Aspects of Historical Poetics and Pragmatics of Slavic Charms

Abstract

Although traditional verbal charms and incantation rituals have
received extensive attention in Slavic ethnolinguistics and folklore
studies, the need still exists for a more in-depth poetic and contextual
(re)analysis of ritual texts, especially of the interrelation between their
stylistic, compositional, referential and functional properties. In this
context, the article points towards the possible benefits of an integrated
pragmatic and (ethno)poetic text analysis that centers on the semiotic
concepts of iconicity and indexicality. Through an examination of a
number of South and East Slavic samples the authors discuss the various
ways in which poetic and figurative stylization and structuring in verbal
charms correlates (indexically and iconically) with their meanings and
functions within the performative (actional-ritual) and broader
sociocultural context. In doing so, they attempt to demonstrate how an
analysis along poetic-pragmatic lines may prove fruitful for the
revalorization of the poetic, performative, social, and cultural efficacy of
charms and incantations as verbal rituals, and hence for a recovery of the
sociocultural “memory” of these ritual texts.