How Shared Meanings and Uses Emerge Over an Interactional History: Wabi Sabi in a Series of Theater Rehearsals

ABSTRACT

Taking the use of the esthetic term wabi sabi (Japanese compound noun) in a series of German- and English-language theater rehearsals as an example, this article studies the emergence of shared meanings and uses of an expression over an interactional history. We track how shared understandings and uses of wabi sabi develop over the course of a series of theater rehearsals. We focus on the practices by which understandings of wabi sabi are displayed, adopted, and negotiated. We discuss complexities and intransparencies of the manifestation of common ground in multiparty interactions and its relationship to the emergence of routine uses of the expression. Data are in English and German with English translation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Because we are dealing with a transient community (Mortensen, 2017) and not with long-lasting communities (to which Wenger refers), we focus on the beginning of emerging routines.

² All recordings were made with informed consent of the participants. Names and other identifiers have been anonymized. Images may be used without anonymization.

³ Images are licensed through Creative Commons.

⁴ This introduction of wabi sabi as a conceptual guideline for the play took place during the conceptual rehearsals two months before the beginning of the scenic rehearsals.

⁵ “In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities” (Wikipedia, n.d.). The golden ratio or golden section is widely used in art and architecture and is perceived as esthetically pleasing.

⁶ According to Goffman (1979, pp. 16–17), the animator is the speaker acting as “sounding box,” while the principal is “someone whose position is established by the words that are spoken.” Change between these two footings here is indicated by back-referring indexical terms (eben; dieses) and not by prosodic or paralinguistic framings (see Couper-Kuhlen, 1999 on voicing).

⁷ Note that part of the discourse on wabi sabi is the insistence that it is ultimately undefinable and cannot be fully grasped rationally (Koren, 2008, p. 15–18).