1
To appear in: Nikolić, Jasmina (ed.) (in press). Advances in oral literature research.
Belgrade: University of Belgrade Press.
Cultural models and variation in oral narratives1
Jelena Filipović
Department of Iberian Studies
School of Philology
University of Belgrade
Abstract
In this paper an attempt is made to account for variation in oral narratives (primarily in terms of
their content) from the perspectives of cognitive sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics and cognitive
anthropology. The analysis presented herein will attept to show that variation in oral literature may be
easily (and effectively) explained in terms of 'cultural models' developed within frameworks of cognitive
linguistics and cognitive anthropolgy, and their analysis further enhanced by the research paradigm of
cognitive sociolinguistics, which is interested in the relations and correlations between cultural models and
language use and variation. At the same time oral narratives may help us build more comprehensive
'cultural models' of our societies, and moreover, investigate the nature and the significance of particular
social ideologies past and present, based on these models.
Keywords: traditional cultural models, oral narratives, language variation, cognitive
sociolinguistics
1. Introduction
Different facets of sociolinguistic research have long ago drawn attention to the
fact that there exists a need to investigate overall oral discourse without being tempted to
seggregate oral poetics from other discourse types (see Bauman & Briggs 1990: 79).
Back in the1960s, within Dell Hymes' framework of “ethnography of speaking”, oral
narratives became a 'register' used during communicative events called performances.
During the 1970s and 1980s, a shift toward a contextualized and non-fragmented analysis
of language pinpointed culture as one of the key concepts for understanding and
explaining any linguistic phenomena, oral literature included. The field of performance
studies that started to develop during the same period, instists on treating performances as
complex social events which must be taken into consideration if the sociolinguistic
account of language use in a speech community is to be complete. Cognitive
anthropology and cognnitive linguistics introduces a term 'cultural model' in order to
account for organized and structured forms of behavior within human communities:
cultural models are models which shape our social reality and affect the behavior of the
majority or all members of a given community. Following Bauman & Briggs' (1990)
claim that performances of oral narratives are excellent reflections of cultural
organization of communicative processes which offer insight into language organization
and structure as well as its role in social life, as well as Palmer and Jankowiak's (1996)
1
I am deeply grateful to Professor Barbara Kerewsky Halpern and Professor Joel Halpern from the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst for their more than generous offer to share with me their published
articles as well as some unpublished manuscripts based on their field work in Orašac, Šumadija. Of course,
I take full responsibility for the analysis and the conclusions presented in this paper.
2
theory of performance based upon imagery, a claim is made in this paper that oral
narratives, understood as performances, constitute cultural models in themselves and at
the same time help build larger cultural models of a given society. And finally, looked at
from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics, oral literature may help us extend our
understanding of the relationship between specific cultural models (which have shaped
the oral literture over the centuries, and are still shaping oral and written discourse in our
contemporary societies), and ideologies based on them. In this particular case, a
hypothesis will be introduced about the importance and relevance of gender ideologies
as the foundation of a set of social constructs regulating behavior of men and women
within a speech community/society at large.
2. From 'ethnography of speaking' to performance theory
In light of this author's professional bias (as a sociolinguist), this analysis will first take
into consideration the most influential (in our view) linguistic (more precisely
anthopological linguistic) point of view of the oral literature discourse, namely, Dell
Hymes' concept of 'ethnography of speaking' developed during the 1960s and 1970s. In
the opinion of this author, his articles (The contribution of folklore to sociolinguistic
research from 1971, in particular), seem to contain all the basic concepts as well as the
kernels of the "convergence of approach" (Hymes, 1971: 46) from different scientific
fields, to what is pertinent to the analysis of oral narratives argued for in the continuation
of this paper.
One of Hymes' main arguments is that speech is in and of itself the crucial phenomenon
which should be analyzed if the overall complexity of language is to be understood: "The
plain fact is that speech, the true nexus between language and social life, has been largely
neglected." (Hymes, 1971: 41). Commenting on the state – of – the –art of the time in the
analysis of language, society and culture, Hymes claims that linguists ignore the social
and cultural organization of speech, focusing only on formal aspects of its grammar,
while the anthropologists and other social sciences look into the content of speech
without ever investigating its linguistic features: "In short, linguists have abstracted from
the content of speech, social scientists from its form, and both from the patterning of its
use(itallics added)" (Hymes, 1971: 43)
From the above, his statement is derived about the relevance of language in
understanding culture: "It has often been said that language is an index to or reflection of
culture. But language is not simply passive or automatic in its relation to culture, even
where there is only one language to consider. [...] Speaking is in itself is a cultural
behavior, and language, like any other part of culture, partly shapes the whole, and its
expression of the rest of the culture is partial, selective. That selective relation, indeed, is
what should be interesting to us. [...] Why do communities differ in the extent to which
language, or a language, serves the function of a 'metalanguage' to the rest?" (Hymes,
1971: 44).
3
Language as a cultural fact and as a function of culture is, in Hymes' view, directly
related to folklore2: "From the standpoint of a serious interest in language and folklore as
aspects of culture, the ways in which each is partly autonomous and partly self-governing
factor in the life of a community are precisely what make their study necessary. The way
in which language and folklore differ in function from one community to another are the
most revealing. [...] A considerable list could be given of the ways in which communities
differ with regard to the functions of language, the amount, frequency, and kinds of
speech that are typical; the valuation of speech with respect to other modes of
communication; and the valuation of different langauges and ways of speaking. Just as it
is not possible to speak glibly of the function of myth (or of any other folkloristic genre),
since it is necessary to investigate its functioning in the particular community, so with
forms of speech generally and language itself." (Hymes, 1971: 44-45). In light of the
above statement, Hymes proposes the necessity of formulating a specific
(interdisciplinary, in modern terms) theory of 'ethnography of speaking', which would
help the sciences of linguistics and anthopology come closer to some of their primary
objectives (namely, understanding the complex relationship between language, culture
and thought).
The concept of performance comes into focus in this multifaceted account of the
functions of language in direct relationship with folklore. Folklore has for the longest
time been researched by anthropologists and ethnographers within the framework of
ethnography, which is in turn defined as the description of knowledge one must have in
order to behave appropriately within a community. During the 1960s and 1970s, the
notion of performance became the central point of folkoristic research. For Hymes,
performance3 represents a crucial aspect of social life which must be taken into
consideration if the sociolinguistic account of language use and its functions in a given
community is to be complete. Preformances are viewed as structured events with specific
stylistic and aesthetic values, which include the participation of a number of factors (in
most cases those are:content, performers and their audience). Thus, they are understood
as communicative events larger than the text itself (the understanding of text belongs to
the scope of folklore research, which insists on simply knowing the foklore materials (see
Hymes, 1971: 46), while communicative events are understood as the knowledge of how
to use folklore in accordace with the rules of use within a community). Consequently, in
such an analysis of performance, context becomes the central point of interest as the it
correlates the text with one or more aspects of the community from which it came.
2
Definitions of folklore (outside of the field of linguistics) which include the concepts of "the body of
knowledge", "a mode of thought" and "a kind of art" (see Ben-Amos, 1979, for further discussion) are very
much in accordance with the interdisciplinary approach presented in this analysis.
3
In agreement with Palmer & Jankowiak's (1996) interpretation of Hymes' famous concept of
'communicative competence' which is far more comprehensive than the 'competence' as understood by
Chomsky in his early writings (strongly contrasting with the concept of 'performance'), herein a position is
taken that the term 'performance' in Hymes' writings of the period was mainly directed toward a "more
dramaturgical deployment" (Palmer and Jankowiak (1996: 232). In other words, as the term
'communicative competence' takes over a large chunk of knowledge about language use (which was
originally adscribed to 'performance' in the Chomskian interpretation), the term 'performance' is in Hymes'
writings interpreted as the social interaction itself.
4
Almost concurrently with the development of Hymes' 'theory of 'ethnography of
speaking' based on the notions of overall language functions and the rules of its use
within a community, (roughly delineated by the academic scopes of sociolinguistics and
anthropological linguistics), a movement towards the research of poetics in relationship
to social life occurred in other areas of academic research. Namely, during the late 1970s
and early 1980s, performance theories started to emerge, which have placed "new
emphasis on performance directed attention away from formal patterning and symbolic
content of texts to the emergence of verbal art in the social interaction between
performers and audiences. This reorientation fit nicely with growing concert among many
linguists with indexical (as opposed to solely referential or symbolic) meaning, naturally
occurring discourse, and the assumption that speech is heterogeneous and
multifunctional. Anthropologists and folklorists similarly found performance based
studies responsive to their interests at play, the social construction of reality, and
reflexivity. One dimension that particularly excited many practitioners was the way
performances move the use of heterogeneous stylistic resources, context-sensitive
meanings, and conflicting ideologies into a reflexive arena where they can be examined
critically.(itallics added)" (Bauman & Briggs, 1990: 59-60). Consequently, performances
are understood as deeply rooted into the larger social and cultural practices of a
community, whose structure and content can be directly related to different
communicative situations (of both artistic and non-artistic, ie.e, day-to-day, nature).
Therefore, in order to understand a performance, its content and its value within a given
speech community, thus, it is important for the researchers to be able to connect it to a
number of discourses and communicative/speech events (e.g,. previous performances,
criticism, interpretations, challenges, subsequent performances, etc. (see Bauman &
Briggs 1990 for futher discussion and elaboration). And such an understanding of a
performance, in turn, should add valuable information to the understanding of the cultural
organization of social life in a community in question.
And finally, one other research direction in performance theory is relevant to this
discussion, namely, the performance theory based on imagery, developed by Palmers &
Jankowiak (1996): "In our view, performances run the gamut of complexity from mass
rituals, [...] and the spectacular floor shows of Las Vegas, to small, self-deprecating jokes
and mundane comments on the weather.[...] It is through performances, whether
individual or collective, that humans project images of themselves and the world to their
audiences." (Palmer & Jankowiak, 1996: 226) In order to act accordingly in different
social situations and to different social events, such as performances, the human beings
need to possess a significant amount of knowledge which varies from culture to culture
thus rendering variation in both the content and the structure of social events, such as
performances. To account for this cultural variation, different theoretical concepts have
been used in different research fields, such as cognitive models and schemata from
cognitive linguistics, cultural models and scripts from cognitive anthropology, etc. In
Palmer & Jankowiak's (1996) framework, the notion of imagery joins together all the
above mentioned concepts in an attempt to account for the construction of cultural
knowledge, its validation and the meaning of its performance: images are scenes which in
turn are activations of cognitive models. Cognitive models may be constructed of
5
concrete impressions related to physical sensations, of abstract image schemas, and/or of
methephorical imagery (which forms part of complex and abstract social scripts). Palmer
& Jankowiak (1996: 228-229) conclude: "A theory of performance based upon imagery
as defined above permits a view of meaning as a conventional, culturally patterned,
socially situated, emergent in performance and often improvised. The meaning of
performance is the imagery that it enacts and evokes (itallics added)".
If we translate all the above to the language of literary theory and the research of oral
literature, we see that the notions outlined above within the theoretical approaches of
ethnography of speaking and performance theory are highly compatible with the
statements such as the one by Barthes about the style in oral and written literature as
being "socially conditioned with the ultimate goal to achieve collective communication"
(Barthes 1971, cit. in MacKenzie, 2000: 178), or by Foley (1992), that the key to
understanding oral literature is the tradition, understood as "dynamic, multivalent body of
meaning that preserves much that a group has invented and transmitted but that also
includes as necessary defining features both an inherent indeterminacy and a
predsiposition to various kinds of changes or modifications. I assume, in short, a living
and vital entity with synchronic and diachronic aspects that, over time and space, will
experience (and partially constitute) a unified variety of receptions. (Foley, 1992: 277) In
the continuation of the same article, he states: "this is, then, an article about word-power,
that is, about how words engage contexts and mediate communication in traditional oral
narrative. It is also, and crucially, about the enabling event – performance – and the
enabling referent – tradition – that give meaning to word-power." (Foley, 1992: 278)4
3. Cultural models in congnitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology and
cognitive sociolinguistics
What is of crucial importance in the present analysis of oral literature as performances, is
that we treat them as complex, highly structured, communicative events (with an
important social dimension) whose understanding, interpretation and validation is
dependent on a serious body of shared knowledge which all the participants in
performances (i.e., of a particular speech community, not necessarily a community at
large) must possess not only syncronically, but also diacronically. In other words, the
knowledge which allows the members of a speech community to effectively participate in
performances must be the cultural knowledge (along the lines of folklore and
ethnography in Hymes' interpretation or tradition in Foley's ethnopoetics theory). The
4
When analyzing Perry's Oral-Formulaic Theory of oral literature, Foley considers a complete shift from
traditional to oral (not only in terminology but in approach to the phenomenon) as the crucial problem of
the theory: "Once the 'oral' term had superseded the 'traditional' termi in the equation, the Oral Theory, as
it is customarily referred to, never look back; although Lord was to speak eloquently in The Singer of Tales
(1960) and elsewhere about the central importance of tradition (esp. Lord 1979, 1991), in fact the theory
focused on orality as the central distinguishing feature of this 'different' kind of 'literature'. [...] But what if
the traditional character of these structures was given more than lip service? What if 'traditional' came
actively to indicate extratextual? What if it came to refer to a reality larger that even than the entire
individual performance, or group of performances? Clearly, such a redefinition [...] would have to engage
worlds of signification inherently more complex than isolated usages, texts or performances." (Foley, 1992:
280-281).
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nature and the structure of that knowledge (which is, in accordance with the scientific
objectives of modern era the ultimate goal of every research 5) can be interpreted from at
least two different perspectives, namely within the realm of cognnitive linguistics and
within that of cognitive anthopology. We might say that both disciplines are interested in
the cultural basis of language and the linguistic basis of culture, recognized and
represented as knowledge and organization of meaning. Furthermore, the perception and
the evaluation of different orral narratives/performances within a community of speakers
in terms of cultural models (reflecting their ideologies) which shape their behavior on one
hand, and add to the reformulation of the models themselves on the other hand, is in the
focus of the new emerging discipline of cognitive sociolinguistics.
Cognitive linguistics is primarily interested in investigating the meaning in languages
within a framework of usage-based language models. The underlying assumption of
cognitive linguistics is that there exists a series of cognitive cultural models which help
us construct our knowledge of the world throughout our lives. Cognitive cultural models
are sets of highly structured (mainly) social knowledge necessary if we want to be
accepted as members of a society (see Hudson, 2004). "Derived from the notions of
scripts (Schank and Abelson, 1975), frames (Minsky, 1975), and schemas (Rumelhart,
1980), cultural models are defined as representational structures which are shared by
members of a given culture. Further, they are hierarchically structured so that elements
can often be expanded into their own models (Casson, 1983, cited in D'Andrade, 1987).
Because of their efficiently structured organization and their status as shared
representational structures, cultural models figure widely in both language and thought
processes" (Coulson, 1992).
This emphasis placed on the cultural origins of language offers a new insight into the
relationship between the language (cognitive linguistics) and the world view (cognitive
anthropology). Cognitive linguists have also expressed overt interest in the literary
language, looking into the cognitive processes involved in literary creation (see, e.g.,
Kristiansen et al. , 2006). In this paper, however, a much broader and a less technical
interpretation of oral narratives is offered from the standpoint of cultural models which
lead to construction of specific ideologies (understood as as a systematic body of ideas
about our reality, which often cannot be taken as parameters of objective evaluation of
the same reality). This is what brings us into the realm of a third academic field
mentioned at the begining of this section, namely, cognitive sociolinguistics, which is
primarily interested in analyzing correlations between given cultural models and
language variation. Understanding oral narratives as performances, i.e., as speech events
similar to other types of oral discourse, it is postulated herein that variation in certain
types of oral narratives, as well as the structure and content of oral narratives in general
may be successfully uderstood and explained through the notions and concepts presented
above. The presence of a particular type of ideology is postulated in all cases analyzed
below, namely, that of gender ideology, understood as a "systematic set of cultural beliefs
through which a society constructs and wields its gender relations and practices. Gender
5
Quite differently from the majority of older research paradigms in humanities and social sciences which
most frequently stopped at the level od simple description of the phenomena they investigated.
7
ideology contains legends, narratives and myths about what it means to be a man or a
woman and suggests how each should behave in a society." (Hussein, 2005: 59).
4. Oral literature, cultural models and gender ideology
Language is often used, among other things, in order to shape attitudes, belifs,
perceptions, as well as emotions and reactions of other members of our speech
community (see, e.g., Coulson, 1992). It is precisely the cultural models which contain
such social and, more precisely, ideological information, which are in focus of the
contituation of this presentation. In other words, oral literature will be analyzed not from
the aesthetic point of view, but rather as a cognitive and linguistic vehicle for transmitting
cultural models and ideologies6 from one generation of speakers to another.
In order to illustrate the above point, two very limited corpora of oral literature are
analyzed, one from the standpoint of intralingual and the other from the standpoint of
interlingual variation of contents and genres of oral poetry. Namely, a comparison of epic
and lyric interpretations of the character or the widow Jana, present in Serbian oral
tradition will be offered to illustrate the cultural models shaping gender ideologies within
a single speech community, and a comparison of a set of ballads based on an international
theme and present in Spanish and Serbian oral traditions about a cruel seductor/abductor
of a young woman and his/her destiny.
The analysis of the theme of the "unfaithful widow" is based on Halpern's (unpublished)
analysis of this archetype found in different oral genres in Serbian oral literature. Two
particular genres will be taken into consideration here, namely an epic ballad and a lyric
song. According to Halpern's analysis of her own recordings, a typology of characters
taking part in this narrative may be established, namely, a dichotomy between the 'bad
guys' (the giant and the widower) and the 'good guys' (the sister and the sons) is present
in all oral genres. It is an example of "the well established theme of neverna majka, the
unfaithful mother, or, in its more epic form, [...], majka krvnica, mother-enemy, motherkiller" (Halpern, unpublished)7. The giant/the villain is often named Halil ('beloved' in the
Muslim tradition of the region), which, according to Halpern, "reinforces the notion of
the widow as the more active villain of the piece. Tales and pesme about the unfaithful
mother are most common in former frontier areas where Serbian vassals dared to oppose
the Turks. Life was uncertain, men were killed and widowed, women were a threat to the
moral concepts valued by the Serbs (conversation of Barbara Halpern with Nada
Milošević-Đorđević, Belgrade, 1973)." The basic story line is that the widow plots with
her lover to send her sons away to be killed by him, while the sister functions as an astute
protector and, eventually, the savior of her brothers in peril. What has brought our
attention to this particular theme is the difference in the endings in the epic and the lyric
6
With and implicit assumption that the members of speech communities are most often unaware of such
ideologies, often pregnant with different types of discrimination against certain sub-groups within the same
community.
7
"In broader range this theme has been documented in folktales in Slavic-speaking cultures, as well as in
Estonian, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and even American Indian traditions". Halpern (unpublished).
8
forms cited by Halpern. They will be presented herein in accordance with Halpern's
(unpublished) tapescripts of her own recordings and with her translation into English:
The ending in the epic version:
"(J)uvatiše ostarelu majku,
Pa vezaše konj'ma za repove,
Pa vodiše na polje široko.
Te je živu konji rastrgoše.
They seized (their) old mother,
And tied her to horses' tales,
And led them along the wide field.
She who was alive the horses tore apart."
The ending in the lyric version:
"Da mi nije od Boga grijota,
A od ljudi velika sramota,
I tebe bih samu pogubio
I oči ti čarne izvadio.
If it were not a sin before God,
Or a great shame before men,
I would truly take your life
And tear out your dark eyes."
In the lyric narrative, the ending is constructed from "relatively benign closing lines, [...]
where there is some verbal remonstrating and nothing more. [...] Here the impact is
sentimental, poetic: grijota/sramota, pogubio/izvadio, I tebe bi/I oči ti. [...] The grim
ending in the epic version was delivered in a matter-of-fact manner. The words, too, are
totally matter-of-fact. Something had to be done, it was done, end of song." (Halpern,
unpublished)
A logical question is to be asked: What has provoked these two dramatically different
endings of the same story, based on the same poetic theme? Within the framework of
cognitive sociolinguistics, the answer is to be looked for in the concepts of specific
cultural models and gender ideology based on them which have provoked such different
outcomes. If we take a further look into an anthropological interpretation of the Serbian
traditional culture, we see a presence of a number of cultural features directly associated
with a patriarchic society. In her analysis of the Serbian healing charm against snakebites, Halpern (1983) identifies a very strong presence (in the late 1970s and early
1980s!) of a "mythic notion of snake as perpetrator of evil" (Halpern, 1983: 319) She
identifies a very powerful male/female dichotomy of good/evil, symbolized in the
linguistic dichotomy zmaj/zmija8 (dragon/snake) present in the Serbian traditional
culture9. According to the peasants' interpretations (both males and females), recorded by
Halpern, the snake-bite charm as a ritual has the most power if performed by an 'evil'
woman who understands the nature of snake and can exercise influence over the her (the
snake) "Since aspects of sex differentiated attributes can be traced back to mythic and
linguistic origins, a compelling feature of the snake-bite charm, quite apart from its
prosody and poetic merit (and its demonstrated ability to cure "snake bite"), is the
8
The reconstruction of both lexemes in Proto-Slavic (and even Proto-Indo-European) leads us to the word
zemlja (earth) (Skok, 1973, cit. in Halpern 1983: 321).
9
Despite the fact that snakes in reality are very rare in that region of Serbia (Šumadija, Orašac near
Arandjelovac), and there are no poisonous snakes whatsoever.
9
remarkable tenacity with which the myth is preserved. The charm and its symbolism
works when Branko [a man] performs it, but one man told me: "You should have seen
what 'that Vida' accomplished – she brought the cow back from death. She knew!" His
implication was that only an evil person, a woman, could placate a sister snake."
(Halpern, 1983: 322)
In a broader discussion of the ritual roles of men and women in the traditional
Serbian society, Halpern (1987) further demonstrates that again there exists an evident
dichotomy between male and female ritual roles. Namely, public10 ritual roles are
performed by men (representing the family and conversing directly with patron saints at
slavas, addressing God directly in the graveyards, etc.) "A crucial shared feature of all
male ritual activities and therefore a point on which the definition of patriarchy ca be
extended is this – men in their ritual roles not only mediate with powers that are known
and safe, but male interventions are for the good of the lineage or community at large.
Male ritual follows a regularized and formal hierarchical framework. God is the ultimate
patriarch, followed by the pantheon of saints. The householder himself is well placed in
this structure. He is, after all, a man" (Halpern, 1987: 124).
Female ritual roles, on the other hand, belong to the scope of the private, nonpublic setting, performed for an individual or a small audience, in which the performer
and the audience are one and all together. Furthermore, most frequently female rituals
are related to the unknown, mystical, potentially dangerous (conditioned by what Halpern
(1987: 124) labels biocultural determinants, namely, menstruation, and the capacity to
bear children during a significant period of a woman's life): "Therefore, during the child
bearing years Serbian peasant women are part of an ancient and widespread belief system
in which they constitute a special class endowed with dual sets of powers (cf. Douglas,
1966). One set is known as mysterious and sacred, so similar to the cyclical patterns in
nature. The other side of the duality is polluting and negative. Both are viewed as
potentially dangerous. A consequence of this danger is a long list of taboos placed upon
menstruating girls and women (italics added)." (Halpern, 1987: 124-125)11
Therefore, it becomes apparent that specific patriarchic cultural models have
been present in the Serbian traditional culture, based on the hierarchical male/female
organization of the society. The understanding of the roles males and females
have/should have and their positioning within the social hierarchy has been transmitted
from one generation of speakers to the next over a long period of time, through the
models containing complex mental representations, understandings, evaluations and
interpretation of pieces of information about the world that surrounds us (see, e.g.,
Holland & Valsiner, 1988 for further discussion). A significant part of these models (in
this case, at least two, one for each gender), as we could see from the anthropological
data presented above, is based on a series of myths, legends, and the like, which in turn
10
Analogous to the public role the man assumes in the real social, economic, political, etc. life of a
traditional patriarchic society.
11
According to her own account, as an ethnographer and an anthopologist doing field research during the
1950s, 1960s 1970s and 1980s in Šumadija, Barbara Halpern herself had to obey all the traditional
restrictions related to these taboos.
10
have found their linguistic and artistic expression in the form of oral literature. In the case
studied here, the differences between the endings of the narrative about the unfaithful
widow Jana in the epic and the lyric forms can be accounted for as pertaining to the
realms of performances based on two different cultural models. The epic, the male
version, if you like, sanctions the female protagonist in a very harsh and cruel way, thus
expressing the underlying, presumably unconscious and ideological fear from the
unknown featured in the cultural model and the corresponding ideology (namely, women)
deeply rooted in the minds of the performer and his male audience. It is my assumption
that the lyric version, consequently, represents a particular reaction of the traditional
female cultural model to the male one, which is by definition more emotional and more
forgiving (in which even a place for the son's love for his mother can be found).
In conclusion, these two poetic endings present in the Serbian oral tradition do
not stand in free variation, to use linguistic terminology, but rather, they are deeply
rooted in a patriarchic gender ideology with a very clear set of beliefs and attitudes
towards the position and the role of women in the traditional Serbian society. The
interesting part is that this ideology was apparently still present in certain segments of the
Serbian culture at the end of the 20th century (albeit witnessed and registered
scientifically only in rural contexts in Halpern's writings from the late 1980s).
In order to show that similar socio-cultural-cognitive account can be provided
for interlingual variation of a single theme in oral literature in different societies, we now
turn our attention to the international theme of seduction/abduction followed by an
assassination of the abductor (Spain), that is, the suicide of the young woman (Serbia). In
Spain, the oldest preserved version of a ballad of this type is Romance de Rico Franco.
Its storyline is presented by Child (1882-1898; cited in Rogers, 1969: 369) in the
following way: "The king's huntsmen got no game, and lost the falcons. They betook
themselves to the castle of Maynes, where was a beautiful damsel, sought by seven
counts and three kings. Rico Franco carried her off by force. Nothing is said of a rest in a
wood, or elsewhere; but that something has dropped out here is shown by the
corresponding Portuguese ballad, The lady wept. Rico Franco comforted her thus: If you
are weeping for father and mother, you shall never see them more; and if for your
brothers, I have killed them all three. I am not weeping for them, she said, but because I
know not what my fate is to be. Lend me your knife to cut the fringes from my mantle,
for they are no longer fit to wear. This Rico Franco did, and the damsel thrust the knife
into his breast. Thus she avenged father, mother and brothers."
Most authors (e.g., see Menéndez Pidal (1953)) believe the theme to borrowed from the
old North European myth whose most ancient recorded version dates back to the 16th
century. In the original North European version, however, the villain is the cruel and
monstruous habitual assessin of women (the Bluebeard), whose character (according to
Menéndez Pidal, 1953) suffers serious alterations during its voyage to Spain. In the
majority of Spanish and Sephardic versions from the 16th century onward, as well as in
many modern versions of the ballad, an epic heroe from the first Spanish ballad turns into
the young woman's family's enemy (simply described as 'a count', 'a duke, or even just 'a
11
man'), who slayers her brothers during an attempt to run off with her and marry her12.
Furthermore, in the majority of Spanish versions an additional emphasis is placed on the
character of the young woman, who in some versions even receives a name, Isabel. In
conclusion, in the majority of the versions of the Spanish ballads with this underlying
theme, the abducted young woman shows great shrewdness and intelligence and manages
to assassin her abductor, with an explicit objective to revenge her dead brothers and her
parents. In other words, she fulfills an epic vengeance (Menéndez Pidal (1953: 330), cited
in Filipović & Nikolić (2005)) in order to recover the family honor. It appears that a
particular type of family honor is being present in the Spanish traditional culture, which
forms part of a hypothetically more egalitarian framework of male and female cultural
models than the ones witnessed in the Serbian traditional society. Namely, female
characters in the epic performances are allowed to take action against men who disgrace
their families. Of course, a further investigation of this hypothesis is required if any
conclusive commentaries on this subject are to be made.
A number of oral poems revolving around the above outlined international myth
have been recorded in the Serbian oral tradition as well. The only one mentioned by
Child (1965) in connection to the Spanish Romance de Rico Franco is a lyric poem,
recorded by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, published at the beginning of the 19th century and
immediately translated into German. The poem tells a story about a young woman,
Mara13, who, fascinated by the male heroe's dance (and against her mother's warnings),
starts dancing with him. The male heroe, Thomas (Tomaš) attempts to woo her, and when
she refuses, he snatches her and rides off with her across the fields, threatining to hang
her to death. However, the poem has a rather peculiar ending in which no one is
murdered. Furthermore, in the final verses, Mara pronounces a sentence with a strong
moral implication, about what happens to young women who do not listen to their
mothers. And a few lines are added in which Thomas claimes to have been jesting, and
that his real intention was not to murder Mara, but to marry her.This ending was believed
by Child (1965: 42) to be erroneous, "spurious appendage", consisting of "a few silly
verses". However, what if this traditional interpretation is false? What if in this case, just
like in the lyric version of the 'unfaithful widow' motive, the theme has been analyzed,
evaluated and interpreted in accordance with the principles of the traditional female
cultural model, which is, in this case, aside from focusing on emotions (a feature typical
of the female model), adds an explicit instruction from mothers to daughters about the
perils of the male world, suggesting the importance of solidarity and cooperation in the
female culture? What if the basic postulates of the traditional female cultural model have
found their way into a more personal form of performance, lyric poems, in which an
expression of emotion is allowed and even welcome, i.d., expected? This would further
imply that lyric poetry may provide a solid foundation for a more complex and broader
understanding of the female cultural models and gender ideologies in some societies.14
12
In the early versions, the female character was simply a girl, 'una doncella fermosa'.
Mara majke ne slušala (Mara, who did not listen to her mother)
14
Halpern (1987: 130) maintains: "In Serbian epics women are protagonists only in their care-giving roles
as mothers and sisters. When a woman has the leading role it is as unfaithful wife/unfaithful mother, a
woman who makes decisions and behaves in the male mode. The male-oriented aphorisms so important in
Serbian village life represent a double standard: self-determination applies to men only. Societal reaction to
similar behavior in females is severely punished."
13
12
An analysis of the majority of the Serbian ballads of this type (more typical of
their literary genre than the previous one, e.g., Sestra Ivanova, (Ivan's sister), Ne daj je
za stara (Do not marry her to an old man)), however, indicates that they can described
in terms of a sequence: the epic abductor (the husband to be)/the assassin of all who
interfere with his intentions (the brothers) – the young girl's shrewdness - her suicide (see
Filipović & Nikolić, 2005, for further details). Furthermore, contrary to the Spanish
versions, in which no explicit declaration of the young woman's feelings and desires is
present (in accordance with the matter-of-fact rules of the epic genre), the young woman's
rejection of the proposals of marriage by the seducer is overtly present in the Serbian
poems (her feelings are addressed in the performance), which, in accordance with the
rules of the genre, announces the female protagonist's tragic ending: the woman chooses
death over unwanted marriage, without any possibility of salvation 15. Again, if we
analyze this as the literary/linguistic reflection of the traditional male and female cultural
models in the patriarchic Serbian society, it becomes obvious that the female who
disobeys must be punished. And just like in the case of the epic version of the 'unfaithful
widow Jana', the punishment is cruel and leaves no place for forgiveness, remorse, or any
other positive validation of the female's actions.
5. Concluding remarks
It goes without a necessity of explanation that patriarchic societies are gendered
cultures, in which "the clasifying and proprietary tendencies of patriarchy" (Cohen, 1993:
84; cit. in Hussein, 2005: 72) find their expression in languages the society members use.
In that sense, the language forms enable the preservation and the continuation of specific
gender ideologies. For example, in the Serbian traditional culture, the male cultural
model reflected in traditional oral literature is based on the perception of the man as the
protector of a family or a community at large, whose roles are associated with the public
area (both in reality and in rituals), with the concepts of goodness and the responsibility;
when they are in relations to female protagonists in traditional oral literature, supposedly
performed by men and for men (epic poetry), they are protectors, judges and/or executors
when necessary; the female counterpart within the male cultural model, in turn, contains
the notions and presuppositions of the female 'infernal' capacities and connections with
the powers of evil (such as the comparison of women and snakes), and/or their 'magical'
powers related to the powers and cycles of nature (their capacity to bear children,
which is by men recognized as mystical, unknown, not available for logical explanation,
and thus potentially dangerous). The traditional female cultural model also recognizes the
basic hierarchical setup of the society and accepts and fosters the dominant male social
roles. However, at the same time it also creates and introduces new notions
of
female solidarity (a mother warning her daughter of a possible danger in relation to an
unkown man in her surroundings), and emotions, such as sorrow and possible forgiveness
15
The ballads in which the young woman murders her abductor are present in the Serbian oral tradition, but
in all instances of these endings, there is an anticipation of the male's physical violence over the female
protagonist (see Filipović & Nikolić, 2005)
13
(as in the closing lines of the lyric version of the 'unfaithful widow Jana' poem),
expressed in a lyric form traditionally labelled as ‘femenine’.
A brief analysis of the Spanish epic poetry based on the international theme of the
male abductor and the faith of his female victim shows variation in the contents of
cultural models even within apparently similar patriarchic societies, such as the Spanish
and the Serbian ones. As the storyline evolutions and changes within the 'male' genre of
epic poetry, it appears that the underlying assumptions about the female social roles
within the Spanish tradional male cultural model are somewhat different from those
present in the Serbian traditional culture. Namely, young women, protagonists of these
epic ballads are given the power (by the male performers and their audience) to revenge
the unjustice done to their families (attention: not themselves) and they murder the
villains who abduct them. Of course, they are empowered to save the honor of their
brothers and fathers, rather then their own, which is still very consistent with the gender
ideology of a patriarchic society.
It still remains to be emphasized that all the above assertions are obviously crude
generalizations based on very limited linguistic/cultural datasets. The main objective of
this analysis has been to pinpoint the possible points of intersection between language,
culture and cognition in order to promote a possibility of a more complex,
interdisciplinary research of those concepts which may lead us to a more thorough
understanding of both linguistic and cultural phenomena at a community/society level16.
Traditional oral literature has been selected on purpose, as a communicative event
whichm in accordance with performance theories, sheds light on the overall organization
of a given society. This analysis to some readers may appear as the 'reinvention of the
wheel', as it concludes the obvious, that the oral literatures of Serbia and Spain are based
on the patriarchic organization of these two societies, which is a common place in literary
history and literary criticism. However, it is this author's belief that in this type of
analysis (or re-analysis of what is already known in academic literature) outlines a
research paradigm (consistent with the basic concepts and the approach of cognitive
sociolinguistics) which may help us investigate contemporary linguistic uses and their
meanings (i.e, cultural models) in different cultural settings and their possible ideological
underlyinings17.
16
This, without excluding the subcultural, or even individual cultural variation, but in agreement with
Quinn's assertion about cultural knowledge which is shared, and culture as "adaptive to human activity in
the world, rather than a mere by-product of this activity"(Quinn, 1996: 392). This also allows us to
postulate two or more different general cultural models within the same linguistic, i.e., cultural community,
as is the case of the Serbian traditional culture.
17
A position is taken here that researchers in social sciences and humanities in general, and, consequently,
linguists and sociolinguists in particular, have a serious responsibility in shaping the social and political
landscape of the world (e.g., see, Phillipson 2000, Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). Therefore, research methods in
sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, culture studies, and the like should follow the general
principles of the critical social theory and their consequential findings should have an impact in the
construction and/or reconstruction of our societies.
.
14
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