ERIC Number: EJ1300149
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jul
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0167-8507
EISSN: N/A
Blowing Specific Words: Verbal Charms as Material Suspended Events
Siragusa, Laura; Zhukova, Ol'ga Yu.
Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, v40 n4 p463-485 Jul 2021
This article undermines the actuality of a strict boundary between language and materiality by presenting verbal charms ("puheged," "vajhed"/"pakitas" in Vepsian) among Veps, an Indigenous minority group of Northwest Russia. Vepsian verbal charms are ritualized ways of speaking that are customarily used to prompt a change in both human beings and environments in very tangible ways. When observing how they are conceived, distributed, and performed among Veps, the rigid separation between "material" and "immaterial" realms begins to be felt as an artificial construction, since Veps understand that in the act of "blowing" air accompanied by the recitation of "specific words," human and often non-human agencies join forces to promote changes in people and the environment. This paper engages not only with the academic interest in the material intersections between language and the world (see, Cavanaugh and Shankar 2017; Keane 2008a; Wiener 2013, to name a few), but also aims to reframe the notion of "event" as a transformative and suspended encounter between human and often non-human agencies (Kapferer 2015) and thus deepen our understanding of what living relationally might entail.
Descriptors: Indigenous Populations, Minority Groups, Verbal Communication, Cues, Nonverbal Communication, Change, Imagination, Foreign Countries, Finno Ugric Languages, Interaction, Environment, Interpersonal Communication, Beliefs, Folk Culture
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Russia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A