On the communicative context of witchcraft trials
Boszorkány-kihallgatások kommunikációs kontextusáról
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2018.4.411Keywords:
witchcraft documents, trials, communicative contex, pragmatics, Middle Hungarian periodAbstract
The paper studies the context of communicative strategies in Middle Hungarian witchcraft trials, including the roles in court trials against witches and the linguistic behaviour associated with them, in interrogation protocols and via a detailed analysis of a complex process of taking evidence. The cultural role of a witch includes a characteristic pattern of linguistic behaviour. On the basis of the Salem witch trials of 1692–93 an inventory of the diverse types of defendants has been set up, together with the communicative strategies they tended to follow. However, on the basis of the extant verdicts and the literature of legal history, we can draw the conclusion that, during the Hungarian legal procedures, what was more successful in most cases was denial, rather than admission. The analysis of the texts highlights the ways a communicative strategy that would count as aggressive in any other situation can be reinterpreted in the context of Hungarian interrogations.
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