Lexis Supplementi Studi di Letteratura Greca e Latina | Studi di Filosofia Antica |
Fonti, testi e commenti

Collana | Lexis Supplementi
Miscellanea | Everyday Communication in Antiquity: Frames and Framings
Capitolo | Spacing Out Speech Acts

Spacing Out Speech Acts

Textual Units and Their Visual Organisation 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.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 09 Luglio 2024 | Accettato: 24 Settembre 2024 | Pubblicato 24 Aprile 2025 | Lingua: en

Keywords Greek lettersDiscourse analysisLayoutSpeech actsText segmentation


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