Invocations as manifestations of performativity in charms (based on examples from the French, English and Russian languages)

The paper considers the phenomenon of using performativity in charms, investigates the conditions necessary for effective performative acts and describes the third kind of speech act called «magic» by M. Mermoud. Nominative invocation is considered to be the basic requirement for the performative efficiency in magic formulae. The paper considers simple, modal explicit and nominal explicit invocations in the texts of French, English and Russian charms. In nominal explicit invocations there occurs delegation of powers to the person pronouncing a charm in his appeal to the name of the divinity. In modal explicit invocations there occurs the same in appeals to divinities with the use of prepositions expressing the meaning «by means of» or with the use of the ablative case in Russian charms. Simple nominative invocations are appeals directly to the higher forces calling them by their names.

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