Media authenticity and authority in Mauritius: On the mediality of language in religion

In this article I suggest that the rapidly growing interest in the intersection of linguistic anthropology and media needs to be accompanied by a deeper investigation of the mediality of language. Discussing Mauritian Muslims’ uses of sound reproduction in religious events revolving around the recitation of devotional poetry, this paper explores how language as a medium converges and interacts with media technologies of other kinds. I suggest that the oscillation between a foregrounding of the medium and its phenomenological withdrawal characterizes the functioning of both linguistic mediation and other media technologies and provides a comparative dimension to examine their interplay.

► I explore how language as a medium interacts with media technologies of other kinds.
► The empirical example is Mauritian Muslims’ uses of sound reproduction technology in performing devotional poetry.
► Mediality is the overarching analytical frame for the analysis of such interaction.
► The oscillation between the foregrounding of the medium and its phenomenological disappearance is the comparative dimension for examining the interplay of different kinds of mediality.