Oral Strategies in the Language of Herodotus

Abstract

This chapter concentrates not on involuntary phenomena but on strategies used on purpose in oral language to make information more accessible. It discusses two traits of Herodotus' oral style: chunking and cohesion strategies in which chunking is illustrated in the juxtaposition of seven information units, and cohesion is illustrated by the tail/head links. Herodotus sometimes uses oral strategy when the conditions that make it necessary do not apply, probably in order to heighten the dramatic effect. Herodotus uses many oral strategies, and he does so in a natural way because he has an audience of listeners in mind. Although his is basically an oral style, he can use oral strategies as rhetorical devices when it suits him. These devices reinforce the oral character of his language, and show that the choice of an oral style was a natural one for Herodotus to make, because it suited his subject matter. Keywords: chunking; cohesion; dramatic effect; Herodotus; oral strategy; rhetorical devices

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