translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

The ritual becomes both communication type and aspect of
communication: the ceremonial aspect of the social interaction offers
participants to it the possibility of conveying information and
communicating their own intentions. It is not only words that
communicate; body movements that are “cast in particular forms or
patterns…have significance, or meaning,”- considers Rothenbuhler. 9
The rules governing this type of ritual establish relationships, even
beyond individuals; these rules are unconsciously observed by
participants, authenticity springing from the fact that individuals observe
them in a natural way, without thinking too much about them.
d) as socialization device
Trough classroom rituals students socialize themselves; such rituals
are training ways through which participants accomplish their goals
through a process of adjustment. They give students certainty and help
them to become members of a group/of the classroom community.
In what follows we are going to analyse the English class as a ritual,
to identify its elements and characteristics and, at the same time, to show to
what extent it becomes a ritual of shaping identities.
In the English class, we can identify the main elements of any microritual:
context, participants, audience, roles, script and artifacts.
The context is a mixture of formal interpersonal and informal
interpersonal. The formal context has influence upon the content, the form
and the duration of the interaction that takes place in the classroom. The
ritualistic elements occur within this specific type of context, as a feature of
the action, “rather than an event separate from it.” 10 They can be noticed in
personal style, forms of talk and artifacts.
A relaxed atmosphere characterizes the informal context – those
moments in which participants talk freely during the interaction dominated
by spontaneity.
Both types of context take place within a larger one, an informal one,
that of the ordinary life. The representatives of micro-sociology and
interactionism talk about an “apparent” informal frame of such
interpersonal ritual. This is determined by the obligation for participants of
knowing and adapting themselves to a certain code of attitudes and
behaviour determined by social and cultural norms. This is in fact the
frame within which the respect and self-disclosure of the individual can be
identified.
Participants to the class ritual (the teacher and the students) belong to
different social statuses and play different social roles. The roles assumed
are both interlocutive and interactional and are performed according to the
respective ritual. The roles, together with the manner of interpretation,
ensure the symbolic character of the ritual. They guarantee order and
143