The Rituals of Pragmatics

Abstract

The study of rituals is a strand of research in sociology. Students of pragmatics—the study of language use in context—have discovered that ordinary social interaction, too, can be highly ritualized, leading to the investigation of language use from a ritual‐study perspective. In this entry, I discuss the connection between anthropology and pragmatics with regard to ritual offer, the current state of affairs in this emerging research program in pragmatics, and some observations about the significance, the challenges, and future research directions for those interested in looking at the ritualized use—or simply the rituals—of language in various contexts.