Textual category of personality as a means of suggestive influence in channeling discourse

Стаття продовжує серію публікацій автора, присвячених аналізу ченнелінг-дискурсу. Ченнелінги є складником вчення Нью Ейдж; вони виходять у світ різними мовами; найбільшу популярність отримали у США. Ченнелінги часто розглядають як сучасні божественні одкровення; по суті, вони є комунікацією істот нематеріальних вимірів із людиною; посередником цієї комунікації виступає так званий ченнелер (людина у стані трансу чи напівтрансу), який сприймає невербальну інформацію, що передається іншовимірною сутністю (послання отримуються шляхом автоматичного письма, ясночуття, яснобачення чи сенсорного відчуття), а тоді «перекладає» її на мову людини. Як окремий вид дискурсу ченнелінг цікавий з погляду структури, інформативного складника та засобів мовленнєвого впливу на свідомість читача.

Дослідження виконано у межах когнітивно-комунікативної парадигми. Застосовано такі методи аналізу, як інференційний, дескриптивний та метод прагматичного аналізу. Проаналізовано питання сугестивного впливу ченнелінгів на читача, зокрема зосереджено увагу на засобах вербалізації цього впливу в текстах сучасних американських ченнелінгів - Сета (за посередництвом Джейн Робертс) та Крайона (за посередництвом Лі Керролла). Порушувану проблему розглянуто на лексико-семантичному (вербалізація послання ченнелером) та прагматичному (наміри адресанта) рівнях. Засвідчено, що ченнелінг можна визначити як прагматично маркований тип дискурсу, оскільки сугестивність є однією із домінантних його рис, а мета ченнелінг-дискурсу - змінити світогляд читача, його/її цінності та стиль життя. Детально описано засоби сугестивного впливу в текстах ченнелінгів, а саме таку текстуальну категорію, як персональність (різніролі, які розігрує адресант у спілкуванні з адресатом; їх вибір залежить від його комунікативної мети), яка слугує одним із засобів сугестивного впливу у текстах ченнелінгів.

Ключові слова: адресат, адресант, прагматично маркований, сугестивний потенціал, персональність, текстуальна категорія.

Defining the problem and argumentation of the topicality of its consideration. The advancements of human society bring forward not only technological progress, but a new understanding of human essence as well. Human being becomes the focus of a wide range of sciences, linguistics including. The last decades revealed increasing interest towards human subconscious and means of influencing and manipulating it. The majority of the works focus their attention within the domain of psychology and psychotherapy with the practical output applied in healing human psyche. This research paradigm brought into being a well- known method of influencing with words called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Nevertheless, there still remains for investigation a vast area of texts of different types where language means are used to influence not only our conscious mind, but subconscious as well. The suggestive aspect of channelings has not been studied yet, and this article is one of the first attempts at a detailed description of the suggestive influence means in them.

The scholars offer different understanding of the term `speech influence', for example: purposeful speech communication usually of the subordinate order vs speech communication within the coordinate social relations [9; 10], verbal influence resulting in reshaping of individual consciousness/ picture of the world vs change of the object's connotative meaning/general emotional state in a separate communicative frame [1; 5] and some other. The statement that speech influence presupposes that the addresser has an aim which he wants to achieve through communication is common for all the approaches. Therefore, speech influence is “the influence... realised in verbal form” [3, 24], “an instance of psychological communicative influence, which is realised only or mainly through language and speech and is overtly or/ and covertly directed towards the spheres of both rational-critical and unconscious perception” [4, 9].

Scholars state that influence is present in every instance of communication as its inseparable counterpart [3, 7] and it is impossible to verbalise oneself “neutrally”. Language imposes the worldview of the speaker, his value scale and shapes the cognitive model of the recipient, introducing the unknown or imposing the undesirable. What concerns the means of speech influence verbalisation, we may state that they exist at any language level: phonetic, morphemic, lexical and syntactic; all of them are endowed with the suggestive power.

E.V. Shelestiuk in her research states that the main means of speech influence are argumentation, suggestion and motivation [12, 11]. When it comes to practical analysis of the texts, especially mass reader oriented, we usually observe a mixture of argumentation and suggestion (with one of the techniques prevailing) rather than purely suggestive texts, though the exceptions are not rare.

In psychology and medicine suggestion was studied concerning its practical application in the form of hypnosis to cure mental diseases; in philosophy suggestion was viewed in connection with the study of human essence, his consciousness and soul [11, 27-30]. Though there have been offered a number of definitions by the scholars working within different scientific paradigms (philosophy, psychology, medicine, psycho-linguistics, suggestive linguistics).

The power of suggestion influences our everyday life to this or that extend because we are born suggestible and suggestibility - a “peculiar state of mind which is favourable to suggestion” [13, 15] - is “present in what we call the normal state, and in order to reveal it we must only know how to tap it. The suggestible element is a constituent of our nature; it never leaves us; it is always present in us. Every one of us is more or less suggestible. Not sociality, not rationality, but suggestibility is what characterizes the average specimen of humanity, for man is a suggestible animal” [13, 16-17]. This human feature makes it possible to group people under a certain idea or concept, regulate their comprehension of the reality and even change their worldview to the opposite one, i.e. as if “wake a person from unconscious dream to conscious life” [1, 80].

Depending on various criteria, scholars single out different types of suggestion: over (direct) vs covert (indirect), contact vs distant, immediate vs delayed, temporary vs lasting, specific vs non-specific [2, 479]. Having taken into account a number of parameters of suggestive texts, I. Yu. Cherepanova. singled out five levels of linguo-suggestive analysis: phonological, prosodic, lexico-stylistic, lexico-grammatic and mor- pho-syntactic, which helped her describe basic types of suggestive texts [11].

The material of the research is the modern American channelings - the communication received through the communication that partially resembles telepathy and is received through clairaudience (channeler mentally “hears” the message), clairvoyance (channeler “sees” the message) or clairsentience (channeler feels the message). In our case the channelings subjected to analysis are those produced by Seth (through Jane Roberts) and Kryon (trough Lee Carroll). The focus of my attention in this research is language means and mechanisms of verbal suggestion employed in those channelings from the linguistic point of view. Of primary interest are the language units which have suggestive power and the role they perform, in particular the category of personality as a powerful suggestive instrument.

The outline of the main research material. One of the textual categories that play a significant role as a means of increasing the suggestive power of the text is the category of personality. Together with the textual category of modality it reflects the author's attitude to the information transmitted and his communicative role with respect to his virtual addressee/reader. Channelings may be characterised as texts with high level of personalisation; the role of the author in them varies from one of a friend to that of a teacher.

1. The analysis of Seth's channelings reveals the addresser's strong tendency to present himself though very similar with humans in essence but much higher in development. His role is that of a teacher who shares his knowledge and experience: I “travel” to many other levels of existence in order to fulfil my duties, which are primarily those of a teacher and educator, and I use whatever aids and techniques serve me best within those systems (5, 17);

...I may teach the same lesson in many different ways, according to the abilities and assumptions that are inherent in any given system in which I must operate (5, 17);

All of us here are teachers, and we therefore adapt our methods, also, so that they will make sense to personalities with varying ideas of reality (5, 20);

Now, in my work as a teacher I travel into many dimensions of existence, even as a traveling professor might give lectures in various states or countries (5, 33).

He has gone through many lives (...I have donned and discarded more bodies than I care to tell (5, 4)), his work is very hard and demanding (My work in this environment provides far more challenge than any of you know (5, 16)), and consciousness is much more developed than ours: We are much more aware of our own thoughts than you are (5, 30);

Your earth was very dear to me. I can now turn the focus of my consciousness toward it, and if I choose, experience it as you do; but I can also perceive it in many ways that you cannot in your (5, 38).

Seth and the entities like him are not deprived of the senses of perception but, as he states, they are purer and of higher quality, which testifies to the fact that Seth and the like are superior in their development:

We do feel an equivalent of what you call emotions, though these are not the love or hate or anger that you know. Your feelings can best be described as the three-dimensional materializations of far greater psychological events and experiences that are related to the “inner senses.”...we have strong emotional experience, although it differs in a large measure from your own. It is far less limited and far more expansive in that we are also aware and responsive to the emotional “climate” as a whole. We are much freer to feel and experience, because we are not so afraid of being swept away by feeling (5, 19).

Seth also directly states that he is more knowledgeable (and, therefore, his claim that he serves as a teacher for humanity is well-grounded): All of my deaths would have been adventures had I realized what I know now (5, 32); We have of course therefore more knowledge at our fingertips, so to speak (5, 31).

The role of a teacher, who is knowledgeable and experienced, and therefore should be trusted concerning the information he transmits through his channeler, helps Seth create the text of high suggestive power. The authority of a teacher is also one of the suggestions; this suggestion consists of the beliefs received in childhood, is long-standing and accepted non-criti-cally in adult age.

2. Kryon's channelings are characterised by several roles Kryon adopts in his attitude towards the reader: a friend/old acquaintance, a servant, an experienced adviser, a wise philosopher and a teacher [7; 8]: For I am Kryon, and know you... and you know me. If these words or those of past writings seemed to feel like "home" to you, then it is because your higher self has intuitively recognized the writing of a friend (2, 14-15);

The truth is that you sit before your servant Kryon! (3, 17);

I honor your valuable entity and give you advice in love (3, 17);

My entire purpose is to serve in a specified capacity the "schools" throughout the universe where the entities such as yourselves are located (1, 15).

In any of the roles Kryon presents himself as a close relation to us, the one who can and must be trusted, the one who knows better our essence and mission.

Of no less importance in the suggestive power actualisation of Kryon's texts plays his orientation on a peculiar type of a reader. Though Kryon states that his messages are for common people:

“Kryon wants me to write for the common person, not the one who has been part of the "New Age" movement for years and years. He admonished me very early on to keep the process simple and direct” (1, 11), he admits that, first of all, the information is for those who are interested in esoteric knowledge, metaphysics and practical healing:

This writing is for the more Metaphysical of (1, 11);