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COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL EFFECTIVELY USING RELEVANCE THEORY AND THE CORPUS CHRISTI FESTIVAL: A CASE STUDY IN EL-TINGO, ECUADOR By Alan D. Gordon A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the School of Intercultural Studies FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy August 2009

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COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL EFFECTIVELY USING

RELEVANCE THEORY AND THE CORPUS CHRISTI

FESTIVAL: A CASE STUDY IN EL-TINGO, ECUADOR

By

Alan D. Gordon

A Dissertation Presented to the

Faculty of the School of Intercultural Studies

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

August 2009

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ ii

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. iv

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................v

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1

CHAPTER 1 THE ECUADORIAN INDIAN IN THE ANDES AND THEIR FESTIVALS: A RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM ..............................................2

The “Chillo Valley” and the town of “El-Tingo” .....................................2

The Ecuadorian Indian ..............................................................................3

The Corpus Christi Festival ......................................................................4

PART 1: REVIEW OF PRECEDENT LITERATURE ...........................................6

Introduction ...............................................................................................6

CHAPTER 2: RELEVANCE THEORY: LOOKING AT “COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT” IN COMMUNICATION ................................................7

Code Theory..............................................................................................7

Relevance Theory ...................................................................................11

So what exactly is “relevance theory?” ......................................12

Cognitive Environment ...............................................................13

Context ........................................................................................14

Intention ......................................................................................15

The Communication Process ..................................................................16

The Missiological Bias ...............................................................19

Shaw and Van Engen ..................................................................20

Cross-Cultural Communication ..................................................20

God Accommodates to Communicate ........................................22

Missiological Communication ....................................................24

Conclusion ..............................................................................................28

CHAPTER 3: ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL THEORY: MUSIC-RITUAL REVEALS “COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT” ............................................29

Introduction .............................................................................................29

The Music-Event .....................................................................................31

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The Development of a Theoretical Model ..............................................31

Alan Merriam ..............................................................................32

Jeff Titon .....................................................................................33

Synthesis of Merriam and Titon .................................................33

Clifford Geertz: The Music-Ritual as a Window into Culture ..34

CHAPTER 4: CONSTRUCTIVISM: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL CHOICE .......36

Epistemological biases ............................................................................36

Bernard ........................................................................................36

Guba ............................................................................................38

Hiebert.........................................................................................39

Researcher’s Choice................................................................................40

Conclusion ..............................................................................................41

PART 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS ..............................42

CHAPTER 5: THE LOGIC OF INQUIRY: A MULTI-FACETED, SPIRALING PROCESS .....................................................................................................42

CHAPTER 6: EVANGELICAL AND INDIGENOUS “MUSIC-RITUAL:” A MARKED DIFFERENCE ............................................................................42

CHAPTER 7: THE CORPUS CHRISTI FESTIVAL IN EL-TINGO: UNDERSTANDING THE INDIGENOUS MENTALITY..........................42

CHAPTER 8: A NEW FRAMEWORK: CHANGING ONE’S MENTALITY ....42

PART 3: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .............................................42

CHAPTER 9: DISCOVERING COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH “MUSIC-RITUAL:” A PROPOSAL FOR MISSIONARIES ......................42

CHAPTER 10: AN EVANGELISTIC STRATEGY FOR RURAL TOWNS IN THE ANDES ................................................................................................42

REFERENCES CITED ..........................................................................................43

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Guba’s comparison of Research Strategies ........................................................38

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The Communication Model of Shannon and Weaver ..........................................8

Figure 2: A Basic Communication Model ...........................................................................9

Figure 3: Hiebert’s Model of Interaction .............................................................................9

Figure 4: Message without communication .......................................................................16

Figure 5: Ineffective communication .................................................................................18

Figure 6: Effective communication ...................................................................................19

Figure 7: Communication and Cultures .............................................................................21

Figure 8: Accommodation in Relevance Theory ...............................................................22

Figure 9: Accommodating to another culture ....................................................................23

Figure 10: The Missionary as a Communicator .................................................................25

Figure 11: The Missionary as a Facilitator ........................................................................27

Figure 12: Role of Music and Culture ...............................................................................31

Figure 13: Merriam’s theory of music ...............................................................................33

Figure 14: Titon’s theory of the music event .....................................................................33

Figure 15: A synthesis and adaptation of theories from Merriam and Titon .....................34

Figure 16: Music rituals as a window into beliefs .............................................................35

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INTRODUCTION

Purpose The purpose of this investigation is to study the communication of the gospel in the Andes of Ecuador. Goals The goals of this study are:

1. To understand the mentality of the indigenous folk in small, rural towns in the Andes (world)

2. To understand the mentality of evangelicals in small, rural towns in the Andes (church)

3. To look at communication through religious festivals (word) 4. To understand one’s own mentality (personal pilgrimage)

Significance The result of this study will be to improve the communication of the gospel to the rural Andes people of Ecuador Central Research Issue

The central research issue of this investigation is to develop an understanding of the “cognitive environment” of the rural Andes people. Research Questions

1. What is the history of the Ecuadorian Indian population? 2. How do rural Ecuadorians in the Andes celebrate music-rituals? 3. What is the cognitive environment of the evangelicals in the Andes? 4. What is the cognitive environment of the indigenous folk in the Andes? 5. What is the cognitive environment of the missionary?

Delimitations

1. This will be primarily a case study in the Andes town of “El-Tingo.” Definitions

1. Cognitive Environment – the information and experience that a person has in relation to a specific area of personal knowledge.

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CHAPTER 1 THE ECUADORIAN INDIAN IN THE ANDES AND

THEIR FESTIVALS: A RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM

The “Chillo Valley” and the town of “El-Tingo”

East of the capital city of Quito, Ecuador lies a lower plateau called “Chillo

Valley.” This valley consists of small country towns which all center around a park that

holds the Catholic Church as the center of community life. (The whole range of Andes

Mountains from Columbia to Peru is full of these small towns.) As the capital city can no

longer hold its more than one-million inhabitants, more and more urban folk are moving

out to the valley, most of them living in newly-built, residential neighborhoods. Thus the

Chillo Valley holds both indigenous folk and urban commuters.

Quito is city. But just on the other side of its east mountain ridge lies a valley

which holds an interesting mix of city folk escaping the crowd and smog, and indigenous

folk trying to hold onto their lands and traditions. The Chillo Valley is a mixture of white,

middle-class urbanizations, and indigenous, lower-class “pueblos.”1 The word “pueblo,”

used throughout this paper, refers to what Dr. Alfredo Costales, the first anthropologist in

Ecuador, calls “doctrines” (Costales Samaniego 2006:107). During the Conquest, the

Catholic church gathered the Indians into pueblos in order to indoctrinate them. As a

result, the whole Ecuadorian Andes region is dotted with pueblos from north to south.

Every pueblo has a central park with a catholic church where mass is held regularly as

well as baptisms, weddings, and many festivals. At first the catholic missionaries tried to

1 Many excellent ethnographies have been written about some of these pueblos: Conocoto

(Gallardo 1994); Sangolqui (Gomezjurado Zevallos 2003); Sangolqui (Hinojosa Figueroa 2002); Pintag (Sosa Freire 1996).

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eliminate these pagan festivals, but were unsuccessful. The festivals eventually merged

with many catholic traditions (Moya 1995:18), and formed a religious syncretism.

The Ecuadorian Indian

Whereas in North America, the Indian was conquered by extermination, in South

American, the Indian was conquered by domination. The Spaniards enslaved the Indians,

drove them off the best lands, and forced them to become Christians.

The Ecuadorians Indians were treated as slaves, considered as less than human,

and excluded from the Eucharist (Cisneros Cisneros 1948:44); (Mackay 1933:44-45). As

a result, millions of them fled to the mountains and the jungle to escape (Cisneros

Cisneros 1948:46). And that’s why today, most of the concentrations of Indians are in the

mountains. The Spaniards took away the best lands in the valleys. Chillos is one of those

valleys, and ever since Colonial days was one of the most fertile and productive valleys

in Ecuador, providing the capital, Quito, with most of its food (Costales Samaniego

2006:92). The small town of El-Tingo is located at the foot of the mountain Ilaló, as are

the other nearby Indian towns of Guangopolo, Toglla, Angamarca, and La Merced.

In the Chillo Valley, where El-Tingo lies, lands were distributed by the Spanish

Crown to what are called “encomenderos” (“those in charge”). In the years 1551 to 1559,

the Chillo Valley was divided into “encomiendas” (districts) (Landázuri 1990:11). The

“encomenderos” were not given the land, as many believe, but were in charge of

collecting taxes from the Indians who worked those lands (Costales Samaniego 2006:65).

Even so, the Indians often rebelled against this treatment, and conflicts over lands

continue to this day.

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From the Conquest, the Spaniards felt it their obligation to convert the Indians,

even if by force. “The Crown charged the colonists with the conversion of the Indians to

the Holy Catholic Faith” (Mackay 1933:43). Along with each “encomendero,” a

“doctrinero” was assigned to teach the Indians the Christian doctrines. Both received

taxes from the Indians (Landázuri 1990:36). In the Chillo Valley, the Jesuits received

large portions of land, known as “El Colegio.” The Indians were forced off these lands,

and many conflicts resulted, one case being in Guangopolo (Costales Samaniego

2006:88-92). Even the lands left to the Indians on the mountain tops became objects of

dispute. Ilaló was no exception. In 1933, the government had to intervene to settle

disputes among the Indians in El-Tingo, Alangasí, and Angamarca about land rights on

Ilaló (Cisneros Cisneros 1948:190-191). Even today, the natives of El-Tingo are

nominally Catholic, and are extremely sensitive about land issues.

The Corpus Christi Festival

Before the arrival of the Incas, the inhabitants of Quito, who were called

“Quitus,” worshipped the sun and the moon, and had a temple for sun worship on the

mound in the center of Quito (Cisneros Cisneros 1948:18). The harvest festival is related

to sun worship, because the solar equinox marked the date between sowing and

harvesting (Friedemann 2002:93). In the Chillo Valley, the old crater of Ilaló was a

sacred place where Pachacamac, the Creator of the Andes world, was worshipped with

yumbos (holy men) and sacharunas (men dressed as weeds), directed by a priest (Costales

Samaniego 2006:92). At the foot of Ilaló the most ancient evidences of human life in

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Ecuador have been found (ibid:7-8). Therefore this worship at the crater may have a long

history.

The Corpus Christi festival came from Spain with the conquerors and is a mixture

of historical traditions. It is celebrated every year around June. Some of the symbols used

in the festival symbolize the harvest. Other figures date back to Inca sun worship. The

formal procession traces its roots to Spain itself. Police and military figures are a recent

addition.

In the fifteenth century the Corpus Christi Festival became the principal ritual of

the Catholic faith (Friedemann 2002:93). It was superimposed upon the ritual of sun

worship: Inti Raymi (Moya 1995:16). In fact, the Indian race was never really

Christianized (Mackay 1933:48), the festivals merely became a means of celebrating old

rituals (Moya 1995:15). Religious syncretism is predominant in the whole Andes region,

and is seen in the Corpus Christi festival celebrated in El-Tingo: a nominal Catholic faith

celebrated by a mixture of historic rituals.

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PART 1: REVIEW OF PRECEDENT LITERATURE

Introduction

Part 1 of this dissertation lays out the foundation for the research, pulling together

communication theory and ethnomusicological theory with a Constructivism bias.

Chapter 2 will look at the relationship between relevance theory and the

missionary task of communicating the gospel cross-culturally. Chapter 3 proposes that

the music-ritual can be used to understand a people’s mentality. Chapter 4 delineates the

epistemological bias of the investigation.

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CHAPTER 2: RELEVANCE THEORY: LOOKING AT

“COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT” IN COMMUNICATION

In general there are two fields of communication theory: code theory and

relevance theory. The difference between the two is the assumption of where meaning

lies. Code theory holds that meaning is in the message, whereas relevance theory argues

that meaning is not transferred, but inferred. The receptor makes that inference.

For missionaries, who are “communicators of the gospel,” each school derives a

different application. Using code theory, a missionary tries to make the gospel

presentation as “clear as possible.” Much effort is spent on preparing and executing the

message. This works well in a mono-cultural setting. Using relevance theory, a

missionary first strives to understand the people’s mentality before trying to

communicate the gospel to them. This is useful in a cross-cultural setting.

In looking at religious syncretism in the Andes, the author assumes that most

evangelistic efforts have been based on code theory, and believes that a new look at

evangelism from a relevance theory perspective will be most beneficial to effectively

communicate the gospel in this setting. Code theory will be discussed before relevance

theory so that the reader may appreciate the contribution of the latter to communication

theory.

Code Theory

Code theory has been the traditional model for studying communication. Shannon

and Weaver are credited with developing the basic model used much even today

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(Shannon 1949:5). They developed their model from a mathematical perspective applied

to the telegraph. Figure 1 illustrates their model. An “information source” transmits a

message through a channel to a receiver at a destination. A signal is sent and a signal is

received, and the channel may contain noise which distorts the message. It is interesting

to note that their model does not include encoding, nor feedback, which were soon to be

added.

FIGURE 1: THE COMMUNICATION MODEL OF SHANNON

AND WEAVER

Since Shannon and Weaver, code theory has developed into a generally used

model, which may be described as follows. The central idea of code theory is the

transmission of a message. The message requires someone to send it, and another person

to receive it. The message must be encoded into some symbolic form, whether this be

spoken words, electric signals, gestures, or written words. The receiver must then decode

the symbols in order to understand the message. The message can be transmitted through

various channels, and its transmission can be affected by noise. The basic model is

illustrated in Figure 2, and is often represented by the symbols: “S-M-R” which stand for

“sender,” “message,” and “receiver” (Schramm 1963:7); (Nida 1960:47).

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S e n d e r R e c e i v e rM e s s a g eE n c o d e s D e c o d e s

C h a n n e lN o i s e

F e e d b a c k

FIGURE 2: A BASIC COMMUNICATION MODEL

Others, such as King, have emphasized the aspect of feedback, since the receiver

can respond to the message by sending another message to the sender, especially in a

musical performance (King 1989:60). Others have proposed that each person is both a

sender and receiver simultaneously (Kraft 1978:82), creating a model of interactive

communication (Hiebert 1985:166). See figure 3.

FIGURE 3: HIEBERT’S MODEL OF INTERACTION

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Others have detailed the different channels through which the message may be

sent. Berlo details five channels, which correspond to the five human senses (Berlo

1960:32), but Smith expands the list to twelve signal systems: verbal, written, numeric,

pictorial, audio, artifactual, kinesic, optical, tactile, spatial, temporal, and olfactory

(Smith 1992:163).

The S-M-R model has been the basis of communication theory for many years.

Most would agree that communication takes place when a person says something,

someone else hears what is said, and a message has been sent from sender to receiver.

But the question is: “Is the meaning in the message, in the symbols that are sent?” The

answer has traditionally been “yes.” Therefore much effort has been spent on analyzing

language and how people use words to communicate with each other.

But this logic breaks down in the following scenario: Mike says to Bill, “Are you

going tonight?” Bill replies, “Yes.” But Bill thought Mike was referring to a concert,

when Mike was thinking about a ball game. Was a message sent and received? Yes. But

the received message does not match the sent message. What happened? A clear message

was sent, but Bill and Mike had different assumptions in their minds about that message.

So was the meaning in the message, or in the minds of the sender and receiver?

If we apply this same scenario to evangelism, we could ask ourselves: “When a

missionary takes the gospel to another culture and asks the people: ‘Do you want to be

saved?’ What is it that the people really understand?” The missionary has a whole set of

assumptions in his or her mind that probably does not match the assumptions of the

people of another culture. Therefore, the people will attach a meaning to the missionary’s

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message that the missionary had no intention of communicating. The result is a

misunderstanding of the gospel.

The limitation of code theory is that it does not take into account the mental

assumptions of the sender and the receiver. Relevance theory begins with this issue.

Relevance Theory

We begin with the bias that the meaning is not found in the message. This is a

fundamental shift in communication theory where it was previously assumed that the

message carried the meaning.

Berlo, one of the early communication theorists, built on the model of Shannon

and Weaver, but with a new bias: meaning is not in the message, but in the person (Berlo

1960:175). When two persons share similar meanings they can communicate more easily.

Thus the same message may not communicate the same thing to two persons. Each will

give it their own interpretation and meaning.

Kraft follows this same train of thought: “Meaning is the creation of the receptor”

(Kraft 1991:77). This implies that meaning is not even transferred1, but people create

meaning themselves. Alaichamy states it well:

“In human communication, meaning is not transferred from one end to the other end as in telecommunication. Instead, meaning is created in the minds of the receptors during the process of communication. Human communication is a process of meaning creation, not meaning transference” (Alaichamy 1997:56).

This has significant implications for communication theory, especially for missionaries:

1 “Messages can be transmitted from one person to another, but meanings cannot” (Gudykunst

2003:6).

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“The understanding that what messages mean is constructed by the receiver rather than inherent in the message is perhaps the single most threatening insight of contemporary communication theory for Christian communicators” (Kraft 1991:92).

And thus Kraft advocates that the communicator must take into account the receptor of

the message even more than the message itself.

So what exactly is “relevance theory?”

Grice planted the seed for relevance theory by proposing that the receptor of the

message must recognize the intent of the sender. His main thesis is “’A meant something

by x’ is (roughly) equivalent to ‘A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in

an audience by means of the recognition of this intention’” (Grice 1957:385). This is

fundamentally different from “decoding a message.” Here Grice is emphasizing the

“intent” of the sender, rather than the message given by the sender.

Sperber developed this theory further by emphasizing the importance of

recognizing the intention of the sender. This recognition is done by inference, not by

decoding. He argues: “Communication is successful not when hearers recognize the

linguistic meaning of the utterance, but when they infer the speaker's 'meaning' of it"

(Sperber 1986:23).

Sperber asked the question of where the meaning lay in communication. Was the

meaning in the sender, the message, and/or the receiver? He begins by arguing that the

encoding-decoding process has yet to be explained. What are the rules one uses for

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decoding a message? Sperber states that there are no rules, but that the receiver uses a

completely different process in communication.2

Sperber argues that one can infer intention without using code. Therefore,

communication is possible without code (rules or conventions). Coding is part of the

evidence; only in inference is meaning created (Sperber 1986:25). The message is not the

vehicle for meaning transfer. The message is evidence of the intent of the communicator,

but meaning is created by the receiver through inference.

In other words, a message is presented from which the receiver derives meaning.

But the receiver does not derive the meaning only from the message. The receiver also

infers meaning based on what he or she already knows. The receptor chooses some of

what he or she already knows to process new evidence and create meaning from it.

The thrust of Sperber’s argument is that meaning is not transferred, but that the

sender seeks to modify the “Cognitive Environment” of the receiver, and in the process

the cognitive environment of the sender is also modified. This needs to be explained in

more detail.

Cognitive Environment

Let us begin by talking about a person’s knowledge. What we know consists of all

of our experiences, plus our interpretation of those experiences. Sperber refers to this as

our “cognitive environment” which includes not only what we presently know, but all

2 This is similar to the argument between Goodenough and Geertz on cultures. Goodenough

argues that culture exists in the mind and consists of rules of what is acceptable or not (Goodenough 1957:167). Whereas Geertz argues that culture is public and does not consist of rules, but of meanings which must be uncovered by “thick description” (Geertz 1973:89).

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that we could possibly come to know. Knowledge is not “facts,” but our beliefs and

assumptions about our experiences. We create our own perception of the world and our

beliefs about it. Berlo says we structure our reality into theories (Berlo 1960:25). When

someone says something to me, I have to “reconcile” that message with how I see my

world. I can reject it, accept it, or modify it, but sooner or later I have to relate it to my

perception of the world.

Sperber bases his model of communication on this concept of the cognitive

environment of every individual. Communication is an attempt to modify the cognitive

environment of another person (Sperber 1986:150). The previous example can illustrate

this.

Suppose Mike says to Bill, “Are you going tonight?” and Bill answers, “I’ve had a

long day.” What are some of the possible interpretations of this conversation? We do not

know to what Mike is referring. Nor it is clear if Bill’s reply is affirmative or negative. If

the meaning were totally in the message, we should be able to know where Mike is going,

and whether Bill will accompany him. But we are unable to decipher this from the

messages sent. Therefore, the meaning must lie elsewhere. Sperber proposes that

meaning lies in the context. This is a different connotation of the word “context” as used

by Kraft, who uses the word “context” to refer to the external circumstances (Kraft

1991:132). Sperber uses the word to describe a group of mental assumptions.

Context

What exactly is “context?” In simple terms, context is the set of assumptions or

beliefs that one uses to process a message and decide on a meaning. Sperber argues that

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we cannot use all of our cognitive environment to analysis every message we receive.

That would be too laborious. We choose some of what we know in order to process the

message and make it meaningful. That “something we choose” is the “context.” Sperber

argues that we will choose the context that we feel is most relevant in order to process the

message (Sperber 1986:141). We will not use everything we know to process every

message.

Now let us return to the sender. According to Sperber’s view of communication,

the sender must know a possible context that the receiver will use to process the message

in order for the sender (her) to communicate with the receiver (him). (For the rest of this

paper, I will adopt Sperber’s convention of referring to the sender as “she,” and to the

receiver as “he.”) In order words, she must know what context he will use to process her

message in order to communicate effectively with him.

Intention

To complete this description, we must add one more concept, that of “intention.”

Sperber adds that communication only takes place when both the sender and the receiver

are conscious that she wants to communicate with him (Sperber 1986:61). It is not

enough for her send a message, but he must also realize that she is sending a message.

She must also establish that he realizes that she wants to send a message. If only the

sender is conscious of the attempt to communicate, but not the receiver, Sperber refers to

this as “informing, but not communicating” (ibid:50).

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The Communication Process

These concepts can be illustrated with a few diagrams. A circle will represent the

cognitive environment of an individual. For communication to take place, the cognitive

environments of two individuals must overlap at least to some degree. The message lies

in that overlap. Here we must change our vocabulary to that of Sperber. A message is not

sent, but “evidence is displayed.” It is the receivers task to make a conclusion from that

evidence.

The Process of Communication (Relevance Theory)

CognitiveEnvironment

RECEIVER

CognitiveEnvironment

COMMUNICATOR

Evidence

Non-ostensive: no intent to communicate, although a message is present.

FIGURE 4: MESSAGE WITHOUT COMMUNICATION

For communication to take place, the communicator must have an intent to

communicate, and the receiver must recognize that intent. This is Sperber’s emphasis. In

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our daily lives, many messages are sent, both verbal and non-verbal, but communication

does not occur unless the intent is present and recognized. In figure 4, the communicator

has “sent a message” (evidence), and the receiver is conscious of the phenomenon, but

since he didn’t recognize any intent to communicate, he did not process the message.

This is non-ostensive communication. In a busy city street, one sees much movement,

and hears many sounds, but one does not (and cannot) process them all. A person will

only process those phenomena he or she perceives as “an intent to communicate.”

Now let us examine the communication process by adding the concept of

“context.” (In this case, the intent to communicate is recognized.) The communicator

produces “evidence” with a specific intention: that of modifying the receiver’s cognitive

environment. The receiver “infers” from the evidence, using the context most relevant in

order to process the evidence. (See figure 5.) If the context the communicator is intending

for the evidence is different from the context the receiver uses to process it,

communication is ineffective. Let us return to our example.

Mike asks Bill, “Are you going tonight?” The context Mike has in mind is a

concert, but Bill immediately thinks of a ballgame. Evidence was produced, both were

conscious of an attempt at communication, but Bill’s conclusion was very different from

Mike’s intention. We could call this “misinterpretation.”

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The Process of Communication (Relevance Theory)

CognitiveEnvironment

RECEIVER

CognitiveEnvironment

COMMUNICATOR

Intent Meaning

Context Context

Evidence

Context

Context

Context

Context

Misinterpretation: different contexts are being used.

FIGURE 5: INEFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

On the other hand, if the two share similar contexts, communication is more

effective. If both of them enjoy concerts, frequently attend concerts, and never go to a

ballgame, the question “Are you going tonight?” is immediately processed in the context

of a concert. Bill would conclude that Mike is talking about a concert which is what Mike

intended to communicate. (See Figure 6.)

This is the most simple form of Sperber’s model. Communication is rarely so

simple. If we add Bill’s reply, “I’ve had a long day,” the receiver has become the

communicator and the communicator the receiver, who must now infer from what Bill

has said. Again, context plays the key role. “I’ve had a long day” could mean that Bill

wants to stay home to rest or it could mean that Bill wants to get out and relax. No

amount of decoding the message will distinguish the difference. Only context will. Even

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though the receiver may not give the message the same meaning as the sender intended, it

is the chosen context of each person that determines the meaning, not the message itself.

The Process of Communication (Relevance Theory)

CognitiveEnvironment

RECEIVER

CognitiveEnvironment

COMMUNICATORIntent

Mea

ning

Context Context

Evidence

Improved communication: the contexts are similar.

FIGURE 6: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

The Missiological Bias

So far, the discussion has treated the communication process as a sender and a

receiver sharing a message. This has carried two basic assumptions: first, the sender and

the receiver share much of the same culture, and second, the sender is the originator of

the message. The Christian bias changes both assumptions: first, we are called to

communicate to people with a culture different from ours, and second, we are

ambassadors of a message that originated with God, not with us.

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Shaw and Van Engen

The following is a discussion a Christian communication model based on

relevance theory (Shaw 2003:90). I will use different shapes to illustrate different

worldviews. The choice of each shape purely symbolic. The shape itself has nothing to do

with the superiority or inferiority of any culture.3 In my opinion, worldview is the same

as Sperber’s “cognitive environment.” Both are used to describe the assumptions one

uses to order his or her own world to be able to function in it.

Cross-Cultural Communication

Let us begin by simplifying communication to be a sender communicating a

message with a receiver. (See figure 7.) If the two share the same worldview or cognitive

environments, communication will be fairly effective. But if the sender and receiver have

very different worldviews, communication will be more difficult until they begin to

understand each others worldview and communicate accordingly. I illustrate this by

drawing the message in the shape of a circle. Cultures that think in a circle perspective

will readily send and receive such messages. But if a culture has a square perspective, the

message does not coincide with their way of thinking, and they will not readily

understand it.

Usually the missionary learns the language of the people in order to speak to

them. This is the basis of code theory: if one can use the same symbols as they do, one

will communicate effectively with them. But relevance theory points out that even if a

3 My use of geometric shapes for cultures and communication coincides with Nida (Nida

1960:47,222) and Kraft (Kraft 1978:98).

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missionary speaks the same language as the people, miscommunication will be frequent

if they are using very different contexts to process the message. In other words, a

missionary has to understand how people think, what contexts they choose, and what are

their past and present experiences that form their cognitive environments in order to be

able to communicate effectively with them.

Mono-Cultural Communication

Sender

Cross-Cultural Communication

Receiver

Sender Receiver

Message ?

Message

FIGURE 7: COMMUNICATION AND CULTURES

For a communicator to effectively modify the cognitive environment of a receiver

who holds a different worldview, she could first modify her own context to that of the

receiver’s before attempting the communication. This is illustrated in Figure 10, by the

communicator modifying a circular context to a square context within her own cognitive

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environment. My emphasis here is that the communicator is modifying her own cognitive

environment without expecting the receiver to modify his. We can call this

“accommodation.”

The Process of Communication (Relevance Theory)

CognitiveEnvironment

COMMUNICATOR

Intent MeaningEvidence

Context

Context

Cross-cultural communication: the communicator uses the receiver’s context.

Cognitive Environment

RECEIVER

Context

ContextContextContext

Conversion

FIGURE 8: ACCOMMODATION IN RELEVANCE THEORY

God Accommodates to Communicate

In relevance theory terms, God entered our cognitive environment, before we

could ever enter his. As if God, as a “circle,” became a “square” to “fit into” our

mentality. Kraft refers to this as “accommodation” (Kraft 1989:123). God accommodated

to our way of thinking so he could communicate with us. “Whenever God decides to

connect with human beings God does so in their particularity, on human terms” (Shaw

2003:13). A missionary must do the same with the people to whom he or she goes. If he

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or she does not accommodate to the people’s culture and worldview, the Gospel message

will not be accepted, because it is not seen as relevant. Figure 9 illustrates this.

God

Missionary People

This step marks

the difference!

1

2

3a3b

?

?

?

UnderstandGod

MisunderstandGod

FIGURE 9: ACCOMMODATING TO ANOTHER CULTURE

God, represented by a circle, accommodates himself to our worldview, illustrated

by a square (step 1). The missionary, who holds a square perspective, must try to

accommodate his or her worldview to another people’s perspective, which is illustrated

by a triangle (step 2). If the missionary communicates God from his or her perspective

(represented by a square), the people will learn that God is like a square. Since they see

things as a triangle, a square God makes no sense to them (step 3a). Therefore, the God of

the missionary is irrelevant to them. But if the missionary first accommodates his or her

way of seeing God as a square to seeing God as a triangle, and then communicates God in

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this way, the people will see God from a triangle perspective, which is their way of

seeing spiritual things, and they will see God as relevant to them (step 3b).

Someone might ask at this point: “If the missionary sees God as a square, and the

people see God as a triangle, which is the correct perspective?” The answer is neither.

We see and understand God from our own worldview. But we must accept other cultural

perspectives of God as valid. This implies that each culture must develop their own

theology. If they import a theology from another culture, God will appear as irrelevant to

them.

The main argument here is that the missionary must be able to recognize his or

her own worldview, and as much as possible, not let it interfere with the Gospel message.

In other words, the missionary must accommodate the Gospel message to the worldview

of the people to whom he or she goes. This is not easy. Even in the previous example, the

missionary has to work with two worldviews, his or her own, and that of the people.

Missiological Communication

Shaw and Van Engen take this one step further. This will be illustrated by using

two diagrams. The first one is a stepping stone to the second. In the first, Shaw and Van

Engen base their model on three biases: 1) Communication is intercultural; 2) The

message did not originate with us; and 3) The process is must pass through the universal

level.

The “universal level” concept is based on the following: all humans share a basic

commonality of experience which they express in different ways through their cultures.

As Shaw and Van Engen state: “Humans were created to be creative and express that

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creativity in a multiplicity of cultural perspectives” (Shaw 2003:13). Some examples are:

All humans communicate, but they do it through different languages and styles. All

humans organize themselves into societies, but the societies are very different. All

humans distinguish “right” from “wrong,” but what is acceptable in one culture may not

be acceptable in another.

God

MissionaryPeople

UniversalExperience

FIGURE 10: THE MISSIONARY AS A COMMUNICATOR

Observe Figure 10. Here the task of the missionary is to accommodate the

message to the worldview of the people. But he or she should not do this by “translating”

his or her worldview into theirs. He or she should try to understand basic human

experience and how a particular culture expresses those experiences in their way. Only

then can the missionary begin to communicate God’s message to them. In Sperber’s

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terms this means understanding the contexts they process in their cognitive environment

as a result of their experience, and choosing which of their contexts is appropriate for

communicating God’s message. So the missionary does not “translate” his or her culture

to another. The missionary tries to understand how to accommodate God’s message into

their cognitive environment.

Yet the thrust of Shaw and Van Engen’s argument includes another factor: the

Biblical writers.4 Their argument is that the Biblical writers accommodated their message

to their audience. This is much like the previous illustration of the missionary task, but in

reality it is a bit more complicated than has been explained. Today, for a missionary to

communicate what the Biblical writers wanted to communicate, he or she must take into

account four perspectives: God’s, the Biblical writer’s, his or her own, and the people’s.

Just as our goal is to communicate God’s message without our bias, now we must

communicate the Biblical message without the Biblical writer’s bias, in order for the

people to understand God’s original message accommodated to their present bias. Figure

11 illustrates this.

Rather than illustrating the missionary as part of “the chain of communication,”

the missionary is placed at the center of the process as the “facilitator of the

communication.” The idea is that the fewer cultures through which the message passes,

the better will be the communication of the original message. The final goal is for a

people to know God directly from their own perspective and experience.

4 They refer to this as a “horizon” and divide them into two horizons: Old Testament and New

Testament (Shaw 2003:87).

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God

BibleWriters

Missionary

UniversalExperience

People

Goal: a people to know God from their perspective.

Error: to see God from the missionary’s perspective.

Missionary’s task: to facilitate from what God spoke to the Biblical writers, accommodate it through universals to the people’s perspective.

U S U A L R O U T E

P R E F E R R E D R O U T E

FIGURE 11: THE MISSIONARY AS A FACILITATOR

In Figure 11, God has spoken to the Biblical writers within their perspective,

represented by a pentagram. The missionary, who has come to know God through the

message of the Biblical writers, wants to communicate the same message, but without his

or her personal perspective, represented by a square. If the people see God as a square,

they will reject him. So the missionary’s task is to help the people understand, not the

Biblical writers perspective, but how the intent of God’s message can be expressed in

their way of thinking, represented by a triangle. The missionary is not the channel of the

message, but a facilitator of the communication process.

The thesis of Shaw and Van Engen is that the Biblical writers accommodated

God’s message to the people’s mentality, and that we should do likewise.

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“Contemporary communication of the biblical message can be modeled after the way the writers of Scripture utilized earlier texts and restructured them for their contemporary audience” (Shaw 2003:xiv).

Our task is to discern “God’s original intention.” This returns us to relevance

theory. It is not the Biblical text that contains the meaning of the message, but God’s

intention in that message, how the original recipients processed it, and how we should

also process it. We should not process the original recipients conclusions, but the intent

of the original message.

Conclusion

The previous discussion has applied relevance theory to cross-cultural

evangelism. It emphasizes that, following God’s example, the missionary must

accommodate his or her way of thinking to that of the people to whom he or she wishes

to communicate the gospel. This requires that the missionary understand the people’s

mentality of the new culture in which he or she now finds himself or herself. It also

requires that the missionary understand his or her own way of thinking so as not to

impose this on the people. Therefore the critical research issue of this investigation is to

understand the cognitive environment of the people and of the missionary.

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CHAPTER 3: ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL THEORY: MUSIC-

RITUAL REVEALS “COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT”

Introduction

The focus of this study is how to go about discovering two cognitive

environments: that of the people, and that of the missionary. One way of doing this is

through music. This study proposes using music as a means to discover the cognitive

environment of a people. Since this study deals with cross-cultural communication, we

have to use both music and culture. Ethnomusicology does this.

Most ethnomusicological theory has focused on the study of music in culture or as

culture (Blacking 1995; Merriam 1964; Nettl 1983). But other ethnomusicologists are

studying music as a means of communication (Corbitt 1998; King 1989; Scott 2000;

Stone 1982).

Another emphasis ethnomusicologists have made is how music expresses a

person’s thoughts and worldview. Alan Merriam mentions how music has a symbolic

function: “Men everywhere assign certain symbolic roles to music which connect it with

other elements in their cultures” (Merriam 1964:246). John Blacking describes how

"Music can express social attitudes and cognitive processes" (Blacking 1973:54). A

Christian ethnomusicologist, Joyce Scott, says “Music is the way we express what is

deepest in our souls and we may fell there is no better way to do this than our own. It is

part of our identity" (Scott 2000:85). Also, Bonnie Wade, says “One of the most

significant uses to which people put music is to express an identity" (Wade 2004:16).

Geertz solidifies these thoughts by his idea that “religious symbols synthesize a people’s

ethnos and their worldview”

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Geertz looks at culture as symbols that represent meaning. His definition of

culture is:

“an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (Geertz 1973:89).

If meanings are embodied in symbols, and music is one of those symbols, then

music is an expression of meaning.

Further on in his article, Geertz states the paradigm of his investigation:

“sacred symbols function to synthesize a people’s ethos—the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood—and their world view—the picture they have of the way things in sheer actuality are, their most comprehensive ideas of order” (ibid:89).

This paradigm can be adapted for the present research in the following way: Taking out

the added definitions, Geertz’s paradigm reads: “sacred symbols function to synthesize a

people’s ethos and their world view.” This implies that symbols can represent a people’s

mindset or their cognitive environment. Music is definitely one of those symbols.

The resulting paradigm implies a very different approach from traditional

ethnomusicology. Music is often viewed as a part of culture, and how it interacts with

and functions within the rest of culture. But this paradigm proposes viewing music as an

expression of culture. The implication is that music becomes a window through which to

discover a people’s ethos and their world view. (See Figure 12.) Therefore studying

music in culture is a way of understanding a people’s cognitive environment. But how

can the music be used to do this?

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Studying a culture through their music...

…as opposed to studying the music of a culture.

Culture

Music

Music

Culture

FIGURE 12: ROLE OF MUSIC AND CULTURE

The Music-Event

Music in itself is a very general term and includes a broad field of study. For this

investigation, the basic unit of research will be the “music-event.” This refers not just to

music, but to the performance of music in a specific setting of time and space. Both Titon

and Stone use this basic unit of the music-event in their investigations (Titon 2002);

(Stone 1982).

The Development of a Theoretical Model

The following describes the method used to develop a theoretical model for using

the music-event to understand a people’s cognitive environment. The ideas used come

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from two ethnomusicologists, Alan Merriam and Jeff Titon, and one anthropologist,

Clifford Geertz. The idea of using the music-event as the unit of investigation and

describing it with three circles comes from Alan Merriam and Jeff Titon. Using the

music-event as window for discovering beliefs comes from Clifford Geertz.

Alan Merriam

Merriam’s basic theory is that music comes from behavior which comes from

concepts.

"The music product is inseparable from the behavior that produces it; the behavior in turn can only in theory be distinguished from the concepts that underlie it; and all are tied together through the learning feedback from product to concept” (Merriam 1964:35).

His theory includes the dynamic process of the music reinforcing or changing one’s

concepts. For a new model, Merriam’s three levels will be used with modifications:

“beliefs” will replace “concepts,” and “tradition” will replace “behavior,” and “music-

events” will replace “music.” (See figure 14.) Thus, Merriam’s theory becomes: beliefs

produce tradition which produce music-events.

Concepts Behavior Music

Feedback

Beliefs Tradition Music-events

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FIGURE 13: MERRIAM’S THEORY OF MUSIC

Jeff Titon

Titon uses the idea of the music-event and illustrates this with circles (Titon

2002:16). His theory illustrates the context of the music event. He places music at the

center, followed by the performers, then the audience, and finally time and space in the

outer circle. (See figure 15.) His conceptual framework is to use circles to illustrate levels

of context: music takes place among performers who are surrounded by an audience

within a particular time and space. This framework of circles can be used in combination

with the modification of Merriam’s theory: “beliefs,” “tradition,” and “music-events.”

FIGURE 14: TITON’S THEORY OF THE MUSIC EVENT

Synthesis of Merriam and Titon

In figure 16, the synthesis and adaptation of Merriam’s and Titon’s models is

illustrated. Beliefs are the root of tradition, and from tradition, music-events develop.

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This is the basic structure of the model with a further modification. We can call “music-

events” that develop from tradition: “music-rituals.” By placing Merriam’s concepts in

Titon’s framework, the result are three concentric circles. The inner circle represents

“beliefs.” The middle circle represents “tradition,” and the outer circle represents “music-

rituals.” An arrow begins in the inner circle and travels to the outer circle to represent the

idea that beliefs produce tradition which produces music-rituals.

Music-rituals

Tradition

Beliefs

FIGURE 15: A SYNTHESIS AND ADAPTATION OF THEORIES

FROM MERRIAM AND TITON

Clifford Geertz: The Music-Ritual as a Window into Culture

The usual way is to see music-rituals coming from beliefs, but from Clifford

Geertz we have already discussed the possibility of looking at this process in reverse:

music-rituals are a window to discovering beliefs. Jennings also argues that ritual is “a

means to gain epistemological access” (Jennings 1982:111). Therefore in this model, the

arrow is turned in the reverse direction to illustrate using music-rituals through tradition

to discover deep-level beliefs or “cognitive environments.” (See figure 17.)

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Music-rituals

Tradition

Beliefs

FIGURE 16: MUSIC RITUALS AS A WINDOW INTO BELIEFS

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CHAPTER 4: CONSTRUCTIVISM: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL

CHOICE

After discussing several epistemological positions, the choice for this

investigation will be a position similar to Constructivism.

Epistemological biases

Any investigation must delineate its epistemological biases before beginning

(Guba 1994:116). These biases determine the types of conclusions that will be reached,

and the necessary methodology that will be used. Not ever bias is suitable for every

investigation, and yet a single investigation may be approached from different biases.

The researcher must choose from which bias he or she is going to approach the

investigation. The basic philosophical questions to be dealt with are: “What can be

known?” And “How can it be known?” Different authors have different ways of handling

this question. Here is only a summary of their main arguments. The reader can analyze

their arguments in full by consulting their works. Most of their discussions describe a

continuum between two extremes.

Bernard

Bernard begins by describing two different descriptions of reality. The first he

calls “constructivism” in which “reality is uniquely constructed by each person.” This he

contrasts with “there is an external reality to be discovered” which he calls “positivism”

(Bernard 2002:3). The difference is generally seen as the first being “subjective” and the

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second “objective.” Traditionally “objective” has been seen as the superior method, but

the real issue is the assumption it is based on. A “subjective” investigation looking at the

reality constructed by persons is just as valid as an “objective” study of a tree. Since the

tree is seen through the eyes of the researcher, pure “objectivity” is impossible.

“Objectivity” is a construction of the researcher.

Another way Bernard describes this is in the difference between understanding

the beliefs of another person, and explaining what causes those beliefs1 (Bernard 2002:3).

Both studies are worthwhile, but the approach to each is extremely different.

Understanding the beliefs of another person implies that reality is being constructed by

that person, whereas explaining what causes those beliefs implies there is a reality outside

that person that is influencing him or her. Each case assumes a different perspective of

reality and requires a distinct methodology.

Historically, “rationalism” has been based on the assumption of “pre-existing

truths,” and “empiricism” begins by assuming that “truth is what one experiences”

(ibid:4). The well-known “positivism” which has been the standard for many years is

really based on the premise that “natural laws can be discovered by observation” (ibid),

but other epistemological positions such as “empiricism,” “humanism” and

“interpretivism” challenged that premise and proposed a different one: “people live

within webs of meaning they themselves have spun” (Geertz 1973:5).

1 As well as what those beliefs cause

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Guba

These arguments give us a choice between two extremes in order to begin an

investigation. Guba describes the general difference between “positivism” and

“constructivism” (Guba 1994:112).2 Research based on “positivism” is considered to be

“objective” and usually takes the form of an experiment where an hypothesis is tested.

The researcher is considered “removed” from the experiment and concludes by

“explaining” what has been observed.

POSITIVISM CONSTRUCTIVISM

“Objective” “Subjective”

Controlled experiment and hypothesis testing

Dialogue and interaction

Researcher is removed Researcher is an active participant

Goal is to explain the observations

Goal is to understand phenomena through progressive reconstructions

TABLE 1: GUBA’S COMPARISON OF RESEARCH

STRATEGIES

On the other hand “constructivism” is “subjective” and research takes the form of

dialogue and interaction rather than a variable-controlled experiment. The researcher is

2 There are more than two options for investigation, but for clarity, it’s easier to show the contrast

between the extremes.

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an active participant in the investigation, and the goal is to understand what’s going on

through progressive reconstructions. Obviously the two positions differ greatly in their

premises, methods, and types of conclusions. (See Table 1.)

Hiebert

Where does theology fit on this epistemological continuum? As a Christian who

believes in God and in the Bible, Hiebert tries to answer that question, and lays out

several different epistemological positions, which are not necessarily on a continuum

(Hiebert 1999:37-38). He uses the framework of the “world” to illustrate the differences.

For simplicity, four positions will be mentioned here: Idealism, Pragmatism, Positivism,

and Critical Realism. In “Idealism,” the world is unknown and unknowable. It is an

illusion. All reality is in the mind. This concept Hiebert rejects, because he believes God

is a reality outside the mind.

Pragmatism, as Hiebert sees it, assumes that the world is real, but truth is relative.

There are no morals. Whatever works is “right.” As a Christian, Hiebert cannot accept

this position either because the Bible gives us absolute morals.

Positivism, which holds that the world can be know “objectively,” has been the

norm even for Christians, argues Hiebert, but it lacks the ability to dictate morals

(ibid:35). So where does that leave room for Christians who believe in God, absolutes,

and morals?

Hiebert takes a position which he calls “critical realism.” This assumes that the

world is real, but our knowledge of it is partial. Everything that we know is through

progressive approximations of the real world. This is similar to arguments of Guba and

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Bernard. But the point here is that Hiebert chose a position that satisfied his question. The

researcher must do the same, before beginning the investigation.

Researcher’s Choice

The issue of this investigation is the discovery of “cognitive environments.” The

researcher must choose an epistemological position that is compatible with the issue, and

he or she must be consistent with this throughout their research. In this study, the choice

of the investigator is “constructivism,” which assumes the following:

1. There is an objective truth that is subjectively apprehended. All our

observations of reality are approximations of the truth.

2. “Spiritual meaning” is not a single, objective truth, but a web of

interconnected experiences and ideas.

3. Spiritual knowledge is dynamic and much of it is created through personal

interaction.

And the resulting methodology of this investigating is based on the following:

1. The goal is not to discover universal laws, but to understand a people.

2. Understanding is obtained through multi-experiential interaction and

dialogue over time.

3. Conclusions are reflections of a progressive understanding.

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Conclusion

Part 1 has discussed the theoretical foundation for this dissertation which is a

combination of Communication Theory, Ethnomusicological Theory, and

Anthropological Theory. It has defined the main objective to be the understanding of

cognitive environment of both a people and the missionary through music-ritual. The

research will be conducted from an epistemological position similar to Constructivism.

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PART 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

CHAPTER 5: THE LOGIC OF INQUIRY: A MULTI-FACETED,

SPIRALING PROCESS

CHAPTER 6: EVANGELICAL AND INDIGENOUS “MUSIC-

RITUAL:” A MARKED DIFFERENCE

CHAPTER 7: THE CORPUS CHRISTI FESTIVAL IN EL-TINGO:

UNDERSTANDING THE INDIGENOUS MENTALITY

CHAPTER 8: A NEW FRAMEWORK: CHANGING ONE’S

MENTALITY

PART 3: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

CHAPTER 9: DISCOVERING COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENT

THROUGH “MUSIC-RITUAL:” A PROPOSAL FOR

MISSIONARIES

CHAPTER 10: AN EVANGELISTIC STRATEGY FOR RURAL

TOWNS IN THE ANDES

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