This will be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of those interested in the ways in which social relationships in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds are managed. Drawing on recent scholarship in Pragmatics, Conversation Analysis and Computational Linguistics and taking as exemplars not only texts by canonical authors, such as Plato, Euripides, Cicero and Plautus, but also non-literary sources, this collection offers us insights into how politeness and impoliteness were conveyed and perceived in those worlds.
The volume emerges from a conference, ‘Approaches to Greek and Latin Im/Politeness’, organised by the editors at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in June 2017. As a conference collection it is outstanding. To be sure, the contributors, Hellenists and Latinists, focus on different authors or different resources and take different approaches to the topic. But it is clear that they have worked together with the editors (and with each other) with a common objective: to produce a volume that introduces us to new developments in im/politeness research, that demonstrates how they may be applied and that proposes research directions for the future.
In Chapter 1 (‘Im/Politeness Research in Ancient Greek and Latin: Concepts, Methods, Data’) – a fine contribution, supplemented by a useful glossary (pp. 366‒7) – Unceta Gómez and Berger introduce readers to the ways in which we might view im/politeness. The chapter begins with a useful ‘history’ of developments in the field of politeness research, showing us where the study of politeness began (with Robin Lakoff and, later, Geoffrey Leech's ‘Politeness Principle’ [pp. 6‒7]); its next stage of development (the influential 1978 and 1987 studies by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, which revolve around the concept of positive and negative ‘face’); and where it is now (the ‘discursive turn’, and ‘second-wave’ and ‘third-wave’ theories [pp. 16‒20]). Alongside these theoretical approaches emerging out of the discipline of Pragmatics, Unceta Gómez and Berger introduce Conversation Analysis, the emic perspective of which allows for a more nuanced understanding of im/politeness.
As the authors acknowledge, we face clear difficulties when trying to identify im/politeness in the ancient world: we lack native speakers (p. 28); politeness phenomena are linked to the values of the elite (p. 36); and the literary texts that have survived to us are highly polished (are we hearing ‘real oral productions’ [p. 25]?). The following chapters attempt to overcome these difficulties, approaching the texts that have survived in innovative ways.
Part 2, ‘The Expression of Im/Politeness’, begins with a comparison of Greek and Roman politeness systems, taking directives as the subject of a quantitative study. P. Barrios-Lech, in Chapter 2, compares the use of softeners with directives in the plays of Menander and Plautus and concludes that Romans were more likely than Greek speakers to soften these forms. He observes too that both societies are positive-politeness cultures: neither relies much on conventional indirectness (p. 75). In Chapter 3 C. Denizot examines politeness markers in requests (‘How to be Polite without Saying “Please” in Classical Greek? The Role of δή in Polite Requests’). She observes that δή signals a request that is natural and obvious in the context, where there is a low level of imposition (p. 101). Here, as in Chapter 2, cross-linguistic comparisons are instructive. In Chapter 4, ‘Text as Interaction’, F. Mencacci, examining the way in which Cicero uses the phrase ut mihi videtur in dialogic works such as De oratore, concludes that it is a hedging device, a textual mark of polite behaviour related to social standing: in Mencacci's words ‘a special personal refinement’ that may even be a ‘device for self-presentation and self-assertion’ (pp. 125‒6). R. Ferri in Chapter 5, ‘Politeness Formulae in Roman Non-Literary Sources: The Case of Juridical Texts’, considers dialogue in court minutes from the Roman period (first century ce) preserved in the acts of ecclesiastical councils or in anthologies of ancient jurisprudence. Even abridged and edited, these documents are reliable and realistic resources: Ferri draws out a range of polite address forms and other polite protocols used when asking the court's permission, expressing disagreement or managing interruptions.
Part 3, ‘Im/Politeness in Use’, is less interested in the formulation of strategies for politeness and more interested in their effects. M. Lloyd in Chapter 6, ‘Friendship Terms in Plato’, takes issue with E. Dickey's conclusion regarding friendship terms in Socratic dialogues. Dickey has proposed that friendship terms are mostly used by the dialogue's ‘dominant character’, Socrates (pp. 147‒8). Lloyd takes issue too with S. Halliwell's claim that friendship terms convey affection or attachment (p. 148). From his insightful study of the presence or absence of such terms in the Phaedrus Lloyd concludes that the use of an affiliative friendship term is a negative politeness strategy intended to mitigate face-threatening acts. But he suggests too that, although friendship terms in other dialogues (notably the Gorgias) may be formally polite, they are not necessarily polite in overall effect, as the hearer explicitly takes offence at what has been said (p. 173). These observations of the relational effect of friendship terms move us into ‘second-wave’ theories of politeness. In Chapter 7, ‘Conversational Openings and Politeness in Menander: an Integrated Pragmatic Approach to Menandrian Dialogue’, G. Sorrentino considers dialogue openings through a combination of Conversation Analysis, Speech-Act Theory and Im/Politeness Research. She observes that the choice of one communicative strategy over another depends on the relative power and the social distance between speaker and addressee, as Brown and Levinson (1987) identified. A master/slave interaction, for example, would feature a bald on-record opening; but, where characters know each other, strategies of positive politeness predominate (pp. 199‒200). Berger in Chapter 8, ‘Im/Politeness of Interruptions in Roman Comedy’, considers interruptions in the comedies of Plautus and Terence in terms of the participants’ understanding of the ongoing action: who tries to take control and who challenges and rebukes those attempts. A study of interruptions may thus illuminate the social organisation depicted in these plays (pp. 225‒6).
A ‘second-wave’, discursive approach to dialogue marks E. van Emde Boas's absorbing Chapter 9 (‘Im/Politeness and Conversation Analysis in Greek Tragedy: the Case of Theseus and the Herald in Euripides’ Supplices’). Focusing on the importance of context, he demonstrates through examples drawn from tragedy that im/politeness may be directed at ‘the externally imposed requirements of a discourse situation as much as it is attuned to personal “face”’ (p. 240). From this position he analyses the exchange between Theseus, the Theban herald, and Adrastus at Supplices 566–84 as a manifestation of international diplomacy without concern for the ‘face’ of either speaker (p. 246): a revealing exercise. In Chapter 10, ‘Qui Honoris Causa Nominatur: Form and Function of Third-Party Politeness in Cicero’, L. van Gils and R. Risselada address an overlooked area in Politeness Studies: third-party politeness, where the ‘face’ of a third party may be at stake (p. 249). They discuss three case studies from Cicero's works, drawing our attention to the care with which Cicero attempted to save the face of friends – and his own. This habit, they conclude, is a convention in upper-class Roman interactions of a public nature, particularly in conflict situations.
This section is concluded with J. Hall's nicely observed ‘Banter, Teasing and Politeness in Varro's De Re Rustica’ (Chapter 11). As Hall notes, banter is a hazardous conversational option: it can lead to misunderstandings, and it can disrupt social solidarity. There is a darker side too: teasing can be a form of social aggression (pp. 273‒4). To explore these claims Hall considers social interaction in Varro's literary dialogue, De re rustica, which leavens its didactic passages with conversational exchanges between the participants. Hall takes eight examples, confirming the status of each example as a tease by identifying elements of provocation and playfulness. In Varro's spoken exchanges, which, Hall observes, must have their roots in actual conversation (p. 291), he finds examples of both collaborative teasing – the kind of give-and-take exchange in which the addressee develops an idea offered by the first speaker – and one-sided teases, which may be more provocative than playful and may be associated with displays of masculinity. In Varro, however, they are never disruptive; rather, the fiction of impoliteness through teasing conveys intimacy. Thus, Varro offers another useful perspective on sociability in the Roman world of the late Republic.
Part 4, ‘Ancient Perceptions on Im/Politeness’, provides an emic perspective. In Chapter 12, ‘Being Polite the Roman Way: Comments about Im/Politeness in the Comedies of Plautus and Terence’, Unceta Gómez uses the evidence of comedy, where we find comments from addressees or observers on the im/politeness of a given utterance. The strength of this chapter lies in its exploration of an underlying Roman ‘moral order’ (p. 296) through an examination of expectations across society, expectations within communities of practice (the elite, for example, or courtesans and parasites) and localised norms, drawing on examples from comedy to illustrate each category. This use of these resources allows scholars to test and improve theories of im/politeness in these ancient societies. In Chapter 13, ‘Impoliteness outside Literature: The Colloquium Harleianum’, F. Iurescia turns to bilingual teaching materials for ancient learners of Latin and Greek. These texts are designed to teach the learner (whether a Greek- or a Latin-speaker) how to interact with others in the second language in everyday situations. On the basis of the Latin examples examined Iurescia shows that these dialogues confirm general trends that literature chooses to mirror (p. 337). In the final chapter A. Zago turns to ancient scholarship (Chapter 14, ‘Politeness in Ancient Scholarship’) – a vast corpus of material that has the potential to offer us valuable insights into im/politeness in the texts on which ancient scholars have chosen to comment. Zago focuses on a small number of tropes, making good use of Donatus as a resource. Charientismos (expressing something hard-to-say in more pleasant terms), astismos (‘witty elegance’) and reticentia (the use of a vague expression in order to avoid offence) are off-record politeness strategies that speakers use to avoid face-threatening acts or linguistic taboos and to make their addressees better disposed towards them.
The editors’ ambition is that that this collection will offer ‘new interpretations of known phenomena, by applying different analytic tools or by identifying new areas and objects of study’ (p. 40). Their second aim is that the volume will offer readers ‘a wide view of the richness and variety of Im/Politeness research in Classical languages’ (p. 41). On both counts they have succeeded. This is an instructive, absorbing and pleasing collection, which, taken together, opens our eyes to linguistic subtleties in texts we thought we knew well.
