Series |
Lexis Supplements
Edited book | Everyday Communication in Antiquity: Frames and Framings
Chapter | Spacing Out Speech Acts
Spacing Out Speech Acts
Textual Units and Their Visual Organization in Greek Letters on Papyrus
Abstract
This study explores the textual and visual organisation of Greek letters on papyrus. While previous scholarship has focused on cataloguing formulaic elements in epistolary texts, it has often overlooked how these elements, along with other linguistic features such as discourse particles, tense-aspect marking, and pronouns, provide cues for discourse segmentation. This contribution discusses the preliminary results of an annotation framework designed to capture these aspects more effectively and examines the correspondences between generic structure and pragmatic concepts such as ‘speech act’. In the second part of the study, we identify various layout elements that contribute to the visual organisation of the texts. We preliminarily assess how sensitive writers were to the type of speech act being expressed and the ways in which visual cues were used to emphasise certain thematic blocks within the letters. This integrated analysis offers new insights into the complex interactional form of communication presented by ancient letters.
Submitted: July 9, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 24, 2024 | Published April 24, 2025 | Language: en
Keywords Text segmentation • Layout • Discourse analysis • Speech acts • Greek letters
Copyright © 2025 Klaas Bentein, Marta Capano. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-886-6/004
