Coconut Leaf as a “sign” of Christmas Invitation in the Ambai Island

A Case Study of Semiotic Resources

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_38How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Ambai People; Coconut leaves; religious ceremony; semiotic resources; Ambai island; Yapen Island

Abstract

Semiotic resources refer to the meaning potential of material resources, which develop and accumulated over time through their use in a particular community. Semiotic resources are not restricted to speech and writing and making picture, but also to the objects. Thus, in social semiotics, resource, for instance; coconut leaf is signifier, observable action and object that has been drawn into the domain of social communication in which as an invitation in religious ceremony in the island of Ambai. Due to the purpose of this study, some linguists have done research on the Yapen Island, but their research has not been focused on the field on semiotics. Thus, the purpose of this study is to do the research on that field and to investigate semiotic resource that has been used as a “sign” of Christmas invitation by the Ambai people from 1930 - until nowadays. In particular, this study also aims to answer six questions such as; (1) How do the Ambai people use this resource historically?, (2) How do the Ambai people use this resource culturally?, (3) How do the Ambai people use this resource in social institution or in social context?, (4) What are the functions of this semiotic resource in general and in specific way? (5) How does this practice influence the cultural identity of Ambai people?, and (6) How does this practice adapt to social change? Regarding methodology, we’ve applied the theory which is given by Miles, Hiberman, and Saldana (2014, in Husain et al, 2020) in which this study has used qualitative method to gain the data. In the qualitative research, descriptive is included as characteristic of qualitative data because it is taken from documents, audio-video recordings, transcript, words, picture, and other things. Particularly, we’ve used Leeuwen’s principles in conducting semiotic resource such as; (1) collect, document and systematically catalogue semiotic resources-including their history; (2) investigate how these resources are used in specific historical, cultural and institutional contexts; (3) how people talk about them in these contexts-plan them, teach them, justify them, critique them. Then, we’ve used primary data in which it is based on our elicitation in the field that we have from our informants, observation and taking picture or documentation. For data analysis, we have used data from two different years to explain the semiotic resources. So the two data are from 1990 and 2021. In conclusion, this study reveals that this semiotic resource is signifier, observable action and object that has been drawn into the domain of social communication in which as an invitation. In addition, the usage of this semiotic resource also takes place in a social context which is particularly in religious ceremony, and this context may either has rules or best practices that regulate how specific semiotic resource can be used such as in religious ceremony. Finally, (1) this form of Christmas parade by using coconut leaves is good for them, and it has shown something they want; (2) this form of Christmas parade by using coconut leaves as a goal for them and also it is important for all the Ambai people. Besides, it is valuable and right for the Ambai people. And then, historically, the usage of this resource in the Ambai Island has shown the Ambai people received the presence of procession of Christmas parade by using coconut leaves and they bring it into reality in their life.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Sara Karubaba
AU  - Gusnawaty
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/19
TI  - Coconut Leaf as a “sign” of Christmas Invitation in the Ambai Island
BT  - Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Linguistics and Cultural Studies 5 (ICLC-5 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 331
EP  - 338
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_38
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_38
ID  - Karubaba2025
ER  -