Mythology, Verbal Art and Authority in Social Impact

Mythology, verbal art and associated specialist or authoritative user form a dynamic, system: the three parts evolve in relation to one another and the authority of each part appears to be constructed within that trinary system through social practice. With the analytical tools ‘register’ and a usage-based approach to mythology, this system and its workings will be examined in diverse cultures and historical contexts in a set of complementary studies. Studies include both ‘traditional’ cultures (medieval Germanic, 19th–20th-century Karelian, and current Rotenese and Tetun) and ‘current Western’ cultures (Finnish political discourse, Scandinavian multimedial advertising). The project has a strategic aim of developing a multidisciplinary methodological framework for analyzing the mythology–language–user trinary system that can be used by researchers in different fields of the humanities, in sociology, political science or consumer culture research.