Taboo and euphemism as a manifestation of the magical function of language (based on the material of the German, Russian and Bashkir languages). The magical function of the tongue
Accumulative function of the tongue
The accumulative function of language is associated with the most important purpose of language - to collect and store information and evidence. cultural activities person. Language lives much longer longer than a person, and sometimes even longer than entire nations. There are so-called dead languages that survived the peoples who spoke these languages. No one speaks these languages except the specialists who study them.
The most famous "dead" language is Latin. Thanks to the fact that he for a long time was the language of science (and earlier - the language of great culture), Latin is well preserved and quite widespread - even a person with a secondary education knows several Latin sayings.
Living or dead languages preserve the memory of many generations of people, the evidence of centuries. Even when oral tradition is forgotten, archaeologists can discover ancient writings and use them to reconstruct events long ago days gone by. Over the centuries and millennia of mankind, a huge amount of information has accumulated, produced and recorded by man on different languages peace.
IN last centuries this process is accelerating - the amount of information produced by humanity today is enormous. Every year it increases by an average of 30%.
All the gigantic volumes of information produced by humanity exist in linguistic form. In other words, any piece of this information can in principle be pronounced and perceived by both contemporaries and descendants. This is the accumulative function of language, with the help of which humanity accumulates and transmits information, both in modern times and in a historical perspective - along the relay of generations.
Emotional function of language
Linguistic scientists also sometimes highlight, and not unreasonably, the emotional function of language. In other words, signs and sounds of language often serve people to convey emotions, feelings, and states. As a matter of fact, it is with this function that human language most likely began. Moreover, in many social or herd animals, the transmission of emotions or states (anxiety, fear, peace) is the main way of signaling. With emotionally colored sounds and exclamations, animals notify their fellow tribesmen about found food or approaching danger. In this case, it is not information about food or danger that is transmitted, but emotional condition animal, corresponding to satisfaction or fear. And even we understand this emotional language of animals - we can fully understand the alarmed bark of a dog or the purr of a contented cat.
Certainly, emotional function human language is much more complex; emotions are conveyed not so much by sounds as by the meaning of words and sentences. However, this oldest function language probably dates back to the pre-symbolic state of human language, when sounds did not symbolize or replace emotions, but were their direct manifestation.
However, any manifestation of feelings, direct or symbolic, also serves to convey a message to fellow tribesmen. In this sense, the emotional function of language is also one of the ways to realize the more comprehensive communicative function of language.
So, various types The implementation of the communicative function of language is message, influence, communication, as well as the expression of feelings, emotions, states.
The magical function of the tongue
Manifestations of the magical function of speech include conspiracies, curses, oaths, including deification and oath; prayers; magical “predictions” with a characteristic hypothetical modality (fortune telling, sorcery, prophecies, eschatological visions); “doxology” (doxology), addressed to higher powers - necessarily containing exalting characteristics and special formulas of praise - such as, for example, Hallelujah! (Hebrew: "Praise the Lord!"), Hosanna! (a Greekized Hebrew exclamation with the meaning “Save!”) or Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee!); taboos and taboo substitutions; vows of silence in some religious traditions; in religions the Scriptures are sacred texts, i.e. texts attributed to divine origin; they can be considered, for example, to have been created, inspired or dictated higher power. Common feature relationship to the word as magical power is a non-conventional interpretation of a linguistic sign, i.e. the idea that a word is not symbol of some object, but a part of it, therefore, for example, pronouncing a ritual name can evoke the presence of the one named by it, and a mistake in a verbal ritual is to offend, anger higher power or harm them.
Poetic function of language
The poetic function corresponds to the message, i.e. the main role is played by the focus on the message as such, outside of its content. The main thing is the form of the message. Attention is directed to the message for its own sake. As the name suggests, this function is used primarily in poetry, where stops, rhymes, alliteration, etc. play a large role. important role in his perception, and the information is often secondary, and often the content of the poem is incomprehensible to us, but we like it in form.
The regulatory function is aimed at creating, maintaining and regulating relationships in micro-collectives. Its goal is to influence the recipient of the message: to encourage, prohibit, warn.
- volitional – expressed in requests and orders;
- interrogative – serves to request a fact;
- appellative (invitational) - aimed at inducing some action or regulating actions.
The contact-establishing (phatic) function performs the function of creating and maintaining contact between interlocutors when there is no contact yet or no longer exists (greeting, farewell, exchanging remarks about the weather, etc.). In relatively permanent teams, establishing and maintaining verbal contacts is the most important means regulation of relations. Communication with relatives, neighbors, and co-workers is necessary not only for maintaining certain relationships in micro-collectives, it is also important for the person himself - for his self-affirmation and realization as an individual.
The regulatory and phatic functions of language are aimed not only at improving relations between members of a micro-collective, but are also used for “repressive” purposes, to alienate the interlocutor. That is, the tongue is used not only for mutual “stroking”, but also for “pricks” and “blows” - expressing threats, insults, curses, etc.
The magical function is realized in special situations when the language is endowed with a kind of superhuman, “otherworldly” power. A person's belief that a word/language can influence subsequent events. This function is associated with religious and mystical beliefs, for example, No bottom for you, no tires.
Language as the immediate reality of thought. The relationship of language to objective reality and to thinking. Correlation of verbal thinking with figurative, objective, technical thinking.
The relationship of language in thinking
Being a tool for consolidating, transmitting and storing information, language is closely connected with thinking, with all spiritual activities of people aimed at objective knowledge existing world, on its display (modeling) in the human consciousness. At the same time, forming the closest dialectical unity, language and thinking do not, however, constitute identity: they are different, although interconnected phenomena, their areas intersect, but do not completely coincide.
Just like communication, thinking can be verbal and non-verbal. Nonverbal thinking is carried out with the help of visual and sensory images that arise as a result of the perception of impressions of reality and then stored in memory and recreated by the imagination. Thus, mental activity is nonverbal when solving creative problems of a technical nature (for example, those related to spatial coordination and movement of parts of a mechanism). The solution to such problems usually does not occur in the forms of internal (and especially external) speech. This is a special “technical” or “engineering” thinking. The thinking of a chess player is close to this. A special type of visual-figurative thinking is characteristic of the work of a painter, sculptor, and composer.
Verbal thinking operates with concepts enshrined in words, judgments, conclusions, analyzes and generalizes, builds hypotheses and theories. It occurs in forms established in language, that is, it is carried out in the processes of internal or (when “thinking out loud”) external speech. We can say that language organizes a person’s knowledge about the world in a certain way, divides and consolidates this knowledge and passes it on to subsequent generations. Conceptual thinking can also rely on secondary, artificial languages, on special communication systems built by man. Thus, a mathematician or physicist operates with concepts enshrined in conventional symbols, thinks not in words, but in formulas, and with the help of formulas obtains new knowledge.
The extreme complexity of the structure of human thinking is confirmed by modern data on the functioning of the human brain. The fundamental feature of our brain is the so-called functional asymmetry, i.e. in a certain specialization of the functions of the left and right hemispheres. For most people, the zones for the generation and perception of speech are located in the left hemisphere, thus the left hemisphere is “speech”, and thus, usually, “dominant” (i.e., “dominant”); more precisely, it is responsible for the logical-grammatical dissection and coherence of our speech, for its form, and also, apparently, for abstract vocabulary, in short - for the analytical, abstract thinking. With aphasia (speech disorders) caused by injuries to the left hemisphere, speech loses grammatical correctness and fluency (and in different ways, depending on which parts of the cortex are affected - frontotemporal or posterior temporal). Opposite to left right hemisphere is more closely connected with visual-figurative thinking, with visual, spatial, sound or other images, and especially in the field of language - with the objective meanings of words, especially specific nouns. It is characterized by an undifferentiated, but also more holistic perception of the world and is a source of intuition. With diseases and injuries affecting the right hemisphere, the grammatical correctness of statements may be preserved, but speech becomes meaningless. It is interesting that in childhood the asymmetry of the brain has not yet been completely corrected, and in the case of partial damage to one or another area of the cerebral cortex, other areas may take over its functions. In general, normally both hemispheres work in continuous contact with each other, working together providing all human behavior, thinking and speech.
Thinking is the process of displaying the world in the human mind through concepts about an object and judgments about it.
10. Linguistic picture of the world. Lexical “gaps” and “phantoms” in languages. The theory of linguistic relativity (Sapir–Whorf hypothesis) and its critical assessment.
In linguistics, there is a concept - a linguistic picture of the world, that is, a set of ideas that has historically developed in the everyday consciousness of the people and is reflected in the language. This is a kind of collective philosophy, a system of views, partly universal and partly nationally specific. Every natural language reflects a certain way of perceiving and organizing the world, or the “linguistic picture of the world.” “The linguistic picture of the world” is a fact of national cultural heritage. Language is one of the forms of fixing this heritage, including signs and beliefs.
Lacuna (in the broad sense) is a nationally specific element of culture, which is appropriately reflected in the language and speech of the speakers of this culture, which is either not completely understood or misunderstood by speakers of another linguistic culture in the process of communication. Lacuna (in the narrow sense, the so-called linguistic lacuna) - the absence in the lexical system of a language of a word to denote a particular concept. For example, the concept “hand” defined in Russian in English is divided into two independent concepts: “arm” (upper limb) and “hand” (hand), while a single concept corresponding to the entire upper limb (arm) in English language does not exist (to be precise, such a concept does not exist only in colloquial English, because in book and medical English there is the term “upper extremity” (upper limb).
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (linguistic relativity hypothesis) is a concept developed in the 30s of the twentieth century, according to which the structure of language determines thinking and the way of knowing reality. It arose in US ethnolinguistics under the influence of the works of E. Sapir and B. L. Whorf. In accordance with their ideas, the language and way of thinking of the people are interconnected. By mastering a language, its speaker also acquires a certain attitude towards the world and sees it from an angle “imposed” by the structures of the language, accepts the picture of the world reflected in native language. Since languages classify the surrounding reality differently, their speakers also differ in the way they relate to it: “We divide nature in the direction suggested by our native language. We distinguish certain categories and types in the world of phenomena not at all because they ( these categories and types) are self-evident; on the contrary, the world appears to us as a kaleidoscopic stream of impressions, which must be organized by our consciousness, and this means mainly by the language system stored in our consciousness" (Whorf. P. 213). The consequence of recognizing the hypothesis of linguistic relativity is the recognition that a language contains a certain system of values, the meanings expressed in it are evaluative and form a collective philosophy characteristic of all speakers of a given language.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has both supporters and opponents. Feminist criticism of language bases on this concept the demand for language reform to overcome the gender asymmetry contained in it, believing that language - due to its androcentrism - imposes on the people who speak it a picture of the world in which women are assigned a subordinate role.
The magical function of the tongue
The magical function of language is a special case of the inviting-motivating function, with the difference that in the case of verbal magic, the addressee of speech is not a person, but higher powers. Manifestations of the magical function include taboos, taboo substitutions, and vows of silence in some religious traditions; conspiracies, prayers, oaths, including deification and oath; In some religions, sacred texts, the Scriptures, are considered inspired, dictated from above. A common feature of the attitude towards a word as a magical force is the unconventional interpretation of a linguistic sign, i.e. the idea that a word is not a conventional designation of some object, but a part of it, therefore, for example, pronouncing a ritual name can evoke the presence of someone who it is named, and to make a mistake in a verbal ritual is to offend, anger or harm higher powers. All cultural areas known in history preserve, to one degree or another, the traditions of religious and magical consciousness. Therefore, the magical function of language is universal, although its specific manifestations in the languages of the world are infinitely diverse. Often the element of magic itself has already disappeared from some such words and expressions (Rus. thank you God bless), in other cases it is quite noticeable, for example, Don’t be remembered by night, don’t be remembered by the wrong person, don’t speak hand in hand, don’t croak - you’ll invite trouble. Magic formulas that had the ultimate goal of a positive result (fertility, health) were often constructed as a curse and abuse. A number of traditions are known for ritual profanity in wedding and agricultural ceremonies. Some abusive expressions go back to ritual spells.
Dictionary of sociolinguistic terms. - M.: Russian Academy Sci. Institute of Linguistics. Russian Academy of Linguistic Sciences. Responsible editor: Doctor of Philology V.Yu. Mikhalchenko. 2006 .
See what the “Magic function of language” is in other dictionaries:
magical function of the tongue Dictionary of linguistic terms T.V. Foal
The magical function of the tongue - Special case inviting incentive function. The addressee of the speech in the case of using M.f.ya. - higher power. Manifestations of the magical function include: taboos, taboo substitutions, vows of silence, conspiracies, prayers, oaths, deification, oath. IN… … General linguistics. Sociolinguistics: Dictionary-reference book
Language functions- Functions of language 1) the role (use, purpose) of language in human society; 2) deterministic correspondence (dependence) of units of one set to units of another set; the second meaning is more often applied to language units (for example, ... ... Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary
language functions- Functions performed by language in society. Language is not just a reflection of reality in the human mind, it is, first of all, the most important means of communication between people. Hence all its functions: it is the language of man and, therefore, it is organically connected with... ... Educational dictionary of stylistic terms
LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS- are determined on the basis of its main (communicative) purpose - to be an instrument of direct communication and a means of expressing the accumulated cultural experience of the people. The general communicative function manifests itself depending on the settings... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary
It is expressed in a ban on the use of certain words, expressions or proper names. The phenomenon of taboo is associated with the magical function of language (speech), i.e. with the belief in the possibility of direct influence on the world using the tongue. Y.t.... ... Dictionary of sociolinguistic terms
Minkia
Obscene language- Profanity (obscene language, unprintable language) or obscene language (from the English obscene, obscene, dirty, shameless) segment of abusive language various languages, including the coarsest (obscene, obscenely vile, ... ... Wikipedia
Obscene expressions- Profanity (obscene expressions, unprintable language) or obscene language (from the English obscene obscene, dirty, shameless) a segment of abusive language in various languages, including the rudest (obscene, obscenely vile, ... ... Wikipedia
Jakobson considered the magical function to be a special case of inviting and motivating, with the difference that in the case of verbal magic, the addressee of speech is not a person, but higher powers. Manifestations of the magical function include taboos, taboo substitutions, and vows of silence in some religious traditions; conspiracies, prayers, oaths, including deification and oath; in religions the Scriptures are sacred texts, i.e. texts attributed to divine origin: may be considered, for example, to have been inspired, dictated, or written by a higher power. A common feature of treating a word as a magical force is the non-conventional interpretation of a linguistic sign, i.e. the idea that a word is not a conventional designation of some object, but a part of it, therefore, for example, pronouncing a ritual name can evoke the presence of the one named by it, and making a mistake in a verbal ritual means offending, angering or harming higher powers.
Often the name acted as a talisman, i.e. as an amulet or spell that protects against misfortune.
Apocrypha<Семьдесят имен Богу>(manuscript of the 16th-17th centuries. Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery) advised to write down, learn and carry with you 70 for self-defense<имен>(symbolic and metaphorical names) of Christ and 70<имен>Mother of God: “Whenever you see these signs and the names of dreams, when you read the names, you will be undefeated in the army and you will be delivered from all the enemy, both from the vain of death and from the fear of the night and from the action of sotonin... And these are the names of the Lord numbering 70. Yes, you can imitate them and carry them with you honestly, power, strength, word, belly, mercy will be freed from all evil...” (quoted with graphic simplifications according to the edition; Tikhonravov N.S. Monuments of renounced literature. - St. Petersburg, NbE. T. 2, P 339).
In ancient times, when choosing a name for a born child, a person often played hide and seek with the spirits: he kept the “real” name secret (and the child grew up under a different, not “secret” name); then they named the children the names of animals, fish, plants; then they gave a “bad name” - so that evil spirits they did not see its bearer as valuable prey. The future prophet, founder of Zoroastrianism Zarathushtra (Zarathustra) received this name-amulet at birth: in the Avestan language the word Zarathushtra meant<староверблюдный>.
A consciousness that believes in the magic of words not only puts up with the incomprehensible and dark in magical texts, but even needs the semantic opacity of key formulas (see pp. 72 - 75, 83 - 85).
The unconventional perception of a sign, like the belief in the possibility of verbal magic, belongs to the phenomena of the right hemisphere nature. The non-conventional interpretation of a sign is close to the aesthetic perception of a word. The non-conventional understanding of the word is known in child psychology: “the word is identified with the thing” (K.I. Chukovsky) - for example, a preschooler may believe that in the sentence There were two chairs and one table there were only three words or that the word candy is sweet.
The non-conventional interpretation of the sign as a whole is also close to some philosophical and cultural concepts, who believe in the meaningful inexhaustibility of the word and in the determining influence of language on worldview or ethnic psychology, for example, such as the ancient theory of “fusey” (from the Greek physis - nature), according to which the name of a thing corresponds to its “nature”; like the ideas of W. von Humboldt and A. A. Potebnya and their development into the theory of “linguistic relativity” by E. Sapir and B. Whorf; ideas of linguistic philosophy of L. Wittgenstein and J. Moore about the “guilt” and “illnesses” of language as a source of human errors and pseudo-problems; as philosophical hermeneutics, which true knowledge considers “listening to language” and sees in language “the most intimate womb of culture,” “the house of being” (M. Heidegger).
All cultural areas known in history preserve, to one degree or another, the traditions of religious and magical consciousness. Therefore, the magical function of speech is universal, although its specific manifestations in the languages of the world are infinitely diverse and amazing. Often the moment of the magic itself has already faded away (cf. Russian, thank you from God forbid), in other cases it is quite noticeable, for example: don’t be remembered at night, don’t speak hand in hand, be remembered in the wrong way, don’t croak - you’ll invite trouble, Belarusian. if not Pragavarits, etc.
The surprise (for modern consciousness) of traces of verbal magic is due to the fact that in the depths of the human psyche, polar entities can be identified or interchanged (life and death, good and evil, beginning and end, laughter and crying, etc.). The ambivalence of the symbolism of the unconscious led to the fact that condemnation turned into praise, the wish for failure was considered a condition for success (cf. no fluff on the front, etc. Therefore, magical formulas that had a positive result as the ultimate goal (fertility, health) were often constructed as a curse and abuse . In a number of traditions, ritual foul language is known in wedding and agricultural ceremonies. Some abusive expressions go back to ritual spells. On the other hand, the very persistence of curse words was explained by Bakhtin by the ancient ambivalence of foul language: in the depths of the people's subconscious it is not only blasphemy and humiliation, but also praise and exaltation D.S. Likhachev, observing the manifestations of the magical function in the thieves' argot, associated it with the emotional and expressive richness and general atavistic nature of the thieves' speech.
sociolinguistic communication language speech
13. Magic (“spell”) function of language and non-conventional (unconditional) attitude towards the sign
One of the most profound linguists of the 20th century. R.O. Yakobson, based on the theory of the communicative act, defined a system of functions of language and speech. Three of them are universal, i.e. those that are inherent in any language in all historical eras. This is, firstly, the function of communicating information, secondly, the expressive-emotive function (the speaker or writer expresses his attitude to what he is reporting) and, thirdly, the appealing and incentive function associated with the regulation of the behavior of the message addressee (why this function is sometimes called regulatory). As a special case of the inviting-motivating function, Jacobson calls the magical function, with the significant difference that in the case of verbal magic, the addressee of the speech is not the interlocutor (grammatical 2nd person), but an inanimate or unknown “3rd person,” perhaps higher power: Let this barley go away soon, ugh, ugh, ugh! (Lithuanian spell, see: Jacobson, 1975, 200).
Manifestations of the magical function of speech include conspiracies, curses, oaths, including deification and oath; prayers; magical “predictions” with a characteristic hypothetical modality (fortune telling, sorcery, prophecies, eschatological visions); “doxology” (doxology), addressed to higher powers - necessarily containing exalting characteristics and special formulas of praise - such as, for example, Hallelujah! (Hebrew: ‘Praise the Lord!’), Hosanna! (Grecized Hebrew exclamation with the meaning ‘Save!’) or Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee!); taboos and taboo substitutions; vows of silence in some religious traditions; in religions the Scriptures are sacred texts, i.e. texts attributed to divine origin; they may be considered, for example, to have been created, inspired, or dictated by a higher power.
A common feature of the attitude to the word as a magical force is the non-conventional interpretation of the linguistic sign, i.e. the idea that a word is not a conventional designation of some object, but a part of it, therefore, for example, pronouncing a ritual name can evoke the presence of the one named by it, and a mistake in a verbal ritual means offending and angering higher powers or harm them.
The origins of the non-conventional perception of a sign lie not in the original fideism of consciousness, but in the primary syncretism of the reflection of the world in the human psyche - this is one of the fundamental features of prelogical thinking. That was the thinking primitive man. At the same time, it’s not a lack of logic – it’s just that this logic is wrong. The story of the past is here sufficient to explain the present; similar phenomena can not only come closer together, but become identified; succession in time can be understood as a cause-and-effect relationship, and the name of a thing as its essence. Nowadays, features of prelogical thinking can be observed in preschoolers. In particular, the non-conventional understanding of a word is well known to child psychology: “a word is identified with a thing” (K.I. Chukovsky) - for example, a first-grader may believe that in the sentence There were two chairs and one table there were only three words or that the word candy is sweet .
Identifying the sign and the signified, the word and the object, the name of the thing and the essence of the thing, mythological consciousness tends to attribute to the word certain transcendental (miraculous, supernatural) properties - such as magical possibilities; miraculous (“unearthly” - divine or, on the contrary, demonic, hellish, satanic) origin; holiness (or, on the contrary, sinfulness); intelligibility to otherworldly forces. In the mythological consciousness there is a fetishization of the name of a deity or especially important ritual formulas: the word can be worshiped as an icon, relics or other religious shrines. The very sound or writing of a name can seem like a magical act - like a request addressed to God to allow, help, bless. Wed. the so-called initial prayer (“read before the beginning of any good deed”) in Orthodoxy: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The idea of the non-conventionality of a sign in a sacred text creates an atmosphere of special, biased sensitivity to the word that is characteristic of the religions of Scripture. The success of religious practice (the piety of the ritual, the intelligibility of prayers to God, the salvation of the believer’s soul) is directly dependent on the authenticity of the sacred text; its distortion is blasphemous and dangerous for the believing soul.
Here is a typical example of how people of the Middle Ages could perceive correction in an important confessional text. In the Orthodox Creed the following words were read: I believe... in God... born, not created. Under Patriarch Nikon (in the middle of the 17th century), the adversative conjunction a was omitted, i.e. became: I believe... born in God, not created. This edit caused severe rejection by opponents of Nikon’s church reforms (future Old Believers). They believed that eliminating the conjunction a leads to a heretical understanding of the essence of Christ - as if he were created. One of the defenders of the former formula, Deacon Fyodor, wrote: “And the holy fathers thrust this letter a into the heretic Arius, like a sharp spear, into his bad heart... And whoever wants to be a friend to that crazy Arius the heretic, he, as he wants, sweeps away that letter a from the Creed. I want to think lower than this and do not destroy holy traditions” (quoted from the publication: Subbotin, 1881, 12). Wed. also the assessment of this correction by the monk Avraami: “Look, how through the action of Satan one letter kills the whole world.” Desperate to return to the previous reading of the Creed - with the conjunction a (the Church Slavonic name for the letter a - “az”), the Old Believers threatened the Nikonians with hell: “And for one az, which has now been destroyed from the Symbol, you who follow will all be in hell with Ariem the heretic” (Subbotin , 1885, 274).
Similar facts, caused by an unconventional perception of a sacred sign, are known in the history of various religious traditions of Christianity. For example, in one Latin work of the 11th–12th centuries. the use of the word Deus, ‘God’ in plural was regarded as a blasphemous concession to polytheism, and grammar as an invention of the devil: “Doesn’t it teach to decline the word God in the plural?”
Associated with the unconventional perception of a sign is the fear of translations of Scripture into another language and, in general, the fear of any, even purely formal, variations in expression sacred meanings; requirements for special accuracy when reproducing (oral or written) sacred text; hence, further, increased attention to spelling, spelling and even calligraphy. The unconventional interpretation of the sign in Scripture in practice led to a conservative-restoration approach to the religious text: the correction of liturgical books according to authoritative ancient lists, the interpretation of incomprehensible words in lexicons, spelling rules and grammars - all the main philological efforts of medieval scribes were turned to the past, to the “holy antiquity,” which they sought to preserve and reproduce (see further §100–101).
Belief in magical and sacred words is associated with the work of the right (basically non-speech) hemisphere of the brain. In contrast to the left hemisphere mechanisms that ensure the reception and transmission of intellectual, logical and abstract information, the right hemisphere is responsible for the sensory, visual and emotional side mental life person. Unconscious and unconscious processes are also of a right-hemisphere nature.
Thus, the phenomenon of non-conventional perception of a sign is the main (elementary) psychological-semiotic mechanism that creates the very possibility of a fideistic attitude towards language (speech). This is the seed from which faith in magical and holy words grows. The unconditional (non-conventional) perception of a linguistic sign in one way or another determines the relationship between language, on the one hand, and mythological-religious consciousness and confessional practice, on the other.