Speech Acts in Akkadian in the 1 millennium BCE

W załączniku

The aim of this work is to analyse speech acts in the Akkadian language in the first millennium BCE. Epistolographic and literary sources (dialogues) were used as the basis for the study. The approach to speech actions chosen by this work follows the sociological (Goffman 1972; Clark 1996) tradition as well as the analytical tools developed by conversation analysis (Schegloff 2007; Schegloff 2017). Speech acts were identified and divided into sequences. Where possible, the reactions to speech actions were isolated in an attempt to discern adjacency pairs. The special focus of the investigations were speech actions associated with situations of disruption and conflict, separated in three groups based on the relation to the situation of disruption. The first part included the stand of things before the crisis, focussing on warnings, threats, and promises. The analysis in the second part dealt with complaints, as well as requests and arguments that are associated with them. In the third part, the focus was turned to the situation after the crisis, and the analysis of apologies, excuses, and reactions to reproaches. Warnings in Akkadian in the first millennium BCE proved to be deployed above all as arguments. Threats appeared to be used by either the most powerful, or by the most desperate (female deities, officials of the middle rank). Promises, despite the absence of a dedicated grammatical form, were clearly taken seriously by the senders and speakers and recounted in complaints and reminders when not fulfilled. Among the complaints, a complete lack of emotional restraint coupled with a good deal of directness was easily discernible. Realisations of individual complaints were often accompanied by reference to extreme situations of hunger and thirst, and included frequent imagery of death and revival – likely the result of constant food insecurity and ubiquituous violence in the first millennium Mesopotamia (Jursa 2014; Fuchs 2009; Roth 1987; Oppenheim 1955; Richardson 2016). The complaints were typically based on explicit and implicit references to the reciprocity of relationships between partners of equal and inequal rank, although some differences between the private and institutional context were discernible. The main goal of apologies was that of averting the consequences of offense – the same pattern is also attested in prayers. Reactions to reproaches show clearly that when the offended party mentioned the offence, it was typically too late for only an apology. An excuse or an utter denial of offense had to follow.

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