Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London
-
Eve Gregory
,
Halimun Choudhury
Abstract
In this article we examine the role played by one key sacred text in children's learning in four faith communities in London (Bangladeshi British Muslim, Tamil Hindu, Ghanaian Pentecostal and Polish Catholic). After situating the study within a sociocultural framework, we show how collaborative ethnography offers insights into how children begin to make collective memories their own in a new country. We focus particularly on the importance of practice and performance leading to the perfection required by the faith. Through multimodal approaches including song, dance, gesture and chant, as well as repetition, recitation, echoing and memorization, the children imbibe the texts and learn them “by heart”. Finally, we show how living in a new country results in a syncretism of language, literacy and learning practices which contributes to the dynamic nature of each faith in London.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Reading language and religion together
- Reading by heart: translated Buddhism and the pictorial Heart Sutras of Early Modern Japan
- Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London
- The social motivation of code-switching in mosque sermons in Egypt
- Education efforts in the dissemination of Medieval Arabic
- Religiolinguistics: on Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-defined languages
- Linguistic, religious and national loyalties in Alsace
- Maintenance of Kaqchikel ritual speech in the confraternities of San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
- “D'une plume de fer sur un papier d'acier”: faith, nationalism and war in the poetry of the first French War of Religion
- Book Review
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Reading language and religion together
- Reading by heart: translated Buddhism and the pictorial Heart Sutras of Early Modern Japan
- Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London
- The social motivation of code-switching in mosque sermons in Egypt
- Education efforts in the dissemination of Medieval Arabic
- Religiolinguistics: on Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-defined languages
- Linguistic, religious and national loyalties in Alsace
- Maintenance of Kaqchikel ritual speech in the confraternities of San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
- “D'une plume de fer sur un papier d'acier”: faith, nationalism and war in the poetry of the first French War of Religion
- Book Review
