observo una pieza gráfica de american airlines, “you just can’t download this”, en la que aparecen
1.1. sobre la net generation/millennials/nativos digitales y el mito de la generación disruptiva
1.2.1.1 The link between orally conceived poetry and naturally spoken language
The line of research which I find inspiring for a linguistic approach of the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry as a whole departs from the observation that there are more parallels between orally conceived poetry and naturally spoken language than usually thought. Although I have just warned that the term “oral” in the “oral-formulaic style hypothesis” refers to a stylistic issue, c.q. formulas, and cannot be considered entirely synonymous with “spoken”, I do believe that orally conceived poetry, like the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry, and naturally spoken language have a lot in common:“When we present a spoken discourse, with its oral conception, as text, we tend to think of that text as ‘primitive’ or, in another context, as ‘archaic’, without realising that when we talk ourselves, our own discourse, when transcribed and presented in written form, may look very similar” (Bakker 1999: 33)
In comparison to language with a written conception, the information is presented less densely and imparted in smaller chunks in naturally spoken language. The reason for this different organisation is evident: readers can read a text at their own speed and are
even able to reread passages, while in spoken discourse information has to be processed at once. Thus, the cognitive principles of producing and processing language are similar for orally conceived poetry on the one hand and naturally spoken language on the other.
The validity of the comparison between orally conceived poetry and naturally spoken language has already been recognised with regard to other medieval European vernacular literatures that have preserved “oral echoes” (cf. supra 1.1.2.4.2):
“A number of recent studies have argued that the primarily oral discourse of medieval texts shares some of the pragmatic features of contemporary oral discourse and that the tools of discourse analysis provide a fuller explication of the functions of these oral features than has been provided by traditional explanations” (Brinton 1996: 5f.; my italics)
“Many of the linguistic ‘peculiarities’ of the medieval texts which we now read with an unavoidable belles-lettristic bias have analogues in the ‘natural’ narratives
of everyday interaction (...) What remains is to convince medievalists concerned
with the linguistic problems posed by their texts of the relevance to their research of the discourse work currently being done on natural narrative” (Fleischman 1985: 873f.; my italics)
As Brinton and Fleishman both warn, linguists with a rather traditional (i.e. written biased) perspective are often unable to deal with the singularities of orally conceived texts: these are considered peculiar or even blatantly wrong. However, these “peculiarities” would become understandable when adopting a theoretical framework that recognises the resemblances between orally conceived poetry and naturally spoken language. The theoretical framework which I consider ideal for this aim is the modern linguistic theory of Information Structure (IS), which has been founded on the basis of contemporary spoken (!) languages and attaches great importance to pragmatics. So, my analysis of the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry will be couched in IS (cf. infra chapter 2).
1.2.1.2 Homeric speech
However, I must confess that I am not the first one applying concepts from this framework developed on the basis of spoken living languages to so-called dead languages. As a matter of fact, a recent line of linguistic research on the Homeric poetry has adopted an IS perspective, resulting in a number of illuminating studies (Slings 1992;
Bakker 1990a&b & 1997a&b; Janse 1998a; 2003 & 2012; Allan 2009).43 These have led to
groundbreaking insights into Homeric language: they have altered the status of key features, such as metre, formulas and enjambments, and made us rethink our conception of Homeric discourse. In other words: they contributed to a much more natural conception of Homeric language. Katz (2003: 621), for instance, refers to the pioneering character of these linguistic studies:
“Some of the most interesting recent work in Indo-European studies looks at not just “normal” language, which is the usual object of most linguistic research, but also forms of speech, like poetry, that are delivered in an exceptional context”
He explicitly mentions the research on the Homeric poetry as an example.
The importance of Bakker can hardly be overestimated in this context. Indeed, it is Bakker who has most extensively elaborated the idea of a parallel between the Homeric language and the naturally spoken language. He explicitly relates Homeric poetry to naturally spoken language, as the title of his book “Poetry in Speech (Orality and Homeric Discourse)” betrays (Bakker 1997a). Basically, he approaches phenomena which were considered purely “metrical” from a cognitive-linguistic perspective, namely from an IS perspective. In Bakker’s (1997: 304b) view, even formulas essentially reflect natural speech: “Formulas derive from the very nature of spoken language, as a regularization of its basic segment, the cognitively determined intonation unit” (cf. for more on the intonation unit, see infra 2.3). This is confirmed by recent research on modern spoken languages: we might be surprised to know how much of our everyday language consists of “formulaic patterns” (Wray & Perkins 2000).44
1.2.1.3 Stylised speech
Of course, both types of discourse, i.e. orally conceived poetry and naturally spoken language, cannot simply be equated with each other, as Bakker (1999: 37f.) immediately alerts: “Such an analysis does not aim at a simple equation of Homeric discourse and
ordinary speech. On the contrary, Homer is highly stylised, artful speech, rhythmically
43 Before continuing, I want to make clear that the Iliad and Odyssey are not the only Ancient Greek texts which
have already been subject to successful pragmatic studies couched in IS. I will refer to other IS-related studies on Ancient Greek in chapter 5, which contains my actual analysis of the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry; cf. infra 5.2.1.1 & 5.3.1.
very sophisticated”. Hence, Bakker (1997b: 300) labels the Homeric language “special speech” or stylised speech. Beaton (1980: 43) shows the same awareness:
“formulas in Greek songs are not fixed and memorised units but may be derived (...) from a system, or a series of systems, of stylised language and syntax (...) from the underlying system, which can be more generally defined as a stylisation of language according to fixed patterns” (Beaton 1980: 43; my italics)
In the same vein, Brinton (1996: 8) talks about pragmatic or discourse markers in Old English orally conceived narratives (for more on pragmatic/discourse markers, see infra 2.5):
“I investigate whether medieval narrative might be structured much like contemporary oral narrative and whether these linguistic features might be functionally motivated in ways analogous to pragmatic markers in Modern English discourse (...) However, I recognise that the function of oral features in the written texts of Old and Middle English may be somewhat different from the function of comparable features in the strictly oral discourse of Modern English, perhaps being used self-consciously as stylised pragmatic markers” (Brinton 1996: 8; my italics)
We have seen that the Iliad and Odyssey show some similarities with the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry: beside being composed in a metre, the Homeric language too abounds with formulas and also contains a mixture of linguistic elements. This initially led to an equation of the two traditions (cf. supra 1.1.2.3.1). Nowadays, however, it is firmly established that the genesis of the Homeric epics and that of the LMG πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry is fundamentally different: the epics testify to primary orality, whereas the πολιτικὸς στίχος poetry is the conscious product of literate poets and bears the reflections of secondary orality (cf. supra 1.1.2.4.1). Nonetheless, what matters is that both types of poetry are orally conceived (the Homeric epics being medially oral as well). Hence, it is justified to consider this IS-based research on the Homeric language a useful parallel and a source of inspiration for my purpose, which I will now elucidate.