ABSTRACT

This article interrogates death-prevention names among the Karanga people in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe, from an ethnopragmatic perspective. In Karanga society, there is a strong belief that death-prevention names can counter the powers of supernatural forces that are responsible for the death of children. The use of such names is anchored in the Karanga belief that death is caused by external forces and can thus be prevented. The article argues that the bestowal of death-prevention names in the Karanga onomastic tradition is an emotional reaction to infant mortality and a device to facilitate recovery from fear, as the names are believed to prevent the death of the name-bearers. The article evinces that death triggers feelings of despair, helplessness and hopelessness driving name-givers to make entreaties to spiritual forces to spare the lives of the named children. It can also generate extreme frustration that can drive name-givers to express feelings of defiance and, in the case of death allegedly caused by witchcraft, threaten revenge through the names. The article uses data from four predominantly Karanga districts in Masvingo. The article concludes with the argument that death-prevention names are not arbitrary labels but are terse expressions of larger sociocultural meanings.

摘要

本文从民族语用学的角度审视了津巴布韦马斯温戈省卡兰加人中的预防死亡名称。在卡兰加（Karanga）社会中，人们坚信，以防死为名的名字可以抵消造成儿童死亡的超自然力量的力量。这些名称的使用基于Karanga的信念，即死亡是由外力造成的，因此可以避免。文章认为，卡兰加（Kalanga）异常传统中授予死亡预防的名字是对婴儿死亡率的一种情感反应，是一种促进从恐惧中恢复的装置，因为人们相信名字可以防止名字携带者的死亡。文章认为死亡会引发绝望感，无助和绝望驱使名字赋予者诉诸精神力量，以挽救被命名儿童的生命。它还可能产生极大的挫败感，驱使举名人士表达出反抗的感觉，并且在据称因巫术而死的情况下，还会威胁通过举报名进行报复。本文使用了来自Masvingo四个主要Karanga地区的数据。本文最后提出了这样一个论点，即死亡名称不是任意标签，而是具有较大社会文化意义的简洁表达。