- ————– —————————————————– ——————————————————
Inya (2019) Ado Ekiti, Christianity, Islam, and Christianity: English; Islam: English,
Nigeria African Traditional Religion (ATR) Arabic; ATR: Yoruba (English)
————————- ————– —————————————————– ——————————————————

Sacred LL studies in Japan

  • Hiramatsu (2021): Nikko, home to Shrines and Temples of Nikk_ UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as National Treasures of Japan and Important Cultural Properties
  • Doering (2021): development of an ancient pilgrimage route, the preference for and tensions with lower-impact, independent Western tourists in rural Wakayama

Religion in Japan

(Agency for Cultural Affairs, December 2023)
  • Population of Japan: 125.1 million
    神道系 仏教系 キリスト教系 諸教 小計
    ————– ————– ————– ————- —————
    83,964,368人 70,759,447人 1,262,924人 7,004,560人 162,991,299人
    ————– ————– ————– ————- —————

IRL in Language/Culture Learning

Bhandari, A., & Humphreys, L. (2023). The best thing on Twitch today was a bike messenger: Experiencing metropolis, mobility and place through live-streaming.

Shinto

  • 神道 Shintō: “the way of the gods”
  • “a folk belief emerging from natural spiritual behavior, for which reason it has no creeds nor scriptures” (Melikian, 2001)
  • indigenous religion of Japan: origins in prehistory, no founder, tightly wound with Japanese people, imperial family, history, and customs.
  • Venerates 神 kami or divine spirits: cycles of nature, thunder, wind, rocks, trees, some animals, ancestral spirits, guardian spirits, national heroes.

神社 jinja Shinto Shrines

  • ~100,000 shrines in Japan.
  • “spontaneous manifestation of the people’s faith in the kami, and shrine rites and festivals are the highest expression of that faith” (Ono, 1962, p. 20)
  • significant natural beauty: forest, boulder, waterfall, hilltop
  • Prayer: to pass entrance exams, success in business, protection for a safe childbirth, prevention of automobile accidents, to avoid calamities during “unlucky” years.
  • Celebration: New Year, first visit, weddings, matsuri