“Tense” Sounds in Ritualism and Magic (Based on Materials of Cultural and Linguistic Tradition of Kostroma Region)

This article is devoted to studying Russian folk rituals, magic practices and beliefs, in which the sound component (namely “tense” sounds, too loud or, vice versa, too low voice, special intonation or tempo, etc.) plays a significant role; it also identifies vocabulary “serving” for these situations, features of communication acts and “tense” sound functions. Cultural and linguistic traditions of Kostroma region was selected for the research. Field records made in 1975–2003 by the Toponymical expedition of the Ural University were taken as the material for analysis; some other written sources containing local dialects were also involved. The analysis conducted allows concluding that “tense” ritual or magical speech is described mainly using words from the following families of the verbs klikat’ (to shriek), krichat’ (to scream), vopit’ (to yell), revet’ (to cry), vyt’ (to howl), sheptat’ (to whisper). After getting into the ritual field, words with initial “household” semantics obtain special features, which is reflected in their lexical meaning and syntax properties. “Tense” sounds are typical for some family rituals (funeral and prayer for the dead, bachelorette party the day before the wedding, after-wedding viyunishnik (ritual of celebration of a newly wedded couple)) and rituals associated with some calendar dates, such as Egoriev den’ (George’s Day in Spring), Velikiy Chetverg (Holy Thursday), Krestopoklonnaya nedelya (the Adoration of the Holy Cross); it can also be used during verbal magic and sorcery. The identified functions of this sound production method are as follows: emotive, social, apotropeitive, producing, malicious and healing.