Formulaic Style Research Articles

‘Going through all these things twice’: the repeated phrase and the refrain in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde

Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1343–1400) repeated phrases are a conundrum. Nancy Mason Bradbury has referred to them as ‘formulas’; Derek Brewer has described Chaucer’s poems as having a ‘traditional formulaic style’. But why would a literate poet make use of a device that tends to be associated with orality? This paper offers an alternative comparandum for Chaucer’s repeated phrases: the refrain. As well as writing narrative poetry, Chaucer acknowledges at the end of The Canterbury tales that during his career he has written ‘many a song and many a leccherous lay’ (‘many a song and many a lascivious ditty’). Few of these songs survive, but one in particular—a ballade known as ‘To Rosemounde’—shows Chaucer to have a keen facility with the paradoxical potential of the refrain. ‘To Rosemounde’ survives in only one manuscript copy, paired with Chaucer’s narrative poem Troilus and Criseyde. This manuscript pairing, and Chaucer’s frequent presentation of Troilus and Criseyde itself as a ‘song’, invites a comparison of the poem’s repeated phrases to the refrains of a song lyric. In Troilus, phrases that are repeated at crucial moments—such as ‘I can no more’ and ‘without more’—emulate refrains by holding repetition and closure in an unstable synthesis.

The Lexical Domains of Ugliness and Aesthetic Horror in the Old English Formulaic Style

Even though as of late there has been a renewed interest in the aesthetic ideals in early Medieval England, the conceptualisation and experience of ugliness in Old English sources has been largely neglected. Drawing on the recent research carried out on aesthetic emotions and folk aesthetics, and despite the lack of academic materials on artistic and literary canons of ugliness, the purpose of this paper is to look into the terms that rendered the experience of ugliness and its closest emotional response, aesthetic horror, in order to examine how these are employed in poetic texts. The findings from this study evidence a lack of use of terms for negative aesthetic experience in Old English poetry that suggests that the lexical domain of ugliness and related emotional responses were not fundamental constituents of the Old English formulaic style, while the lexical domain of beauty and its responses were. Additionally, this study highlights the fundamentally moral character of the idea of ugliness.

Formulaic Language and Style of Turkic Zhyrau of the 15-18th Centuries

The article reveals the importance of studying the formulaic style in the oral epic culture of Kazakh (Turkic) zhyrau of the 15-18th centuries. The purpose of the article is to identify the specificity of the formulaic language and the style of the epic tradition of these singers, as well as to show the degree of their knowledge, based on the principles of oral theory by M. Parry and A. Lord and their followers. Zhyrau are singers of the times of the Golden Horde and the foundation of the Kazakh Khanate. In the analysis of the ancient forms of their epic thinking; the genesis of genres, principles of performance and transmission of tradition, formulaic style plays a major role. The method of discourse analysis, system review, referencing, comparative analysis, and the methods of previous researchers were applied in the study. The novelty is that the formulaic style was first studied on the oral material of the zhyrau dated the 15-18th centuries, where stable units are represented by a formula – the basis of the epic style and an important means of the singer’s oral-style technique. The theoretical significance of the article and its relevance, is based on a broad discussion of oral theory, and at the same time on its effectiveness and efficiency in studying the Kazakh (Turkic) epic tradition. The practical value of the research gives its results in the analysis of language and style, the distinction of styles and genres of zhyrau from other bearers of Turkic poetic culture. The Parry-Lord formulaic grammar can be applied both for the study of Turkic languages and to the quality of artistic translation.

К вопросу о формировании французского письменно-литературного языка

The paper investigates the language of Old French business writing of the 13th centu-ry. Old French charters are analyzed from the standpoint of functional stylistics as well as the theory of genesis of a written literary language so as to specify their linguistic peculiarities and their contribution to the standardization and unification which took place in the French lan-guage during its prenational period. Research into the language and composition of the 13th century charters has revealed that written business French of the prenational period is characterized by a formulaic style and has its own established traditions both in the composition and language. It has also been stat-ed that verb tense forms in the charters are highly standardized and to some extent contrast with the variability of their meaning and usage in Old French texts of all other genres. Fur-ther, it has been established that the charters syntactic patterns are much more diverse than those that can be found in any other writing of the period. The charters’ lexical study has shown that their vocabulary is quite extensive. This refutes the wide-spread opinion in Ro-mance philology that business texts use a restricted vocabulary. Text analysis in its turn has shown that distinctive features of business style are already present in the business texts of the Old French period. Thus, the results of the study revealed the influence of the Old French business language on standardization of written French as early as in its pre-national period.

Two folktales (Vampire beings in Greek folktales)

This paper attempts to elaborate how the vampire theme is conceptualized in Greek folktales. It’s a case study of the Greek folk tales: “Gelloudi” and “The Lamia bride” found in the compilation Paramythokores (2002). The folktale complies with a strict formulaic style of oral narration and the most time-resilient elements of storytelling are the motifs that create the story. We find similar or echoing motifs in folktales globally; some motifs are darker than others, enhancing the agony and thrill of storytelling. Concerning the Greek folktale, the research led to the classification of six dark motifs. Bloodsucking creatures such as Strigla (in Latin: Strigula, Strix), Gello (gelloudi) and Lamia are found in the dark motif of the supernatural. The tales, in this case study, are horror stories, in a sense, but they evolve in a broad form of narration, depriving the reader of gruesome details and delivering a cathartic ending. The vampire theme is not dominating in the first folktale as a result of the combination of three folktale types, whereas the second one focuses solely on this theme. In both cases the creatures are female attacking animals, men and community, symbolizing the heavy price of the birth of a girl in the family, as it was perceived in these traditional communities. A baby girl and a new bride, attack the world of men. They are powerful and feared, they are ‘horse-eaters’ symbolizing the threat of depriving the established status for men, first by eating their horse and then by eating them.

Period-specific differences of style in Haribhaṭṭa’s “Garland of Jātakas” and in the “Avadāna-Śataka” (based on the deer jātaka)

The article examines the evolution of style traced in Sanskrit literature during the development of the genre of jātaka – the story of a previous life of Buddha – at an early stage of the genre's existence, represented by the anonymous collection “Avadāna-Śataka” (around 2nd century AD), and at the stage of the developed author literature, an example of which is the “Garland of Jātakas” by Haribhaṭṭa (4th to 5th centuries AD). The pre-literary jātaka in the Pali language is fairly well studied, while the literary works we consider here, being significant for the tradition, have hardly been studied in Russian science at all. Consideration of “Avadāna-Śataka” was carried out using the approaches of epic studies applied by Pavel Grintser to the “Mahābhārata” and “Rāmāyana”, which allowed us to reveal here the traces of the formulaic style characteristic of the oral existence of texts. These traces, however, are residual and indicate the stylisation of the text to the oral style of the pre-literary jātakas included in the Buddhist canon. In general, the text style is simple and monotonous; repetitions, catalogues and formulae are often found in it. We find a clear contrast to this picture in Haribhaṭṭa’s “Garland of Jātakas”, where features of the high court Sanskrit literature of the classical period (4th to 5th centuries AD) are obvious, to which this work has been proved to belong by indirect evidence. The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the two literary works from the standpoint of historical poetics.

Areal variation in Middle High German

AbstractUsing theCorpus der altdeutschen Originalurkunden‘Corpus of Old German Original Charters’ (Wilhelm et al. 1932–2004), we will show that charters offer valuable information on dialectological differences during the Middle High German period. This text genre is unsurpassed in terms of its geographical resolution even though it faces certain challenges due to its partially formulaic style. With two well-known phenomena, i.e. inflected forms of the infinitive (‘gerunds’) and so-called ‘contracted’ verbs likehaben/hân‘have’, we will show how these materials can be analysed and put into perspective with other sources like the newMittelhochdeutsche GrammatikbyKlein, Solms & Wegera (2018).

The theme in oral poetry as exemplified by the Faroese Ragnars Táttur

The theme as well as the formula is one of two basic elements of Parry and Lord’s theory. A. B. Lord defines the “themes” of oral poetry as “the groups of ideas regularly used in telling a tale in the formulaic style of traditional song”. The theme happens to be a bilateral unit having both the plane of content and the plane of expression. The presence of the plane of content is self-evident and axiomatic. The theme in oral Faroese poetry possesses also the plane of expression. The proof of this statement is the fact that the realization of the same theme or some similar themes in different ballads or within the same piece of oral poetry presupposes the use of the same units of the lower level i.e., formulas and repetitions. The theme is a bilateral unit having its proper position in the unit system of the poetic language. It boasts its own level status. From the point of view of the level structure, the theme occupies the medium place between the formulas and the whole text. The interaction of the theme and both neighboring levels may be described as whole-part relationship. To the means of formula technique, formulas and repetitions, the theme behaves as the whole; to the text it plays the role of a part. Such a hierarchical structure creates the effect that the features of some units within this system influence the features of other units.

UNDERSTANDING THE GENRE FEATURES OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: A CASE STUDY

Some researchers’ prejudiced attitude on qualitative research as non-scientific research seems to hinder the development of qualitative research in some Asian social science research communities. Nevertheless, the present study on a qualitative novice’s writing process found that the lowly formulaic style of qualitative research writing could be another reason that impedes such development as well. Novice researchers’ writing tends to follow model-imitation, which contradicts the lowly formulaic style of qualitative research writing. With the employment of a social approach on writing studies as the theoretical framework, this study treated academic writing as an activity influenced by the writer’s situated research community. The writer’s varied research attempts in thesis writing process such as the formulation of research questions, employment of research methods, interpretation of research results, and the like, were treated as his/her composing acts. By longitudinally observing one graduate student’s use of qualitative research in his thesis proposal writing process, the present study discussed the multifaceted nature of qualitative research and the need of teaching/learning qualitative research as a specific genre in academic writing. Related genre elements to be included in teaching qualitative research are addressed.

Tureccy i bałkańscy „singers of tales” – „jarzmo” inspiracji czy epicka dwubiegunowość?

Turkish and Balkan “singers of tales” – a yoke of inspiration or epic independence?The research material is mostly based on the works of Albert Lord and Milman Parry, Karl Reichl, Ilhan Basgoz, Pertev Boratav. Epic singers played a significant part in spreading national spirit, be it Turkish or Slavic. The Balkan artists called guslar used a one-string instrument called gusle while a Turkish minstrel ozan and ashik usually used a two-stringed instrument called kopuz or saz. The typical stage for their activities were coffeehouses. Oral epics were transmitted by word of mouth from one singer to another, sometimes by way of formal training based on the transmission of repertoire and technique from master to apprentice. Representative of both traditions was the use of metrics and formulaic style. The song was orally composed in performance, with the audience’s participation. The musical aspect facilitated memorisation. The text to be learned by heart was a story in a song. Although the Turkish and Balkan epic traditions developed independently of each other, the effect of Turkish conquest on the Balkan epic tradition is evident, especially in the style of those singers who perform in borderland (in Kosovo and northern Albania). The Turkish occupation itself became the subject of many epics, reinforcing the national identity of the local population. However, oriental influences also emerged in some formal characteristics, such as the length of the songs, the ornamentation and stylised oriental images and the transformation of separate ballads and short narratives into epic cycles. In both cases for performers themselves this artistic activity became “a way of life”.

Nel laboratorio di Esiodo tra imitazione e stile formulare

Summary – The object of the present article is to clarify some features of the technique of versification in Hesiod’s poetry. It is possible to make evident two different modalities in his poetic diction: one typically coherent with the formulaic style of epic and another one more creative which can be found in the elaboration of phrases bound to the context, thereby sometimes revealing imitation of Homeric patterns.

Case – Case-Law – Law: Ruiz Zambrano as an Illustration of How the Court of Justice of the European Union Constructs Its Legal Arguments

Reasoning of the Court of Justice of the European Union – Constr uction of arguments in the case-law of the Court – Citation technique – The use of formulas to transform case-law into ‘law’ – ‘Formulaic style’ – European citizenship as a fundamental status – Ruiz Zambrano – Reasoning from consequences – The use of social propositions

Old Beneventan Melodies in a Breviary at Naples: New Evidence of Old Beneventan Music for the Office

This article discusses previously undocumented examples of music for the old Beneventan divine office in a manuscript housed in the Archivio Storico Diocesano in Naples (Cod. Misc. 1, fasc. VII). The breviary, which was copied at the scriptorium of Santa Sofia, Benevento, in 1161, transmits two unica—canticle antiphons for the feast of St. Mercurius—in Beneventan style. It also preserves a Beneventan-style antiphon for the Holy Twelve Brothers of Benevento that is not transmitted in previously published sources of Beneventan chant. The discovery of music in Beneventan style for St. Mercurius is of importance to the history of the old Beneventan rite, as it attests to the continued production of the distinctive formulaic style of the Beneventan rite into the later eighth century. The relics of Mercurius, a military saint of Byzantium, were enshrined at the altar of Santa Sofia at Benevento in 768, and Mercurius was adopted as patron of the court, the church of Santa Sofia, and the city of Benevento. Despite the establishment of the cult of St. Mercurius in the second half of the eighth century, until now no musical record has indicated the presence of old Beneventan music for this feast (there is no extant Beneventan mass proper for Mercurius, and the documented sources for the divine office preserve only Romano-Beneventan or neo-Gregorian-style music). I consider the St. Mercurius antiphons within the context of the musical style of the old Beneventan rite and argue that they should be included in the Beneventan canon on the basis of musical style. As pitch-specific exemplars of the distinctive formulaic style of the Beneventan chant, this source is of particular value to the study of Beneventan pitch and modality. Notated in fully heightened Beneventan neumes on a staff line, these antiphons are among the few surviving witnesses of the old Beneventan repertory that preserve the distinctive modal properties of the repertory in pitch-specific notation. I introduce the music of these antiphons and consider their importance as witnesses to the continued production and copying of Beneventan music from the late eighth to the twelfth centuries.

ChemicalTagger: A tool for semantic text-mining in chemistry

BackgroundThe primary method for scientific communication is in the form of published scientific articles and theses which use natural language combined with domain-specific terminology. As such, they contain free owing unstructured text. Given the usefulness of data extraction from unstructured literature, we aim to show how this can be achieved for the discipline of chemistry. The highly formulaic style of writing most chemists adopt make their contributions well suited to high-throughput Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches.ResultsWe have developed the ChemicalTagger parser as a medium-depth, phrase-based semantic NLP tool for the language of chemical experiments. Tagging is based on a modular architecture and uses a combination of OSCAR, domain-specific regex and English taggers to identify parts-of-speech. The ANTLR grammar is used to structure this into tree-based phrases. Using a metric that allows for overlapping annotations, we achieved machine-annotator agreements of 88.9% for phrase recognition and 91.9% for phrase-type identification (Action names).ConclusionsIt is possible parse to chemical experimental text using rule-based techniques in conjunction with a formal grammar parser. ChemicalTagger has been deployed for over 10,000 patents and has identified solvents from their linguistic context with >99.5% precision.

Rereading Albert B. Lord's The Singer of Tales. Revisiting the definition and application of formulas in Sesotho praise poetry

Access to a fresh set of video-recordings of Sesotho praise-poetry made in the year 2000 enabled the author to revisit his adaptation of Albert Lord's definition of the formula as a dynamic compositional device that the oral poet utilizes during delivery. The basic adaptation made in 1983 pertains to heroic praises (dithoko tsa marena) and was based on King Griffith's poem that dates back to the early 20th century. While the adapted version is retained here, the rereading led to a clarification of a number of issues with special reference to the use of formulas by Morabaraba Lehloha in a praise-poem dedicated to the late King Moshoeshoe II. There is a distinct density in the configuration of formulas, not only of the one-word variety but of word-group formulas as well. The article finally explores Lord's view of ‘theme’ as ‘a group of ideas regularly used in telling a tale in formulaic style’, and shows how Lehloha's imaginative formulaic chronicle of the turbulent concluding part of the King's life unfolds through a set of eight consecutive scenes by which a particular rounded narrative structure is achieved.

What is Recovered

What is Recovered

Death Recorded: Capital Punishment and the Press in Northampton, 1780–1834 Midland History Prize Proxime Accessit 2007

This article focuses on execution reports in the Northampton Mercury and Northamptonshire execution broadsides from 1780–1834 to determine how capital punishment was represented in the media. Although there has been an increase in literature discussing the reporting of crime in the press, there has been no study of execution reports in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The use of a variety of media suggests reports in different mediums reflected their readership. Through a typical case study this article hopes to address how the criminal justice system was portrayed as its reform was imminent. In particular it will highlight how the formulaic style of reports gave messages about the reformative nature and efficacy of the execution process, and created an acceptable image of justice. Reports were not always indicative of the changes occurring society and criminal legislation, suggesting the importance of creating the image of an infallible criminal justice system.

A Living Shamanistic Oral Tradition: Ifugao hudhud, the Philippines

The most ancient genres of oral literature date back to the time when one ritual specialist performed the functions of epic singer, shaman, and priest. Once studied in Siberia and Central Asia, these ancient forms are better preserved nowadays in insular Southeast Asia (Stanyukovich forthcoming). The Ifugao hudhud oral tradition, which I have been studying for the last two decades, is the core of ritual and ideology among highlanders of Northern Luzon, Philippines. The Ifugao are wet-rice cultivators who until the early twentieth century practiced headhunting, preserving their traditional society with no political and very loose territorial organization. The hudhud meets all the standards typical of heroic epic patterns, including plot structure and formulaic style (Stanyukovich 1983). At the same time it is a highly archaic combination of heroic epics and shamanistic narratives. The hudhud characters are regarded as ancestors and incorporated into the male pantheon as part of the Hulupe class of benevolent deities. The female ideology that looks so much out-of-place in the genre of the heroic epic is another striking characteristic of the hudhud. It emerges that while male epic concentrates on violence, expressed through a system of headhunting based on rage, enmity, and vengeance, female epic concentrates on the problem of peacemaking and represents a tradition of heroic exploits in which no blood whatsoever is spilled. After a series of battles during which no one is either killed or wounded, the principal hudhud characters exchange sisters and celebrate a double marriage. That means a total elimination of enmity: the next generation will have no enemies (Stanyukovich 2000). The most urgent study in regard to hudhud is the comparison of three genres of Ifugao folklore. The first is “pure” heroic epic. The second is hudhud di nate (“funeral song / song of the dead”), which I was lucky to find and record in the areas south of Kiangan. It is a shamanistic song performed in the same manner as epic, “pushing” the soul toward the abode of the dead.

Meters and formulas

This paper deals with the metrical and rhythmical foundations of the formulaic style of ancient Arabic poetry. It is first shown how proper formulas can match different verse-patterns, by means of slight modifications such as the adjunction, deletion or substitution of conjunctions, prepositions, interrogative pronouns or aspectual markers, which partly behave like “stop-gaps”, keeping the meaning unchanged while modifying the metrical pattern of the formula. The analysis is then extended to “rhythmical formulas”, i.e. to combined metrical and word-stress patterns which serve as models for a great number of “formulaic expressions”. Word boundaries may be specified, as well as some morphological and syntactical informations, so that expressions derived from a same rhythmical formula can be classified into a number of more or less abstract subcategories. Finally, the syntagmatic combination of rhythmical formulas into lines leads to the identification of a small number of prototypical verse-instances underlying the various actual instances of a same verse-pattern.

A balbale of Ninurta, god of fertility

A newly identified tablet in Manchester makes possible the almost complete reconstruction of a Sumerian balbale composition addressed to the god Ninurta. The short poem, composed in formulaic style, emphasises the connection of Ninurta with the fertility of flora and fauna in various landscape settings.