Magic curse – evil eye as a phenomenon of verbal magic. Narrative aspect

Abstract

The article continues research on the phenomenon of evil eye damage. The author’s concept was based on the following definition: “The evil eye is an unintentional, spontaneously induced verbal magical effect with a negative result, determined by the linguistic semantics of the evil eye word. The verbal component underlying the magical act can be expressed in direct speech or associated with the perception by the addressee of the addressee’s unspoken thoughts and intentions.” The verbal-magical act of evil eye damage can be presented in the form of a communication model: addressee (sender of the evil eye word) – verbal message (evil eye word) – addressee (recipient of the message) and object of the evil eye damage; this object can be either the addressee themselves or any vitally significant object for him that is in the field of view. The analyzed oral stories about the evil eye reproduce this communicative model. When receiving an unexpected message, a cognitive “stupor” arises in the recipient’s mind, which breaks the perception of the surrounding reality into “before” and “after” situations. If the “before” situation is associated with the usual, “ordinary” worldview, then the “after” situation is associated with a rethinking of the message aimed at eliminating cognitive dissonance. The emotional component plays a special role in this gap. The “after” situation is contrasted with the neutral, initial context and acquires a negative meaning. Cognitive efforts are aimed at searching for additional references – correlating verbal messages with objects of extra-linguistic reality, turning to primary nominations, and literal interpretation of words. As a result of a breakdown in communication, the evil eye word gives rise to two cognitive models – models of understanding the message. The original meaning is perceived by the addressee-recipient as a “speech error”, causing additional cognitive efforts in their mind, generating a “corrected” version of comprehension. In the structure of the plot, these two parts represent the initial and final situations associated with two models of understanding the verbal message.