Social Status Identification And Social Orders-a Study On Initiation Rites In Ancient China From The Ritual View Of Communication

The ritual view of communication proposed by James Carey has introduced us anew tunnel to the world of the studying of Communication Science. In this paper, theinitiation rites in the Zhou Dynasty, the time when rites and ceremonies were the mostimportant social issues, is carefully analyzed with the following development of thethis kind of mysterious rites in Ancient China. The Chinese etiquette, one type ofcommunication, was part of the social system of the ancient China, which providedsignificant impacts through her symbols and signals. In this etiquette, a complexrelationship established by individuals, families, the country, their religion, includestwo ways of communication–the ritual rules as well as specific acts. To be precise,the generalized "being adult " is a eternal topic of human development, which is fullydiscussed by every human being in his full life and gives him different social statussymbols to mark and indicate his changes in his social status. Narrow sense of“growing" refers specifically to the transition from childhood to adulthood and theircorresponding rituals, which is called “Initiation Rites” or “coming-of-age ceremony”in anthropology. These ceremonies are gained by specific separation, transition,testing, symbolic death and resurrection and then allow human beings to have a newsocial status. Through the study of Chinese Initiation Rites from the ritual view ofcommunication, we can have a new method to interpret the behavior of a particularcommunity, self-identification and inter-orders and therefore, the influences ofinitiation rites in stabilizing social orders.