Lexical evidence for ancestral communication in Black South African English
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Arne Peters
Abstract
The present chapter derives from a comprehensive project on culture-specific conceptualizations in Black South African English. It carries out a lexico-semantic analysis of conceptualizations of ancestral communication in Black South African English and is based on a 66,634-word corpus of 424 unedited classifieds published in 48 consecutive editions of the South African Daily Sun newspaper as well as on a 54,000-word corpus of ethnographic interviews with meso-/acrolectal Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu L1-speakers of English. The chapter addresses the central role of the ancestors in traditional and retraditionalized Black South African communities and the importance of intact communicative bonds between the physical and the spiritual parts of the community. In addition, the analysis produces lexico-semantic evidence for the processes of nativization and contextualizations in Black South African English by examining the ritualized communicative act of throwing bones as conducted by diviner-diagnosticians in mediated ancestral communication. Finally, the chapter proposes a model representation of the vertical organization of ancestral communication schemas in Black South African English. The present chapter communicates with Peters (2021), which provides a more detailed account of the cultural-conceptual background of witchcraft and traditional healing as represented in Black South African English herbalist classifieds.
Abstract
The present chapter derives from a comprehensive project on culture-specific conceptualizations in Black South African English. It carries out a lexico-semantic analysis of conceptualizations of ancestral communication in Black South African English and is based on a 66,634-word corpus of 424 unedited classifieds published in 48 consecutive editions of the South African Daily Sun newspaper as well as on a 54,000-word corpus of ethnographic interviews with meso-/acrolectal Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu L1-speakers of English. The chapter addresses the central role of the ancestors in traditional and retraditionalized Black South African communities and the importance of intact communicative bonds between the physical and the spiritual parts of the community. In addition, the analysis produces lexico-semantic evidence for the processes of nativization and contextualizations in Black South African English by examining the ritualized communicative act of throwing bones as conducted by diviner-diagnosticians in mediated ancestral communication. Finally, the chapter proposes a model representation of the vertical organization of ancestral communication schemas in Black South African English. The present chapter communicates with Peters (2021), which provides a more detailed account of the cultural-conceptual background of witchcraft and traditional healing as represented in Black South African English herbalist classifieds.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
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Section I. Cultural-linguistic explorations into religion, spirituality, and the supernatural
- Cultural Linguistics and religion 9
- Lexical evidence for ancestral communication in Black South African English 23
- Cultural conceptualizations of magical practices related to menstrual blood in a transhistorical and transcontinental perspective 41
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Section II. Cultural-linguistic explorations into emotion concepts
- Conceptualizing shame in Old Romanian 79
- Cultural conceptualizations of xejâlat and kamruyi 105
- Cross-cultural models of mental hurt emotion clusters 123
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Section III. Cultural-linguistic explorations into social identities and cultural concepts
- Correspondences between Hungarian women’s marital names and the traditional family schema 151
- Innate or acquired? 185
- Culture-specific elaborations in cross-linguistic studies of metaphors 213
- essentials and valuables 237
- Conceptualizations index 267
- Names index 271
- Subject index 275
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section I. Cultural-linguistic explorations into religion, spirituality, and the supernatural
- Cultural Linguistics and religion 9
- Lexical evidence for ancestral communication in Black South African English 23
- Cultural conceptualizations of magical practices related to menstrual blood in a transhistorical and transcontinental perspective 41
-
Section II. Cultural-linguistic explorations into emotion concepts
- Conceptualizing shame in Old Romanian 79
- Cultural conceptualizations of xejâlat and kamruyi 105
- Cross-cultural models of mental hurt emotion clusters 123
-
Section III. Cultural-linguistic explorations into social identities and cultural concepts
- Correspondences between Hungarian women’s marital names and the traditional family schema 151
- Innate or acquired? 185
- Culture-specific elaborations in cross-linguistic studies of metaphors 213
- essentials and valuables 237
- Conceptualizations index 267
- Names index 271
- Subject index 275
