Politeness in early Ptolemaic papyri: a frame-based approach

Abstract

This paper deals with the expression of linguistic politeness in early Hellenistic documentary papyri, through a data-oriented approach exploiting the notion of “frame” (cf. Terkourafi 2001), which accounts for politeness in terms of regular correlations between forms and contexts. The study focuses on a subset of epistolary types, i.e., ordinary business letters, recommendations and petitions, considering those situational and expressive features that make them distinct frames of interaction. Deviances from the frame of the petition within the corpus are then taken into account and evaluated in terms of impoliteness or rudeness.