Paper short abstract:

The paper explores Finno-Karelian ritual specialists' use of rhetoric justification in communicative incantations. The different uses of justification with non-human agents function as register-specific emblems and show that different registers work inside the incantation genre.

Paper long abstract:

Communicative incantations form a prominent genre in Kalevala-metric poetry, a Finnic poetic system of various linguistic groups. The paper explores how Finno-Karelian ritual specialists performing communicative incantations use rhetoric strategy called justification when addressing non-human agents. I analyse three types of justification and their connection with differently aligned non-human agents. The paper introduces the role of justification as a register-based feature within the incantation genre and shows that types of justification directed to differently evaluated agents work as register-emblematic feature. The results propose that the genre of Kalevala-metric communicative incantations includes different registers of communication.

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