Souza, Ana and Lytra, Vally. 2024. Learning and performing Sanskrit as a sacred language: children’s religious repertoires and syncretic practice in London. International Journal of Bilingualism, ISSN 1367-0069 [Article] (In Press)

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Abstract or Description

Aim and objectives: This article examines Sanskrit sacred language learning and performance from a multilingual and multimodal perspective. Uniting a repertoire approach to language and language learning and faith literacies as syncretic practice, we investigate how children in the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu/Saiva faith community in London learn and use Sanskrit alongside Tamil and/or English and other multimodal and embodied resources to communicate with the Divine.

Methodology:. The data were collected as part of a three-year multi-sited collaborative team ethnography documenting how migrant children become literate in faith settings.

Data and analysis: The data consist of participant observations across religious education classes, the Temple and the home, and interviews with the key participant child, Chantia, her brother and the Chief priest at the Temple. The analysis focuses on instances in the data where sacred language learning and performance are thematised. Additionally, we analyse a digital video recording of Chantia’s daily morning prayers using transvisuals to examine how she combines and syncretises Sanskrit religious texts with other multilingual, multimodal and embodied resources.

Findings: Learning Sanskrit consists of integrating a limited set of Sanskrit religious texts and practices, such as key religious concepts, mantras and poetic verses in children’s evolving religious repertoire and is embedded in children’s everyday religious socialisation across contexts. Chantia unites and syncretises a range of conventionalised semiotic resources, including religious texts in Sanskrit to communicate with the Divine and personalise her act of worship.

Conclusions: Children’s religious repertoires are learned, deployed, adapted and expanded differently depending on the affordances of the socio-cultural context. Chantia’s meaning-making process is much more complex than the rigid categorisation of the different modal resources she deploys, forming an integrated system of communication.

Originality: Our conceptualization of Sanskrit sacred language learning is anchored on a multilingual and multimodal perspective that does not privilege Sanskrit over other (sacred) languages nor linguistic over non-linguistic resources. Combining ethnographic observations and interview data with transvisuals foregrounds the layering and interplay of these different resources.

Significance/implications: We view our paper as extending current critique of logocentric perspectives in applied and sociolinguistics to the examination of religious repertoires that are often driven by a communication hierarchy positioning sacred languages, such as Sanskrit and Tamil, at the top and other aspects of communication as secondary.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1177/136700692412570
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK (RES-062-23-1613).
Keywords:	syncretism, repertoire, faith literacies, Sanskrit learning and performance
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Educational Studies Educational Studies > Centre for Language, Culture and Learning
Dates:	Date Event 28 June 2024 Accepted 24 July 2024 Published Online
Item ID:	37731
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2024 09:18
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 17:04
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/37731

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