tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post4878242495127280297..comments2023-04-05T08:04:07.514-04:00Comments on Bryn Mawr Classical Review: 2012.06.39Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-54937268829517715972012-11-19T08:07:14.510-05:002012-11-19T08:07:14.510-05:001) The concept of vowel length is a relative conce...1) The concept of vowel length is a relative concept. Long vowels are long because they have a longer duration (double the conventional metric) than a short vowel. Of course, we shouldn't even be speaking of vowels, but rather of syllables. And these are distinguished between closed syllables, which end with a consonant and are always long because to the number of vowels you add that of the closing consonant, and open syllables, which end with a vowel and have a length that coincides with that of the vowel. <br />2) Accented syllables are distinguished from unaccented syllables because they are pronounced with greater intensity in modern languages and with a higher tone in Latin. It is not at all true that, if a long open syllable is accented, it becomes long because of this; while, if it is unaccented, it risks being pronounced as short, even if it is long. In other words, we ought to force ourselves, in order to speak as the Romans did, to pronounce the 'u' in 'mu' as a long vowel, as in 'mutatas', while the 'a' in 'ta' should be pronounced as a long vowel since it is accented. Not to mention the “terrible” difficulty in pronouncing the brevity of the 'o' in 'novus'. While speaking them, one only needs to lengthen the duration of the vowels of the long, open syllables to distinguish them from short, open syllables. Closed syllables are long without any particular effort from the speaker; the accent doesn’t matter. With regard to pronunciation, classical or “national,” the solution that everyone should keep their own pronunciation (as Kuhlmann suggests) because there aren't many chances of speaking Latin words outside of one's own linguistic context anyway, is not a very good one. It would be very nice, indeed, if everyone (except, perhaps, the Italians, whose pronunciation coincides with that of the Catholic Church, which has its own historical legitimacy) adopted the “prononciation restituée” of Latin, if only for the sake of scientific precision. Furthermore, this ensures that the perception of the phono-symbolic phenomena (so frequently found in poetry--one needs only to think of Plato), such as alliteration, assonance, and anaphora, isn’t lost. What’s more, this way a bit of historical phonetics could be introduced, which is useful in the study of the formation of the Romance languages. <br />3) With regards to the accent, `nulla quaestio'. At least, we must teach the rule of the penultimate and the enclitic accent. Furthermore, the rendering of the accent in Latin, which served a musical purpose, is absolutely unthinkable. The loss of the accent--and its musical purpose--would give credibility to the claim that Latin is a dead language, which instead is absolutely alive for the contents of culture of which it is a carrier and custodian. <br />4) It is very right, as the table of Wachter clearly shows, to try to teach and read a text in a comprehensible way by using categories of textual linguistics, like those of topic and comment. However, here the problem does not concern pronunciation, accents, and quantity. It regards any textual matter and its comprehension, even texts written in a student's mother tongue. This problem is what elementary school teachers call “reading comprehension.” It implies a difficulty peculiar to the teaching of classical languages: the relationship between comprehension and translation.<br />Finally, we are more than happy to send the electronic version of the special edition of Institutio in order to give rightful attention to the many deserving contributions that call for a less superficial reading than the one given by Mr. Kuhlmann.<br />Luigi Scarpahttp://www.lettere.unipd.it/index.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-36464547224135366012012-11-19T08:06:04.345-05:002012-11-19T08:06:04.345-05:00Response to 2012.06.39
Response by Luigi Scarpa, U...Response to 2012.06.39<br />Response by Luigi Scarpa, Università di Padova (luigi.scarpa@unipd.it)<br />http://www.pensamultimedia.it/pensa/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_pensa.tpl&product_id=999&category_id=19&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=84>Preview<br /><br />Prof. Peter Kuhlmann, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, has given a peculiar review of a special edition of Institutio, with regard to the papers presented at the conference held in Venice in July 2008, the central theme of which was “bringing classical texts to life in the classroom”. <br />Kuhlmann begins with criticizing the way the proceedings were grouped within the volume. Naturally, this organization was meant to help the reader make sense of the large amount of material presented. No contribution was able to be classified from its first to its last word exactly according to a single category. However, I challenge anyone to divide these articles according to Kuhlmann's proposed criteria distinguishing simply between theory and practice, since many articles refer to both. <br />I’d like to draw particular attention to the opinions expressed by Kuhlmann with regard to the contributors Landi and Wachter. In the other cases, the professor merely summarizes the works of a representative group of the presenters (his choices, although subjective, are nevertheless permissible) and lets the work of other authors be read without his critique.<br />Kuhlmann's criticism with regard to the didactic proposals of Licia Landi (“Vivamus atque amemus: Talking to Catullus in class”), who collaborated closely with me in the collection and publication of the articles, seems almost incomprehensible. To begin with, there is no strictly “biographical” approach to interpreting Catullus because the interpretive process includes many other aspects, such as linguistic and literary ones, as well as the relationship with Greek models and the cultural, social, and political context of the Catullian world. Didactically, this is executed with an identification of key elements and questions posed to the students to gauge their comprehension of the aforementioned phenomena and of the personal perspective of the poet ("lyrical self"), beyond the biographical aspect. Why should reference to the biography of the author make the model obsolete? What is obsolete is an approach that does not take into account the literary filter through which biographical details necessarily pass. Those details remain a desirable reference when they are available. How can you not make reference, for example, to the biography of Horace when trying to understand his poetry? Kuhlmann also seems to forget the theme of the conference: does he think, perhaps, that you can approach it by proposing an exclusively formal reading of authors in the structuralist style, which is actually the obsolete approach? In any case, if this is what he believes, he will only get an amused smile from those who know the reality of schools today. <br />Next, I’d like to draw your attention to the contribution of Wachter ("Recitationes: Combining effective assessment with pleasurable listening"), which I think is quite ripe for criticism, for reasons that Kuhlmann doesn’t even mention:<br />Luigi Scarpahttp://www.lettere.unipd.it/index.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-12908657091797879202012-06-22T06:51:15.929-04:002012-06-22T06:51:15.929-04:00There is an important Spanish teachers group who d...There is an important Spanish teachers group who discuss several years ago about the better way to teach ancient greek and latin in schools and universities. They publish their didactical results, and they share their materials with anyone interested. They have recieved the prize of the Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos of the year 2012. This is the url: http://www.chironweb.org/Strianonoreply@blogger.com