Bilingualism in Cicero? The Evidence of Code-Switching

Swain, Simon

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245062.003.0006

Cited by 129 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…But we need to add some qualifications. We might label Cicero's code-switching more varied and more 'naturalistic', but this too is deliberate: even Cicero's most 'conversational' passages are carefully constructed and part of a strategy to promote, not biculturalism, but Romanness (Swain, 2002). Equally the more artificial and restricted code-switching we encounter in the Frontonian corpus does not necessarily mean that conversational code-switching was less commonly practised amongst the Roman elite of the mid-second century AD than in the mid-first century BC or that elite bilingualism was rarer.…”

Section: An Interpretation Of Code-switching In Fronto's Correspondencementioning

confidence: 99%

‘In both our languages’: Greek–Latin code-switching in Roman literature

Mullen

2015

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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After a short introduction to code-switching and Classics, this paper offers an overview of the phenomenon in Roman literature with some comments on possible generic restrictions, followed by a survey of Roman attitudes to the practice. The analysis then focuses on Roman letter writing and investigates code-switching in the secondcentury correspondence of Fronto (mainly letters between Marcus Aurelius, who became Emperor in AD 161, and his tutor Fronto). This discussion uses part of a new detailed database of Greek code-switches in Roman epistolography and is largely sociolinguistic in approach. It makes reference to comparanda in ancient and modern corpora where possible and highlights the value of code-switching research in responding to a range of (socio)linguistic, literary and historical questions. KeywordsGreek; Latin; code-switching; Roman literature; letters; Fronto; Cicero; Pliny Code-switching and ClassicsThe interaction of Greek and Latin languages and cultures is a defining feature of the Roman World and the majority of well-educated members of the western Roman elite were likely competent in both Latin and Greek language and literature (utraque lingua docti 'learned in both languages') during a large part of the late Republican and Imperial periods. Despite this, attitudes towards the Greek language oscillated between disdain and respect for what was considered one of their two languages. Roman commentators discussed this complex relationship and, though there was no rigid official linguistic policy, occasionally even Emperors made pronouncements on the appropriate use, or avoidance, of Greek: Tiberius, for example, rejects a Greek word in a senatorial decree and forbids testimony in Greek from a soldier (Suetonius Tiberius 71; Rochette, 1997).Studying Classics has always entailed an appreciation of this biculturalism but it is only more recently that we have fully engaged with modern bi-and multilingualism theory and practice and have more systematically extended our perspective beyond Latin and Greek, 1 literature and the elite (Adams, 2003;Biville et al., 2008;Cotton et al., 2009; Mullen and James, 2012;Mullen, 2013a). 3All the direct sources of linguistic code-switching for Classicists are written. Scholars have been at pains to demonstrate that the terminologies, models and concepts designed for bilingual speech can be applied, with caution, to the written evidence. In more optimistic moments some have ventured to suggest that our evidence might even be easier to handle than oral output. Swain notes that, whilst literature suffers from generic / stylistic interference effects and oral output is plagued by Labov's 'Observer's Paradox', ancient corpora such as Cicero's correspondence (that of a highly proficient balanced bilingual, written outside the constraints of 'high literature' and probably not intended for publication) might come 'close to solving a problem that besets research into oral communication ' (2002: 145 and spontaneity of the language of the author? Sociolinguists strugg...

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Section: An Interpretation Of Code-switching In Fronto's Correspondencementioning

confidence: 99%

‘In both our languages’: Greek–Latin code-switching in Roman literature

Mullen

2015

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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“…A thorough command of Greek was an essential mark of a civilized Roman (Kaimio 1979: 47;Parker 1983;Dubuisson 1985Dubuisson , 1992Calboli 1990;Biville 2002;Swain 2002;Adams 2003).…”

Section: Development Of Be/have Periphrasis In Latinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of auxiliation in the perfects of Europe

Drinka

2013

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This paper explores the complex role of language contact in the development of be and have auxiliation in the periphrastic perfects of Europe. Beginning with the influence of Ancient Greek on Latin, it traces the spread of the category across western Europe and identifies the Carolingian scribal tradition as largely responsible for extending the use of the be perfect alongside the have perfect across Charlemagne’s realm. Outside that territory, by contrast, in “peripheral” areas like Iberia, Southern Italy, and England, have came to be used as the only perfect auxiliary. Within the innovating core area, a further innovation began in Paris in the 12th century and spread to contiguous areas in France, Southern Germany, and northern Italy: the semantic shift in the perfects from anterior to preterital meaning. What can be concluded from these three successive instances of diffusion in the history of the perfect is that contact should be regarded as one of the essential “multiple sources” of innovation, and as a fundamental explanatory mechanism for language change.

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“…12 The question of ancient 'bilingualism' is perhaps too often analogized to modern, globalized linguistic situations. Seele 1995: 89-101;Swain 2002). When a translation from Greek, of a letter of Epiphanius of Salamis, was criticized for its looseness, Jerome penned a treatise 'On the Best Method of Translating' (the title of which was meant to recall Cicero's treatise on orators: Bartelink 1980).…”

Section: Capital(s)mentioning

confidence: 99%

'What Has Rome to do with Bethlehem?' Cultural Capital(s) and Religious Imperialism in Late Ancient Christianity

Jacobs¹

2011

Classical Receptions Journal

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The re-evaluation of classical education (paideia) recurred throughout the Roman period, reaching a particularly fevered pitch during the late fourth century, as the empire became Christian. The political consequences of Christian learning become particularly clear in the debate between two learned, Latin-speaking Christians who translated Greek works: Jerome and Rufinus. In the course of their acrimonious conflict over the theological legacy of Origen, these two prominent intellectuals resorted to name-calling: Jerome accused Rufinus of being unlearned, and Rufinus claimed that Jerome's erudition signalled impiety. These accusations over education, culture, and linguistic expertise convey a deeper anxiety over the nature of knowledge and power at the dawn of the Christian Roman Empire. To what extent can Christians appropriate and transform the knowledge of 'others'? When is translation an act of piety and when it is an act of hubris? What kinds of cultural capital will be valued in a newly Christian world, where classical paideia is valued and held suspect at the same time? Paideia In his 1964 novel Julian, Gore Vidal imagined the University days of his eponymous subject, Julian the Apostate, in Athens: trading Aristotelian witticisms with Gregory and Basil (future bishops from Cappadocia), romancing (and impregnating) his professor's niece, covering for Gregory when he is caught stealing scrolls from the library: 'I remember every one of the forty-seven days I spent in Athens,' Vidal has Julian recall. 'They were the happiest of my life, so far' (Vidal 1964: 126). In the imaginary Athens of Vidal's Julian, culture, education, and religion are inseparable: not only does Basil debate the Virgin Birth with Cynics 'on the

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Bilingualism in Cicero? The Evidence of Code-Switching

Cited by 129 publications

References 95 publications

‘In both our languages’: Greek–Latin code-switching in Roman literature

‘In both our languages’: Greek–Latin code-switching in Roman literature

Sources of auxiliation in the perfects of Europe

'What Has Rome to do with Bethlehem?' Cultural Capital(s) and Religious Imperialism in Late Ancient Christianity

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