REFRAMING RITUAL GESTURES IN DIALOGUE: GESTURE STUDIES AND SACRAMENTAL RITUALS

Abstract

Ritual gestures have traditionally been understood as conventional bodily actions that are an external accompaniment to language. This thesis challenges this understanding by exploring the relevance of the modern field of gesture studies to Roman Catholic understandings of ritual gestures. Following the field of gesture studies, which argues that gestures are indeed part of language, this thesis argues that ritual gestures are a fundamental part of the content and structure of the “sacramental dialogue” that occurs between ritual participants in Roman Catholic sacramental rituals. Despite a number of overlapping interests, researchers in the field of gesture studies have given very little attention to ritual gestures and religious studies scholars have in turn given very little attention to the field of gesture studies. This thesis represents the first comprehensive attempt to build a bridge between these fields. Using conceptual blending theory, this thesis shows that gestures in ritual settings can actually function similarly to gestures in everyday settings because they both occur within the context of dialogue. The nature and function of three sacramental gestures in the Roman Catholic tradition are examined within the context of the metaphorical concept of “sacramental dialogue”: palm-up open hand (PUOH) gestures, the raising of the Eucharistic elements, and the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. It is shown that these and other ritual gestures are rich multi-modal communicative actions that contribute to the structure and content of the sacramental rituals in ways that words cannot. Ritual gestures are therefore a fundamental part of the structure and content of the sacramental dialogue and cannot be adequately understood apart from words as non-verbal accompaniments or in terms of words as symbols.