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Article In: International Journal of Language and Culture: Online-First Articles

Women’s cursing practices in the Lari language

A pragmatic analysis of categories and functions

ORCiD logo with link | University of New South Wales (UNSW)Sydney
 | Independent researcherThessaloniki
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Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the structure and pragmatics of cursing expressions in Lari, an endangered language spoken in the south of Iran as well as other countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. This study adopts a descriptive approach in method, and the data were collected through fieldwork among Lari speakers. A total of 450 curses were collected using a prompt-based elicitation method from 30 consultants, who were primarily female monolingual speakers aged 25–85 years. Lari curses were analysed from the pragmatic perspective based on the frameworks of Menuta, F., & Fjeld, R. V. (2016). Social and pragmatic rules of cursing and other routine formulas in Gurage and Norwegian culture. Oslo Studies in Language, 8 (1), 359–386.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Ljung, M. (2011). Swearing: A cross-cultural linguistic study. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar as well as according to underlying social categories including age, religion, ethnicity, gender, power and literacy. The findings revealed that curses in Lari are mainly used for ego-cursing (persuasion, congratulation, and condolence), alter-cursing and dual cursing. In addition, the findings regarding the underlying motivations for cursing showed that older female speakers use curses mainly to target younger native Lari speakers of the same religious denomination.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research on Lari and curses
    • 2.1Studies on Lari and its dialects
    • 2.2Studies on cursing
  • 3.Framework and methodology
    • 3.1Theoretical framework
      • 3.1.1Formal vs. informal cursing
      • 3.1.2Swearing, cursing, Oath and blessing
        • 3.1.2.1Swearing
        • 3.1.2.2Cursing
        • 3.1.2.3Oath
        • 3.1.2.4Blessing
    • 3.2Data
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Data analysis procedure
  • 4.Data analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Thematic categories
      • 4.1.1Ego-cursing
        • 4.1.1.1Condolence
        • 4.1.1.2Congratulation
        • 4.1.1.3Persuasion/pledge
      • 4.1.2Alter-cursing
        • 4.1.2.1Disgrace
        • 4.1.2.2Death or culmination to death
        • 4.1.2.3Disability
        • 4.1.2.4Illness
        • 4.1.2.5Infertility
        • 4.1.2.6Failure and adversity
      • 4.1.3Dual-cursing
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Definition of terms
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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