TEXTUAL VAGARITIES

KIMBERLY GUPPY & XIAOLI YU

TEXTS AS LINGUISTIC OBJECTS
Image Source:
http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/02/kyto_et_al/
Written language versus spoken language
Orthographic variation
Not all texts are original sources, and
therefore cannot be truly accepted as an
utterance
Hierarchy of Badness: which texts are best?


Today we got an extraordinary communication from the
Deputy VC, asking us to project for next year the
*precise number of hours* wed be spending on
research, and how theyd be apportioned among
reading, analysis, and writing up results. Also exact
amount of time (in hours!) for marking essays and
supervising PhDs. Ah fook thee, tha daft booger says I.
Wish I couldve said it in person to those arseholes in
admin, but Id have gotten a cool response- this kind of
garbage actually makes *sense* to them.
What is Lass point in using his own email message as an example? Is the point clear?
HIERARCHY OF
BADNESS
1. Absolute Worst: Normalized edited texts, with
spellings modernized or regularized
2. Next Worst: reading texts, punctuated and
normalized by editors, with emendations and best
readings from sources other than the copy-text.
3. Next worst: MSS with complex stemmatic histories,
this may include mixed texts, or those by
translating scribes who occasionally fail to translate,
or literatim copyists who lapse
4. Best: Holographs: the most likely to be reflections of
language states; unfortunately, also the rarest and
most poorly distributed temporally and geographically.
What is the point of this?
Is it helpful?
SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What does Lass mean when he says that texts may not be utterances?
What is the significance of that insight?
2. What does Lass mean by making a distinction between a
stratigraphic/stemmatic approach and a variationist approach?
3. What is Lass solution to the problem he identifies? Are you convinced? Why
or why not?
THE LINGUISTIC STUDY OF EARLY MODERN
ENGLISH SPEECH-RELATED TEXTS
Image source:
http://www.helsinki.fi
/varieng/series/volum
es/02/kyto_et_al/
Values of records of trial proceedings and
witness depositions for speech-related texts.
Assessing the reliability of texts.
Reliable? Or not? Or both?
The role of the scribe, the printer, and the
editor.
Which one is preferable?


TWO MODELS
Kyto & Walker
1. Deposition texts: important difference between
editions and their source texts.
2. Reprints: deceptive; various ways of reprinting.
3. Facsimiles: as reliable as the source text they are
based on.
4. Second edition imprint: more corrections, details,
emendations in accordance with the manuscript,
making it more most reliable of the imprints.
Reflects contemporary usage.
5. Original manuscript







Hierarchy of Badness (Lass)
1. Absolute Worst: Normalized edited texts, with
spellings modernized or regularized
2. Next Worst: reading texts, punctuated and
normalized by editors, with emendations and best
readings from sources other than the copy-text.
3. Next worst: MSS with complex stemmatic histories,
this may include mixed texts, or those by
translating scribes who occasionally fail to translate,
or literatim copyists who lapse
4. Best: Holographs: the most likely to be reflections of
language states; unfortunately, also the rarest and
most poorly distributed temporally and
geographically.

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. How do Kyto and Walker define the concept of the faithfulness of a text? Is
their definition helpful?
2. Why is the role of the scribe so important for our understanding of the status
of speech-related texts, according to Kyto and Walker? Do you agree? Why or
why not?
3. What is Kyto and Walkers final conclusion? Do you agree? Why or why not?
5 IMPORTANT TAKE-AWAYS