A Sociolinguistic Study on Witchcraft Spells and Their Effect on Public Behaviour

Abstract

One of the most crucial problems that encountered in any given society is witchcraft. It is an existential phenomenon that spread throughout human history. Since ancient times, people used this phenomenon to protect and defend themselves and their beliefs. The present work aims at identifying the language of witchery and whether can it effect and control the human mind. Therefore, the main question that is raised in this research is, to what extent do witchcraft spells effect the individual behaviours? To answer this question, we have suggested some hypothesis that can help us cover the biggest picture of the enquiry, maybe language or the spells are the key elements that influence people, another main hypothesis is that perhaps there are some ingredients behind the impact on the person. Therefore, the requirement of our investigation urges us for a sociolinguistic qualitative analysis. Consequently, an interview is conducted as a data collection tool which was directed to different participants (dozens of random people from Mostaganem. After a thorough investigation, it is believed that that the main reason behind the impact of witchcraft on people’s behaviour is due to language used in cooperation between the spells and Talasims.