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INTERROGATIVE SPEECH ACTS AS RELICT MANIFESTATION OF SHAMANIC PRACTICE IN MONUMENTS OF PRIESTLY CULT (ON DATA OF THE RIGVEDA AND SIBERIAN SHAMANISM) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 4 (30). P. 18-29

The subject of the study is interrogative speech acts which appear to be one of the markers of the shamanic ritualism. The research work was carried out on the linguistic data of the Rigveda genetically traced to the times of Proto-Indo-European unity and in the range of traits typologically relevant to the Eurasian shamanism. The author raises the issue if the questions presented in the monuments of developed priestly cult refer to the shamanic verbal practice. The achievement of the outlined objective was provided by solving such research problems as description and analysis of different types of interrogative speech acts of the Rigveda, revealing their communicative intentions in the context of hymns and ritual practice. In the paper the functional analysis of interrogative speech acts is productively complemented with appealing to approaches and data of such scientific disciplines as communication studies, pragmalinguistics, history, ethnography, folklore and religion studies. In addition to the descriptive method as well as the contextual analysis and the statistical technology the author makes use of comparative analysis of the published ceremonial material of shamanism. Historical and genetic analysis of the text of the Rigveda also finds its application in the study. The author elicits that both in shamanic activity and in the Vedic hymns questions fulfil general functions of communication: message, interaction and impact. The paper demonstrates that apart from nonspecific pragmatic the questions in ceremonial practice objectivate the magical and invocatory speech function. Light is thrown upon the genesis and functions of questions of the cosmogonic hymns.

Keywords: pragmatics, speech act, interrogation, illocution, communicative intention, shaman-ism, the Rigveda