On linguopragmatics of Russian imprecations mentioning evil forces

Abstract

The article continues the authors' cycle of studies on the vocabulary of Russian imprecations. It is aimed at studying the linguistic and pragmatic features of imprecations that mention the names of evil spirits. Demonyms are the standard actors of imprecations, and imprecations in which appear are the archetype of an imprecation, as they appeal to the exemplary embodiment of the idea of evil. Despite this, imprecations with demonyms are not the most frequent, and the number of euphemistic substitutions in these texts is especially high. This is due to the fact that the author of an imprecation which mentions an evil spirit violates two taboos at once - he verbalizes a slander and calls the enemy of the human race by name: both of these actions are dangerous and obscene. To soften the perlocative effect of the speech act, a euphemism is used. The authors analyze the mechanisms of encryption of demonymy (for instance, the choice of such names of demons that appear to the speaker “softer” than their main names - leman instead of leshii ‘wood-goblin'; pronominal designations of the chert ‘devil' or the leshii ‘wood-goblin', etc.). The authors also provide a comparative analysis of the functioning of demonyms in the narrative and in the dialog modes of communication. For example, the dialog mode requires word-forming expression of demonyms, and vice versa, demonyms that have cajoling forms are less likely to get into expletive formulas; practically there are no such demonyms in imprecations that are formed from proper names (cf. uncle Misha ‘devil', Sysoy ‘wood-goblin'). The reasons for differences in such functioning are determined. The authors also study the non-synonymous meta-language verbs that name the act of imprecation (chertykhat'sia, leshakat'sia with their dialect and colloquial variants and derivatives, besykat', satanit', as well as verbs like kliast', proklinat').