La glossolalia, i qualia e la semiotica del sentimento

Nicholas  Harkness

doi:10.4396/SFL2019I2

Nicholas Harkness

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4396/SFL2019I2

Keywords: Glossolalia, Speaking in tongues, Feeling, Emotion, Qualia, Denotation, Semiotics, Peirce

Abstract

Glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues”, is a global Christian phenomenon. The stereotypical image of glossolalia is one of emotionally overwhelming contact with the deity caused by the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit into human speech behavior. For the linguist, glossolalia consists of language-like vocalizations without denotational “content”. For the glossolalist, the utterances contain divine messages that can be revealed through interpretation. This paper explains the process of verbal decomposition and recomposition, as practitioners shift their orientational focus from the narrow semiotic domain of denotation to the diffuse pragmatic domain of feeling, and then back again. Emotions – as both felt and lexicalized – serve as points of orientation throughout the process. Drawing on ethnographic data from South Korea, where Protestants practice glossolalia across denominations and congregations, this paper elucidates the systematic but covert cultural processes that mediate between the more overt forms of lexicalization of “emotion words” and speaker-focal expressions of “emotivity” or “emotionality”.

References

Besnier, Niko (1990), «Language and Affect», in Annual Review of Anthropology, n. 19, pp. 419-451.

Boas, Franz (1889), «On Alternating Sound», in American Anthropologist, n. 2 (1), pp. 47-54.

Boas, Franz (1911), «Introduction to Handbook of American Indian Languages», in Bulletin of the Bureau of Amrican Ethnology, edited by Franz Boas, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., pp. 1-83.

Bruno, Antonetta Lucia (2002), The Gate of Words: Language in the Rituals of Korean Shamans, Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.

Harkness, Nicholas (2011), «Culture and Interdiscursivity in Korean Fricative Voice Gestures», in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, n. 21 (1), pp. 99-123.

Harkness, Nicholas (2017a), «The Open Throat: Deceptive Sounds, Facts of Firstness, and the Interactional Emergence of Voice», in Signs and Society, n. 5 (S1), pp. 21-52.

Harkness, Nicholas (2017b), «Transducing a Sermon, Inducing Conversion: Billy Graham, Billy Kim, and the 1973 Crusade in Seoul», in Representations, n. 137, pp. 112-43.

Harkness, Nicholas (In Press-a), Glossolalia and the Problem of Language, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Harkness, Nicholas (In Press-b), «Qualia», in The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by James Stanlaw and Jack Sidnell, Wiley-Blackwell.

Jakobson, Roman, and Linda Waugh (2002) [1979], «The Spell of Speech Sounds», in The Sound Shape of Language, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 181-234.

Lucy, John (1992), Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Parmentier, Richard (1994), Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Sapir, Edward (1925), «Sound Patterns in Language», in Language, n. 1 (2), pp. 37-51.

Sapir, Edward (1929), «The Status of Linguistics as a Science», in Language, n. 5 (4), pp. 207-214.

Sapir, Edward (2014) [1921], Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Silverstein, Michael (1976), «Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description», in Meaning in Anthropology, edited by Keith Basso and Keith Selby, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, pp. 11-55.

Silverstein, Michael (1979), «Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology», in The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels, edited by Paul Cline, William Hanks and Charles Hofbauer, Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, pp. 193-247.

Silverstein, Michael (1998), «The Improvisational Performance of Culture in Realtime Discursive Practice», in Creativity in Performance, edited by Keith Sawyer, Ablex Publishing Corp, Greenwich, CT, pp. 265-312.