Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword (David Langslow)
- PART I THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
- PART II EARLY LATIN
- 6 Possessive pronouns in Plautus
- 7 Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial language: between literary and epigraphical texts
- 8 Colloquial and literary language in early Roman tragedy
- 9 The fragments of Cato's Origines
- PART III CLASSICAL LATIN
- PART IV EARLY PRINCIPATE
- PART V LATE LATIN
- Abbreviations
- References
- Subject index
- Index verborum
- Index locorum
- References
7 - Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial language: between literary and epigraphical texts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 April 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword (David Langslow)
- PART I THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
- PART II EARLY LATIN
- 6 Possessive pronouns in Plautus
- 7 Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial language: between literary and epigraphical texts
- 8 Colloquial and literary language in early Roman tragedy
- 9 The fragments of Cato's Origines
- PART III CLASSICAL LATIN
- PART IV EARLY PRINCIPATE
- PART V LATE LATIN
- Abbreviations
- References
- Subject index
- Index verborum
- Index locorum
- References
Summary
GREETING AND FAREWELL EXPRESSIONS AS INDIVIDUAL ACTS AND SOCIAL PERFORMANCE
Greetings and farewells are among the most conspicuous aspects of interpersonal interaction in many different cultures and thus are a constant subject of anthropological, ethnological and sociological interest. From a linguistic perspective such expressions belong to colloquial language in its broadest sense, as they are inextricably connected to conversation and dialogue. Greetings and farewells are founded on a system of verbal interaction between individuals that varies according to cultural conventions, context, and the status and relationship of the interlocutors. To a much greater extent than most linguistic features, they require an interlocutor – though the interlocutor may not be actually present. Greetings and farewells also tend to come in clusters: the first interlocutor to utter one expects a reply or other reaction adequate or commensurate to it. Consequently these expressions are individual acts that belong to ritual performance governed by social conventions, meaning that speakers have a relatively limited freedom of linguistic choice (cf. Letessier 2000).
Indeed in modern western societies a speaker greeting or taking leave of a given person in a given context has a rather restricted set of options, such as ‘hello’, ‘hi’, ‘good morning’, and ‘goodbye’. These formulae often cannot be literally translated between languages because their meaning comes not from their lexical significance but from conventions that are strictly language-specific (cf. Cardona 1976: 205).
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- Information
- Colloquial and Literary Latin , pp. 100 - 126Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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