The Study of Cultuling of Cursing Based on Hymes' Ethnography of Communication Framework with Emphasis on the Jahromi Variety"

The “Cultuling” (language-culture) of cursing reflects the profound role of culture in shaping language. The Jahromi variety of Persian - a dialect belonging to the Southwestern and Southern Zagros linguistic groups - contains a rich array of distinct curses. In this study, more than one hundred Jahromi curses were analyzed, using Dell Hymes’ Ethnography of Communication model and classified into four main thematic categories based on their motivations and content: (1) curses invoking physical deformity or bodily impairment, (2) curses wishing death upon the target, (3) curses condemning the target to incurable diseases, and (4) curses envisioning a harsh and miserable worldly life. Each of these categories further includes subtypes and is frequently employed in the form of past participles (e.g., “the cursed one”). The analysis reveals that cursing in Jahromi culture is not merely a linguistic act but a deeply rooted socio-cultural phenomenon embedded in religious, moral, and communal beliefs. These curses are typically uttered in moments of anger or despair, or used deliberately as instruments of moral sanction and social rebalancing. They embody the collective mentality of the Jahrom community in response to injustice, betrayal, unfairness, and mischief. Applying Hymes’ SPEAKING model demonstrates that cursing in Jahrom functions as a “court of last resort” - a form of vernacular justice. It establishes a comprehensive punitive system that operates across all existential dimensions of human life: the living body, worldly existence, and the afterlife. Interestingly, the negative structure of these curses is also repurposed in positive contexts - for instance, as protective prayers, charms against the evil eye, or even terms of endearment.
 
Extended abstract
1.Introduction
Cursing, often dismissed as a mere outburst of anger or a linguistic taboo, is in fact a profound and complex communicative act deeply embedded within the cultural and social fabric of a community. In many societies, particularly in the oral cultures of southern Iran, cursing transcends its surface-level aggression to function as a sophisticated system of vernacular justice, moral judgment, and emotional catharsis. This study focuses on the specific case of Jahrom, a city in Fars province, where cursing has evolved into a unique and highly structured discourse with its own set of rules, conventions, and metaphysical beliefs. While cursing exists across various Persian dialects, the research argues that the curses of Jahrom are not merely a collection of common vulgarities but constitute a distinct linguistic and cultural phenomenon worthy of systematic investigation. The primary aim of this paper is to move beyond a superficial lexical analysis and to explore how these curses operate as a culturally-situated speech event, revealing the core values, fears, and worldview of the Jahromi people. By doing so, this research seeks to fill a gap in the existing literature, which has often overlooked the rich ethnographic detail and theoretical depth of such vernacular practices in Iranian dialects.
2.Theoretical Framework
This research is firmly grounded in Dell Hymes’ Ethnography of Communication (EOC), a paradigm that revolutionized linguistic anthropology by shifting the focus from the abstract structure of language to its actual use in social and cultural contexts. The central analytical tool of EOC is the SPEAKING model, a mnemonic device that provides a comprehensive framework for dissecting any communicative event into its constituent parts:
Setting and Scene: The physical and psychological context.
Participants: The speaker(s), hearer(s), and their social roles.
Ends: The conventional and personal purposes of the act.
Act sequence: The form and content of the message.
Key: The tone, manner, or spirit of the act.
Instrumentalities: The channel (e.g., spoken, written) and language variety used.
Norms: The social rules governing the event and its interpretation.
Genre: The recognized type or category of the speech act (e.g., curse, prayer, story).
By applying this model, the study aims to provide a holistic “ethnography of speaking” that captures the intricate interplay between the linguistic form of the curse and its cultural meaning, thereby treating language as an integral part of culture - a concept Hymes referred to as “speech culture”.
3.Research Methodology
This study adopts a qualitative ethnographic research design, which is the most appropriate method for an in-depth exploration of a culturally-specific communicative practice. Data was collected over a six-month period through direct fieldwork in Jahrom. The primary methods of data collection included:
Participant Observation: The researcher engaged in daily life within the community, observing natural interactions and noting the contextual triggers and social dynamics surrounding the use of curses.
Semi-structured Interviews: In-depth interviews were conducted with 25 native speakers of the Jahromi dialect, stratified by age (young adults, middle-aged, elderly) and gender, to gather their perceptions, beliefs, and personal experiences regarding cursing.
The collected data was then analyzed using a two-stage process. First, a descriptive phase involved transcribing all audio data and cataloging the curses based on their lexical and structural features. Second, an interpretive phase applied Hymes’ SPEAKING model to each recorded instance of cursing, systematically analyzing how each component of the model shaped the meaning and function of the utterance within its specific context.
4.Findings
The analysis yielded several key findings that characterize the unique nature of Jahromi curses:
Distinct Identity: Despite some lexical overlap with other Persian dialects, Jahromi curses are marked by a unique combination of phonological, lexical, and pragmatic features that set them apart as a distinct genre.
Demographic and Situational Specificity: The primary users are women and parents, and the act is almost exclusively confined to informal, emotionally tense, and conflict-driven situations.
Religious Legitimization: Curses are frequently prefaced or suffixed with religious invocations like “Elāhi” or “Shālā,” a strategy to frame the act as a morally justified appeal to divine justice rather than a base insult.
A Three-Layered System of Vernacular Justice: The full-form curse functions as a “last resort court,” articulating a comprehensive system of punishment that targets three existential dimensions: the physical body (disease, deformity), worldly life (poverty, humiliation), and the soul/afterlife (unclean death, divine abandonment).
Pragmatic Flexibility: In a condensed form, these curses can serve non-aggressive functions, such as expressing mischief, warding off the evil eye, or as a vehicle for dark humor, with meaning heavily dependent on tone and context.
Metapragmatic Beliefs: A rich set of folk beliefs surrounds the curse’s efficacy, including the special power of a mother’s curse, the risk of a curse rebounding on the speaker, and the supernatural agency of non-human entities like the Morgh-e Āmin.
5.Conclusion
In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the curses of Jahrom are far more than a collection of aggressive words; they are a complex, rule-governed, and deeply cultural system of communication. Through the lens of Hymes’ Ethnography of Communication, it becomes clear that this discourse is a primary vessel for articulating the community’s core axiology, where honor (‘aberu’) and livelihood (‘rezq’) are valued above life itself, and a life of disgrace is the ultimate tragedy. The three-layered punishment model reveals a holistic worldview that demands justice across all dimensions of existence. This research not only contributes to the linguistic and anthropological understanding of a specific Iranian dialect but also validates the EOC framework as a powerful tool for uncovering the profound cultural meanings embedded within everyday speech acts. It underscores the necessity of studying language not in isolation, but as an inseparable part of the living culture from which it springs.
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