Bad whishes formulae in Spanish and French: from curse to expulsion
Abstract
Our article focuses on a subclass of conversational formulas of interpersonal relationship. Specifically, those used by interlocutors to make a wish, hence the name desiderative formulae. Although this speech act is usually associated with a positive wish, the wish, which can be formulated using the performative verb souhaiter in French and desear in Spanish, refers to a broader concept: the desire for a negative transformation in the future of the addressee or a third party. Starting from a mixed French and Spanish diachronic literary corpus, we will try to show that there has been an evolution in the act with which the formulas used to express negative vows are associated: the primary meaning of traditional curses is replaced by other values that we have grouped under the generic term expulsion.
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