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Article published In: Historical (socio)pragmatics at present
Edited by Matylda Włodarczyk and Irma Taavitsainen
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18:2] 2017
► pp. 214–234

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Discursive (re)construction of “witchcraft” as a community and “witch” as an identity in the eighteenth-century Hungarian witchcraft trial records

 | Lancaster University
Published online: 9 February 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00003.pet
Abstract
This paper provides a qualitative historical (socio)pragmatic analysis of records of three eighteenth-century Hungarian witchcraft trials using a socio-cognitive model of discursive community and identity construction. I aim to describe how the general social and legal context of witchcraft became situated and interpreted in the actual witchcraft trial records from the delegated officials’ perspective. I argue that in the analysed records, the officials did not simply apply a codified definition of “witchcraft”, but they discursively (re)constructed “witchcraft” as a community and “witch” as the defendants’ identity. Thus, from the officials’ perspective, discursive community and identity construction established a relationship between the general context of witchcraft and the actual witchcraft trials. In order to reconstruct this process, I investigate the linguistic constructs by which the delegated officials actively created “witchcraft” and the defendants’ “witch” identity as mental constructs.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The general context of witchcraft in the eighteenth-century Hungarian Kingdom
    • 2.1The general social context of witchcraft in the eighteenth-century Hungarian Kingdom
    • 2.2The general legal context of witchcraft in the eighteenth-century Hungarian Kingdom
  • 3.A socio-cognitive model of discursive community and identity construction
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Discursive (re)construction of “witchcraft” as a community and “witch” as an identity in the three analysed trial records from the delegated officials’ reconstructed perspective
    • 5.1The introduction
    • 5.2The questions addressed to the witnesses
    • 5.3The witness testimonies
    • 5.4The judgment
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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