Towards a Redefinition of ‘Context’. Some Remarks on Methodology Regarding Historical Sociolinguistics and Texts of Antiquity

This paper aims to more sharply define – and perhaps even redefine – the notion of "context" in research on written texts of Antiquity (particularly inscriptions) where a situation of documentary scarcity is involved. Indeed, in these circumstances, where apparently "bad" (Labov 1994: 11) or "imperfect data" (Janda and Joseph 2003: 14) might seem to be even less suited to a useful sociolinguistic analysis, to reconstruct as accurately as possible linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts (historical, social and cultural, including scribal practices) constitutes an essential step in the understanding of a document (Mancini 2012). This applies not only to Restsprachen, the corpus of which is notoriously restricted, but also, in certain cases, to Latin and Ancient Greek. Indeed, particularly in areas where Greek and Latin peoples were linguistic minorities, epigraphic documents written in these languages may even constitute a unicum. In this respect, particular attention will be paid to the advantages obtained by comparing a very limited corpus, or even a "single" text, with documents of the same typology, even when written in a different language to the text under investigation. The applicability and the appropriateness of this approach are demonstrated by a case study.