The Art of Dueling with Words: Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World

Pagliai, Valentina

doi:10.1353/ort.0.0054

Cited by 21 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 63 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Such duels with words, as opposed to fists, provide an adaptive way to discharge aggressive dispositions (Marsh, 1978) and to compete without risking physical harm (Locke, 2008). Although verbal duels may be a cathartic purging of aggressive impulses, their beauty, creativity, artistic value, and cultural specificity have also been observed by many (Darmesteter, 1934;Samarin, 1969;and Pagliai, 2009). While linguists tend to focus on the language function of conveying information (and have tended to "sanitize" the language they study, excluding swearing, Bergen, 2016, p. 3), there are other, expressive, esthetic, and profane aspects of language, which are just as relevant in the context of language evolution (Haiman, 2013).…”

Section: The Language Evolution/ Self-domestication Feedback Loop: a mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop

Progovac

Benítez‐Burraco

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: The Language Evolution/ Self-domestication Feedback Loop: a mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop

Progovac

Benítez‐Burraco

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Aitys is also recognizable for its stylization, both in the self‐presentation of poets and for its sung character: lines of poetry are accompanied by musical instrumentation on the dombyra (wooden two stringed instrument), and each poet has a signature musical “tag line” in performance. While the structure and topics of aitys poetry are largely conventional, it is also a “verbal duel” (Pagliai 2009), a genre which explicitly encourages or requires improvisation in the moment and therefore becomes “fully poetic only when embodied in concrete works” (Hanks 1987, 676). Aitys is a tradition in which “generic regimentation” is balanced with the “innovation [that] is more conducive to the exercise of creativity, resistance to a hegemonic order, and openness to change” (Bauman 2004, 8 cited in Kroskrity 2009; on improvisation in verbal art see also Duranti and Black 2011).…”

Section: The “Mapping Problem” In Aitys Poetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Participant Frameworks in the Aitys of Birzhan and Sara

Dubuisson

2021

J Linguistic Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Here the lens of the "mapping problem" described by Judith Irvine in participant framework studies is used to analyze shifts in the cultural tale "The Aitys of Birzhan and Sara" from its origin as an improvisational verbal duel in the late 19th century, to a Kazakh socialist opera during the Soviet period, to a nationalized historical reference in Kazakhstan. During the multiple recontextualizations of that social text, its discursive pragmatics and characters are preserved within the expanding and shifting participant frameworks enabled by the genre of aitys poetry. Birzhan and Sara are able to "speak"-as poets, characters, and ancestors-to a changing series of audiences, all of whom become involved and implicated in their words and story as a result. They-like all aitys poets and the tradition itself-become a source of cultural authority. Thus the mapping of this social text over time is used as an example, in order to explain why and how an oral tradition is able to overcome or absorb even serious intertextual gaps resulting from shifting historical and political contexts over a long twentieth century. [discourse pragmatics, nationalization of culture, oral tradition, participant framework mapping, recontextualization] «Meнi дe «ұpпaғым» дeп, ecкe aл, жұpтым Capaның aйтapы ocы aттaнapдa» "Remember me too as your descendant, my people This is what Sara wants to say, before (I) go." -Sara Tastanbekqyzy Introduction: The Aitys of Birzhan Sal and Sara Qyz In the late 19 th century, a young Qazaq woman named Sara Tastanbekqyzy became famous among Qazaqs in Central Asia when she performed in a verbal duel against one of the most well-known bards of her time, Birzhan sal. 1 Their reported battle in 1871-part of the poetic tradition aitys, where lines are at least partially improvised, sung, and accompanied by the music of the stringed wooden instrument dombyra 2 -was purportedly memorized by members of their audience at the time, and transmitted through oral memory for years, until it was written down for the first time in 1898 by a young poet and collector of oral literature, Zh€ usipbek Shaykhislamuly. 3 Their meeting is notable not just for Sara's participation or for Birzhan's fame, but also because of the specific content that was discussed: Sara

show abstract

“…It has been suggested that aggression and creativity share a common origin (Tacher & Readdick, 2006). Rebelliousness and rule‐breaking were found to boost creativity at an appropriate level (Petrou et al, 2018, 2020), and verbal duels, which are usually a cathartic form of aggression, could also involve creativity and artistic value (Pagliai, 2009; Progovac & Benítez‐Burraco, 2019). Moreover, from the perspective of individual development, second‐grade students create and display uncommon or unique gestural and verbal aggressive behaviors (e.g., threats) instead of physical aggression to stop others' unwanted behaviors (Tacher & Readdick, 2006) and these could also occur as a kind of developmental adaptation with creative features (Lazarus, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming aggression into creativity: Creative thinking training as a new strategy for aggression intervention

Wu,

Yang,

et al. 2023

PsyCh Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although reducing students' aggressive behaviors and improving their creativity are both important commitments of educators, they are usually treated independently as unrelated tasks. However, cumulative evidence suggests potential links between aggression and creativity, not only from the perspectives of personality traits and psychological development, but also from their shared cognitive mechanisms. This implies that there may be an approach to achieving these two goals through a single intervention. Moreover, this new approach may overcome the limitation of the usually adopted aggression intervention, which is limited in its regulatory effectiveness and might bring about some disadvantageous impacts on creativity that are closely associated with aggression. To test this possibility, the present study implemented a four‐session, 2‐week creative thinking training (CTT) intervention for students with high aggression scores to examine whether it could simultaneously downregulate aggression and increase creativity. Our results demonstrate that, compared to the control group, the intervention group experienced significant improvements in creativity and a reduction in aggression following the CTT intervention. Furthermore, our findings suggest that this regulatory effect can persist for up to 6 months. The CTT‐induced creativity change (increase) could significantly correlate with and predict the CTT‐induced aggression decrease, thus suggesting that the CTT could transform aggression into creativity.

show abstract

The Art of Dueling with Words: Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World

Cited by 21 publications

References 63 publications

From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop

From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop

Mapping Participant Frameworks in the Aitys of Birzhan and Sara

Transforming aggression into creativity: Creative thinking training as a new strategy for aggression intervention

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About