Approaches to Language and Style

This paper introduces a quantitative method for analyzing genre in Latin literature. Using computational techniques drawn from machine learning, we show how traditional generic categories, such as epic or oratory, possess distinctive stylistic signatures reflected in grammatical and syntactic preferences. The paper describes the set of twenty-six stylometric features used in the study, which encompass pronouns, superlatives, and markers of subordination, among others.

The underrepresentation of women in STEM dominates current debates about gender inequity in the academy. But while systemic barriers are more prevalent in the sciences, cross-disciplinary analysis reveals that this is not the whole story: women are represented well in some science fields and poorly in some humanistic disciplines. What accounts for gender differentials not just between STEM and the humanities, but between different subfields in disciplines like classics?

The spells of the Greek magical papyri exhort magicians to make a variety of odd sounds: hisses, claps, laughs, popping noises, drawn-out vowels, imitations of birds and animals, and of course the voces magicae, the largely unintelligible magical utterances which make up a significant portion of some texts. While the voces magicae have long been the subject of discussion, the complexity of the other utterances has received more scrutiny in recent years.

This paper aims to provide a methodological framework for the discussion of ‘vividness’ in Greek lyric by applying cognitive approaches not previously used in Classics (Text World Theory and Texture). With close readings of select fragments of Alcaeus, ‘vividness’ in Greek lyric is explored through the examination of the cognitive effects of deixis for described – rather than performed – contexts.

Varro played a crucial role in developing the notion of natura both as a formal criterion of correct speech (Latinitas) and more generally as a means of conceiving of the regularity (ratio/analogia) of language: the nature of speech (natura orationis) mirrored the nature of the cosmos (natura mundi). Garcea (2012) has shown that Varro’s concept of natura differed significantly from that of Caesar; additionally, Varro’s theory has little in common with Epicurean or neo-Atticist formulations of “natural” language.