The “body poetics”: Repeated rhythm as a cultural asset for Japanese life-saving instruction

Abstract

By examining the patterning of verbal and nonverbal “repetition” in first-aid practice, I propose that Japanese interlocutors show inherent dispositions to converge onto odd-number constructions in the middle range of ethnopoetic formation. I then claim that this sort of covert format-sharing, accumulated and entrenched among Japanese instructors (as well as trainees), represents a culturally preferred presentation/reception format and contributes to elucidating their culturally embedded assets or discursive “habitus” (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990) in the everyday practice of instruction. For this purpose, I specifically explore various repetitions of verbal (e.g., words, phrases, and grammatical constructions), gestural (e.g., beats, sliding motions, rotating movements), and spatial arrangements, showing how units of odd numbers are coordinately enacted and contextually appropriated in terms of the interdependent relations among them. At the same time, I claim that discourse participants are in no way captives destined to conform to a prescriptive “doxa” but rather are creative agents, willing to move out, within the limits of possible selections, of the preferred routine in order to adapt to ongoing developments.