This chapter offers an analysis of the ways in which the language of Sappho’s poems makes use of pragmatic elements that evoke a link to an extratextual world. Through this analysis, the dominant interpretative paradigm is questioned that sees Sappho’s poetry as primarily embedded within a ritual performance context, as well as the alternative reading that explains some of its most salient features as due to strategies enabled by the adoption of writing as a medium of communication. While emphasizing the centrality of performance as a theme and a concern in Sappho’s poems, the chapter shows how the texts often locate themselves outside a proper performative frame, providing a look at ritual from a marginal, personal, and yet powerfully exemplary perspective. [https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198805823.001.0001/oso-9780198805823-chapter-2]