The curse genre of ’Kargys’ in the Kazakh language: Is the belief in the magical power of the word still preserved?

Abstract

The speech genre of curse analyzed in the article belongs to the most ancient genres of oral communication in Kazakh culture. It is based on belief in the magical function of the word, in the ability to bring harm and evil to the cursed with the help of magical powers. Kargys is a pattern, its stable verbal formulas are preserved in the linguistic consciousness of the modern native speakers, despite the fact that the archaic foundations of the pattern may not be fully understood by them. The aim of the article is to analyze the aspects of the propositional structure of the genre of curse in the Kazakh language, to typologize the nature of harm and evil inflicted on the addressee, to identify some cultural, linguistic and pragmatic features of the speech genre. For example, for the feasibility and strength of the influence of the kargys, the status of the one who curses and the one who is cursed is important – the age, the family, the social status. The objectification of the verbal predicate in the kargys is significant and fundamental, even the contracted forms preserve it. The actants in the structure of the proposition of curse are optional; their elimination is carried out on various semantic and pragmatic grounds. The Kazakh language provides formulas for counteracting the destructive genre of curse, including the formula for depriving the force of the curse and the formula for returning it to the one who curses. 

Keywords

• oral speech genre
• kargys
• the kazakh language
• magic function of a word
• proposition
• actants
• semantic type
• actor
• topos