Communicative strategies in middle high German charms

This article examines Middle High German Charms of 14-15 centuries in terms of functional linguistics. The main purpose of this paper is to represent communicative strategies implemented by subject of charm in their intercourse with the supernatural awaiting God’s support. This paper deals with rare charms taken from V. Holzmann’s codex, which have never been translated into the Russian language before. For our analysis we selected 7 Middle High German Charms which vividly demonstrate the variety of communicative models used in charm literature. C.M. Haesele’s monograph “Magische Performativität” (“Magical Performativity”), which explores the category of performativity in Old High German charms, provides methodological framework for the conducted research. This article establishes our typology of Middle High German Charms, which is based on 4 main types of communicative strategies, supplied with text examples both in the original and in our translation. The relevance of the study is justified by the growing interest in folklore genres among scholars and insufficient research work conducted on this matter in domestic science. We hope that the results of our research will help to close this gap and contribute to the solution of the problem. The drawn conclusions will interest specialists in the field of history of the German language and literature as well as comparative literature, folkloristics and history of the Middle Ages.