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Drama as described by Aristotle is distinguished by the fact that it consists exclusively of utterances by acting characters. Narrative methods of conveying information are harnessed by the medium of direct discourse. Hence it is all the more important to use to the full the potential that lies in analysing the characters’ speech as a stylized imitation of real-life speech.
The project applies new approaches to the study of the ancient text. In the last about 25 years, pragmatics has become an established field within the linguistics of ancient Greek and Latin. Recent years have seen a strong increase in studies that use linguistic observations of a pragmatic nature to study the literary of individual plays and scenes. What is original to this project is the combination of the literary outlook and the handling of the entirety of ancient tragedy as a text corpus. It pursues longitudinal analysis to detect chronological and cross-linguistic developments and influencing parameters such as scene types, individual author styles etc. This approach will, firstly, complement the general linguistic studies by supplying literary explanations for certain phenomena. Secondly, it will help put into perspective the results of studies on single texts by elucidating the significance and particularity of the observations against the background of the entire corpus. The emerging patterns can be reapplied to texts that have proven to exhibit specific pragmatic characteristics.
Gunther Martin: Coherence and cohesion in Greek tragedy
This sub-project will deal in particular with the connection between utterances, i.e. the coherence and cohesion: do dialogue partners explicitly refer to the preceding turns, do they talk about the utterance as such, or do they break off the conversation? Conversational behaviour will be studied for variations by author, character, scene type, and other parameters. The contribution of coherence and cohesion to our understanding of dialogues will be illustrated with reference to individual scenes with significant patterns.
Federica Iurescia: Effare aperte: Pragmatics of dialogues in Roman Tragedies
My project aims to analyse the dialogues in Seneca’s Tragedies from a pragmatic perspective, mainly borrowing methods from Conversation Analysis (CA) and Common Ground (CG) studies. My main interest is on coherence, namely on how it serves to assure a successful communication between the characters.
A crucial point to understand coherence in (dramatic) dialogues is when it lacks, amounting to communicational breakdown: when the characters do not jointly act on the same communicative chain, their reciprocal understanding is endangered, ending with a rupture of the dialogue between them.
What can we gain from observing coherence and lack of coherence in dialogues? The scope of such a research is twofold: first, it may help to appreciate Seneca’s dramatic techniques: how does he represent a successful communication? How and when does he enact rupture of dialogues? Is coherence, and lack of coherence, a feature relevant to dramatic characterisation? Is there any pattern in the use and distribution of communicational breakdown, for instance as a result of certain communication strategies? In other words, how is coherence performed through language, and what does it serve to? As second, this kind of questions may lead to account for dialogues on tragic settings: which are the linguistic means available to an author aiming to represent successful and unsuccessful communication within the genre’s literary conventions? The results may be interesting for scholars working on Historical Pragmatics as well as on Roman Tragedy.
Severin Hof: Meta-communication in Sophocles
Sophocles’ meta-language will be at the centre of this sub-project. The characters’ utterances on their and their dialogue partners’ speech will be studied with respect to their internal and external pragmatics. The aim is to extrapolate the (wanted or unwanted) effects such utterances have in conversations and what these imply for the interpretation of the texts. In this context the use of the concept of ‘frame analysis’ is particularly promising.
Events
Workshop: Pragmatik und literarische Analyse (PDF, 73 KB), Zurich 17-18 June 2016.
International Conference "Doing things with words on stage. Pragmatics and its use in ancient drama", Zurich 4-7 July 2018 ( https://www.sglp.uzh.ch/de/veranstaltungen/conventus/doing_things.html).
Guest Lecture Prof. Dr. Scott Scullion (Oxford): „Problems in the Interpretation of Oedipus the King“ , Zurich, 21 March 2019 (Flyer (PDF, 143 KB)).
Workshop: „Euripides and Greek Religion: Maenads and Men in Bacchae and Cult“ with Prof. Dr. Scott Scullion (Oxford), Zurich, 22 March 2019 (Flyer (PDF, 140 KB)).
Guest seminar „Multiperspectivity and intersubjectivity in tragic dialogue“ with Dr. Jon Hesk (St. Andrews), Zurich 23 May 2019.
Guest Lecture Dr. Jon Hesk (St. Andrews): „Perspective-taking, Mind-reading, Decision-making. Dialogue and its Rhetorics in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus“, Zurich 23 May 2019 (Flyer).
Workshop Beginnings and Reconciliation (PDF, 104 KB), in cooperation with the Classics Department at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 15 November 2019. Bild1 (JPG, 148 KB)
Talks
„Impoliteness in Roman quarrels“ (F. Iurescia), Workshop: Pragmatik und literarische Analyse, Zurich 18 June 2016.
„Coherence and cohesion als heuristic tools“ (G. Martin), Workshop: Pragmatik und literarische Analyse, Zurich 18 June 2016.
„Stockende Gespräche in Theben“ (G. Martin), Inaugural Lecture, Zurich 14 November 2016.
„(Nicht immer) Eine Frage der Höflichkeit: Verbale Interaktion in der griechischen Tragödie“ (G. Martin), Guest Lecture, Marburg 16 January 2017.
„Impoliteness and Overpoliteness in Roman Confrontations“ (F. Iurescia), 19th International Colloquium of Latin Linguistics, Munich 26 April 2017. https://www.icll2017.badw.de/home.html
„Impoliteness in non-literary genres: the Colloquium Harleianum“ (F. Iurescia), Approaches to ancient Greek and Latin im/politeness, Madrid 26-27 Juni 2017.https://www.icca.eu/publicaciones/approaches-to-ancient-greek-and-latin/
„Freud und Leid im sophokleischen Aias" (S. Hof), Metageitnia 2018, Strasbourg 12-13 Januar 2018.
„Ende ohne Abschluss. Das Ende von Konfliktdialogen in der antiken Tragödie" (F. Iurescia, G. Martin), Metageitnia 2018, Strasbourg 12-13 Januar 2018.
„Language Ideology in Ancient Greek drama" (S. Hof), Language Use across Time, Padua 16-17 February 2018. http://www.historicalpragmatics2018.it/
„Closing conflicts: Discourse strategies across Greek and Roman Tragedies" (F. Iurescia, G. Martin), Language Use across Time, Padua 16-17 February 2018. http://www.historicalpragmatics2018.it/
„Dialogische Syntax im Aias-Prolog" (S. Hof), Doing Things with Words on Stage, Zurich 4-7 July 2018.
„La transformation de la question directrice dans l'Ajax de Sophocle", (S. Hof), Metageitnia 2019, Lausanne 18-19 January 2019.
„Rhetoric, Dike and Sophrosyne in the Agon of Sophocles' Ajax", (S. Hof), Mythos und Rhetorik: Neue Wege in der attischen Tragödie, Würzburg 1-2 March 2019.
„Multi-layered identity in two Sophoclean prologues", (S. Hof), CRASIS Annual Meeting & Master Class: Identity, Past and Present, Groningen 7-8 March 2019.
„A multiperspectival reading of the Antigone", (S. Hof), Guest seminar „Multiperspectivity and intersubjectivity in tragic dialogue" with Dr. Jon Hesk (University of St. Andrews), Zurich 23 May 2019.
Deadlock in Roman Tragedies", (F. Iurescia), Guest seminar „Multiperspectivity and intersubjectivity in tragic dialogue" with Dr. Jon Hesk (University of St. Andrews), Zurich 23 May 2019.
„Common Ground Management in Roman Tragic Dialogues", (F. Iurescia), 20th International Colloquium of Latin Linguistics, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 18 June 2019.
https://sites.google.com/site/20thicll2019/
„Sophoclean Beginnings", (S. Hof), Workshop „Beginnings and Reconciliation“, Amsterdam, 15 November 2019.
„The Metapragmatics of Reconciliation in Greek Tragedy", (G. Martin), Workshop „Beginnings and Reconciliation“, Amsterdam, 15 November 2019.
„Praestetur fides: Faked reconciliations in Roman Tragic Dialogues", (F. Iurescia), Workshop „Beginnings and Reconciliation“, Amsterdam, 15 November 2019.