When the Gods Speak: Oracular Communication and Concepts of Language in Sophocles

Sophocles;oracular language;pragmatic linguistic theory;Greek tragedy;Classical Studies;Humanities;Classical Studies

Pistone, AmyJanko, Richard ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Sophocles;    oracular language;    pragmatic linguistic theory;    Greek tragedy;    Classical Studies;    Humanities;    Classical Studies;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/138792/apistone_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Oracles in Sophoclean tragedies are consistently misunderstood, not because the gods speak in out-and-out lies, but because they communicate in a decidedly non-human mode that appears to violate the unwritten rules of effective human conversation. I use pragmatic linguistic theory to examine how oracles are misunderstood, since pragmatics is concerned precisely with these unwritten rules—how context, inferences, and implications complement the basic semantic content of language. These non-semantic elements are conspicuously absent from oracular communication, which leads to misinterpretation. I examine how the liminality and strangeness of oracular speech afford Sophocles the flexibility to explore the different components of language. Oracular speech—precisely because it is not bound by the rules of ;;normal” speech—offers a context in which pragmatic principles can fail and artificially constructed miscommunications can ;;break” pragmatic rules. By exploring the limits of communication and miscommunication, Sophocles illustrates exactly those guiding principles that underlie effective communication.