Towards an Ideology of Gesture: Gesture, Body Movement, and Language Ideology Among Q'eqchi'-Maya Catholics

While much attention has been paid to how linguistic practices and language ideologies shape local forms of Christianity, relatively little attention has been paid to the role that non-verbal communicative codes and people's ideas about them play in these same processes. This paper analyzes the gestural and bodily practices of Q'eqchi'-Maya Catholics belonging to two denominations (Mainstream and Charismatic Catholicism) to argue that non-linguistic practices play a significant role in constructing and performing moral and religious identities. I argue that because local discourses about what constitutes appropriate bodily behavior in religious rituals invoke some of the same kinds of value judgments and are predicated on the same semiotic processes as metalinguistic discourses, a fuller understanding of how language ideologies underpin Christian subjectivities needs to take into account how a wide range of communicative practices relate to each other.