Blowing Specific Words: Verbal Charms as Material Suspended Events

Autor/inn/en	Siragusa, Laura; Zhukova, Ol'ga Yu.
Titel	Blowing Specific Words: Verbal Charms as Material Suspended Events
Quelle	In: Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 40 (2021) 4, S.463-485 (23 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Siragusa, Laura)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0167-8507
DOI	10.1515/multi-2020-0049
Schlagwörter	Indigenous Populations; Minority Groups; Verbal Communication; Cues; Nonverbal Communication; Change; Imagination; Foreign Countries; Finno Ugric Languages; Interaction; Environment; Interpersonal Communication; Beliefs; Folk Culture; Russia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sinti und Roma; Ethnische Minderheit; Stichwort; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Wandel; Ausland; Interaktion; Umwelt; Interpersonale Kommunikation; Belief; Glaube; Russland
Abstract	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. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01