POETICS AND PRAGMATICS OF GENRES OF FUNERAL RITUALS OF THE ALTAIANS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the poetics and pragmatics of the genres sygyt ‘lamentations’ and kerees sӧs ‘memorable word’ in the funeral rites of the Turks of Southern Siberia (Teleuts, Chalkans, Altaians). The material of the study was the texts recorded at the beginning and end of the twentieth century in different dialect groups of Altai people. The posed scientific problem is related to the identification of genres of funeral and memorial rituals of the Altai people, as well as to the study of the conceptual semantics of these texts. The genre sygyt plays an emotionally evaluative function: it is performed to express sorrow, the severity of the loss of a loved one. For cries recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century a developed system of metaphors that perform the functions of imagery and allegory is characteristic. In lamentations, built in the form of a dialogue between the mourner and the deceased, rhetorical questions allow expressing regret, sorrow for those who have gone to another world. The key motives for crying are the road to another world, the irreversibility of life. Another genre, kerees sӧs, is characterized by an assessment of the human dignity of the deceased, an expression of sympathy for his family. The brief blessing formulas contained in them are pronounced for spell-seeking purposes - to close for the soul of the deceased the road to the world of the living.