Paper short abstract:

This paper orchestrates a comparison between narratives of painful injustice recorded in the Kurdish community in London, and laments amongst Yezidi speakers of Kurmanci in Armenia. Kurmanci intonation of painful injustice is considered in the context of forced displacement, affective globalization, chronic forms of pain, and the representation of the violation of human rights.

Paper long abstract:

This paper orchestrates a comparison between narratives of painful injustice recorded in the Kurdish community in London, and laments amongst Yezidi speakers of Kurmanci in Armenia. Introduced on the basis of texts by Bakhtin, Janacek, Silverstein, and Kristeva, intonation and prosodic ideology are fore grounded as a focal point for the study of inter-textual permutations between genres. Kurmanci prosodic ideology is oriented towards the autonomy of voices; or an affective regime of pain unfettered by the prosodic grooves of everyday life. Two intertwining analytical modalities document this prosodic ideology. First of all 'acoustic indirection', or a linguistic ideology of indirection as it manifests itself in the tones of narration. Secondly, an aesthetic of place, or the landscape and sonic ecology of high altitude pastures as they are refracted in the drone of fast paced detailed reported speech in London. Ultimately, such intonation of painful injustice is considered in the context of forced displacement, affective globalization, chronic forms of pain, and the representation of the violation of human rights.