Language Markers for the Presence of the Dead in the Rituals of Spirit Mediums (Northern Vietnam)

Abstract

The article aims to reveal the set of linguistic and paralinguistic tools used by Vietnamese mediums and their clients for constructing the spirits of the dead during séances of communication with ancestors. In his paper “Language and Religion” Webb Keane argues that regardless of the varying conscious intentions of ritual performers, the properties of ritual speech tend to mark it as different from more “ordinary” ways of using language. The authenticity of ritual practices shapes itself up within the conventional framework of the group and is displayed in a series of features, such as archaisms, semantic opacity, stylised and restricted intonation contours, etc. For this purpose the author analyses two fragments of the communication with the dead from his collection of fieldwork videos recorded recently in northern provinces of Vietnam. The materials are presented in converse-analytical transcription, which Robin Wooffitt believes to be the most productive way to reveal discursive strategies and socially organised linguistic and interpretative practices through which this form of talk-in-interaction (psychic consultations) is managed. Comparative analysis of the two cases demonstrates that repertoires of language markers denoting the presence of the dead spirits differ significantly depending on the type of medium’s participation, but that they appear equally efficient.