Ritual language as semiotic practice: a linguistic-anthropological analysis of collective mourning in the Maambiak Tanah ritual of the Tabuik tradition

This dissertation examines ritual language in the Maambiak Tanah stage of the Tabuik tradition by exploring how linguistic forms, embodied actions, and material artifacts construct collective mourning in Pariaman, Indonesia. While Tabuik has often been studied from historical, religious, and cultural perspectives, its ritual language as a semiotic practice remains underexplored. Using a qualitative interpretive approach grounded in linguistic anthropology and Peircean semiotics, data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, field notes, and documentation. The findings show that collective mourning is organized through iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs. Icons represent death and loss through resemblance, indices connect utterances, gestures, spaces, and objects to the ritual context, while symbols stabilize shared meanings through cultural conventions. These signs operate as an integrated system that shapes emotional orientation, social interaction, and sacred meaning. The study argues that ritual language functions as a culturally embedded semiotic practice through which mourning is enacted, interpreted, and socially sustained.