Heteroglossia of Corinth in the Roman Period

Abstract

Abstract This chapter offers an alternative reading through the lens of a heteroglossic-immigrant mode of reading. It first discusses Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of centripetal and centrifugal forces of language. Through a Bakhtinian framework, this chapter attempts to reimagine the sociolinguistic situation of the city of Corinth in the Roman period. It looks into the practice of slavery in the Greco-Roman world; the trade from and to Corinth; the Isthmian games; the existence of the Jewish, Samaritan, and Egyptian communities; and specific foreign names that appear in inscriptions from the Roman period. The existence of non-Greek- and Latin-speaking people in Roman Corinth should be taken seriously in reconstructing the sociolinguistic situation of this city. Such a social context would have had a direct consequence on the sociolinguistic make-up of early followers of Jesus in Corinth to whom Paul wrote his letter.