6533b82cfe1ef96bd128e900

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Osservazioni sociolinguistiche sulla commedia di Aristofane

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In a sociolinguistic perspective, this paper deals with the Aristophanic use of the technical languages, given that according to some recent research there is no room for them in this author. Our approach to the matter focuses on two technical languages, viz. medical and rhetorical. Methodologically, in our opinion the main attention must be paid to the philological analysis of the textual evidence, always by means of the contrast of the attested linguistic data related to different sociolects. We also suggest that this analysis must not be limited to the lexical level, as if technical languages were only determined by a special word selection. In both technical languages, medical and rhetorical, the Aristophanic comedies show a conscious borrowing and use of several terms and structures whose specialized function can be proved by texts from the Hippocratic corpus, Antiphon and the Athenian contemporary Kanzleisprache.