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'Grtevance Imprecation' Taboo Among the Akan

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'Grtevance Imprecation' Taboo Among the Akan Pragmatics9:3.3 57 -382 (1999) InternationalPragmatics Association THE PRAGMATICS OF DUABo 'GRTEVANCEIMPRECATION' TABOO AMONG THE AKAN Kofi Agyekum 0.Introduction This paperaddressesduabc 'grievanceimprecation' asaverbal tabooamong theAkan of Ghana.Akan belongs to the Kwa group of languagesfound in West Africa. It is the indigenouslanguage with the largest number of speakers in Ghana. The paper addressesthe notion of the magical power of the spokenword with regard to duabc. A linguisticanalysis of duabc will be presentedin terms of its etymology,morphology, typology, syntax and semantics.In the frameworkof the ethnographyof communication, thispaper looks at the pragmatic featuresof duabc, the participants andits performative aspects.It also discussesthe situations under which the verbaltaboo is mentioned and it considersthe sanctionsinvolved. All this is supportedby empiricaldata collected among theAkan in 1994.1 Verbal taboo is an important aspectof the Akan languageand culture. There are varietiesof verbal taboos in Akan. They include ntam'reminiscential oath', duabc 'imprecation', nsedie 'self-imprecation', atennidie 'invectives' and ammodin 'unmentionables'(see Agyekum 1996). This paper, however,concentrates only on duabc. Duabc'grievanceimprecation by invocation' is a type of religiousverbal taboowhich involvesthe employment of magical and supernaturalpowers to causeharm to one's addressee.Duabc is normally relatedto supernaturalpowers which people consider as valuableand powerful. Duabc normally occurswhere there is a grievancebetween a speakerand his victim. We shall be looking at the types, functions, structuresand the prototypicallanguage used in duabc. We will alsolook at the categoriesofcommunicative participantsconnected to this type of speechcommunication. There is a Ghanamapatthe endof thepaper that showssome of the towns,villages andrivers mentionedin the text and theirrelationship with Kumasi and Accra, the capital of Ghana. 1. Theoretical framework Duabc can best be analysed in the general framework of the ethnography of communication. Hymes (1972) proposes an ethnographicframework which takes into account the various factors that come into play in speaking. Thesefactors are summarily put in an acronym, SPEAKING: I This paper is a modified form of a chapter from my M.Phil. thesis from the University of Trondheim.The thesis was issued as University of Trondheim WorkingPapers in Linguistics 30 (1996). 358 Kofi Agyekum S-settingand scene,P- participants, E - ends,A-act sequence,K- key I- instrumentality, N- norms of interaction and interpretation, G- genre.z In the analysis of duabc , we shall look at the setting in terms of place and time, participanls in terms of the peoplewho are connectedwith it, and ends in terms of the purposeforthe duabc. Actssequence refersto the eventsthat culminateinto theduabc speechactivity and how they havebeen structured, keying is viewed in termsof the tone and mood of the participants in the act, instrumentis the medium of language usedand in the caseof duabc,itis the spokenwords.The normsrefertothe socio-cultural norns, values and conventionsattached to duabc, ffid in fact, theseare the issues that make it a verbal taboo. The genre is a religious one and this capturesthe spiritual and supernaturalaspects of this communicativeevent. Someof the componentparts of duabc are speechacts. Anything that comes out during duabc, would be considered as an integral part of the whole communicativeevent. 2. Duabc 'grievanceimprecation': The Duabc as a verbal taboo The duabc taboo is purely a religiousverbal taboo. It is the practice of the Akans in invoking supernaturalpowers in defenceand in the executionof certainforms of justice. This has given rise to the origin of imprecationbased on the desireof the imprecator to harm the target. Akan duabc 'imprecation'normally arises out of enmity,breakdown of love, lack of peace, conflict, anger,social avoidance, selfishness,attempt to eliminate 'grievance a fellow, curse, etc. This is the reason why I have labelled duabc as imprecation'. Duabc is a verbal taboo because it derivesits effect from supernaturalpowers whosemight the ordinaryman cannot match andwhose actions and behaviour people can neither predict nor decipher. For this reason,one should avoid invoking supernatural namesin certain contexts(see also Rattray 1969a; Wagner 1987 233).It is believed that when a persontrivialises the namesof the deities, he is defiling and blasphemingagainst them. Duabc is discouragedbecause these supernatural powers (other than God) arequick to angerand their punishmentsare very severe.This, however, doesnot meanthat duabc is totally tabooed, for like all the other verbaltaboos in Akan, there arecertain situations when it canbecome mentionable. Generally, duabc is an expressionthat is invoked with the intention to punish the targetedperson. The consequenceof the duabc is that it puts the referent into an awkward situationthat affectshis life andproperty. In psychologicalterms, it affrontsthe face of the target when he is within the communicativesituation. The event may also affront the faceof by-stander.(cf. Gofknan 1955,1981; Brown andLevinson 1987). 2Inthispaper,Hymes'(I972)modelisusedtogetherwithSaville-Troike's(1989:138-157)model for Communicativeevents. Saville-Troike's (1989) model consistsof the following main features:genre, topic, purpose/function, and setting (all categorisedunder "scene or extra-personal context of the event"). The others are key, participants,message form, messagecontent, act sequence,rules of interaction and norms of interpretation. In effect, there is a stong relationship between Hymes' and Saville-Troike's models. 'grievance The pragmatics of duabc imprecation' taboo among the Akan 359 Not only does duabc affront the victim, but in the final analysis all duabc expressionsare considered taboo because they tamperwith people'slives andallegedly kill themoff. Duabc may harm an entire family and in some casesbe reversedto kill the imprecator.A reduction of the populationthrough imprecationis considereddetrimental to the society. It is becauseof the social impact of duabc that the Akans have institutionalisedit as a tabooexpression restricted to be usedas a weapon of a lastresort in somedefined contexts for bringing aboutsocial justice. 3. Duabc activity: Internal structure and participants The internal structure of duabc as a single speechactivity hasthree major constituent parts and they are: (a) protactic proposition, which representsthe invocation(of the nemesis)and the cursingaspect (the speechact; performativeverb), (b) the apodictic proposition,which indicatesthe purposeof the use of the imprecation,and (c) the commissiveproposition, which statesthe punishment. Thereis a prototypical frame in duabc in Akan which pragmatically involves at leastthree participants or more. Theseare the imprecator (speaker),imprecatee (target) andthe nemesis(addressee). Each of the participantshas a communicative role in the speechevent. The participants and their roles are presented below. Apart from the parlicipants,there is the messagethat links the imprecator andthe nemesis.This will be referredto asthe mand. 3 (i) the speaker -) the imprecator -+ lst. person (ii) the target -) the imprecatee --) 2nd. or 3rd. person(s) (iii) the addressee supernatural,the power broker, God, deity, the nemesis (iv) the message the mand The first participant is the imprecator (speaker/theperformer) who embarkson the act. Theimprecator functions as the animatorof the powerful words and it is his wish which thenemesis fulfils. The imprecatorsends a mandto theNemesis to act upon it. Mandswith secondperson subjects express the speaker'sintention to get the addresseeor hearer to do something. The second participantis the addressee,the centraland coreparticipant of the wholeact. It is the sourceof the power for the causativeact to inflict harm or death. It is thesupernatural power (an invisible participant) and it may be God or any of the deities. Thisparticipant is referredto in this paperas the nemesis.The Nemesisis definedin Greek mythologyas "the avenger;personification of the gods' retribution for violation of sacred law"(Longman Encyclopaedia, lst edition 1992:743).Thenemesis (addressee) is never 3 Accordrng to Leech (1983: 116) "mands constitute a more general category than what we normally understand by command. They reflect a common element of meaning shared by the three moods:Imperative, infinitive, and present subjunctive. Mands invoke or conjure up a stateof affairs which is envisagedas unfulfilled". 360 KofiAgtekum physically present in the communicativescenario; however, it takesactive part in the spiritualaspects. The imprecatee is the targeted personwho bearsthe brunt of the duabc (he can be in the secondor third person). According to the nofin and constitutionof the Akans, the potential imprecatee must not be there at the time of the utteranceof the imprecation.In somecases the imprecatormay not be known or may be a third party. In somesituations however the imprecateemay be present (seenitandua section 5.3.1). While the imprecator and the imprecatee are [+human], the nemesis is normally supernatural[-human]. The structure of duabc canbe illustrated as follows: the imprecator employsthe mand to pray the nemesrs (deity) to inflict any of the possiblepunishment(s) which the nemesisdeems fit on theimprecatee. Thepunishmentsinclude nightmares,misfortunes, siclcness,birth problems, madness,death or any other. The punishmentsare unordered and they may
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