CBOIAO: Constructing the 'Barbarian Other' in Attic Oratory of the Fourth Century B.C.E.

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Identities, at both individual and collective levels, are normally considered to denote a self-conceptualisation that is predicated on perceptions of similarity and difference. Although scholars have noted the significance of the oppositional othering between Greeks and non-Greeks in the formation of Greek identities, the processes that the rhetoric of the 'barbarian other' played in fourth-century BCE political and everyday communication have not been systematically examined. Adopting the social-cognitive theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyse the corpus of Attic oratory, the project aims to explore the relationship between individual orators' manipulative use of ethnographic images of the 'barbarian other' and their cognitive and emotive effect on the audiences in different Athenian institutional settings, especially in the Assembly and law courts, on civic occasions such as Panhellenic festivals and public funerals, and in small private gatherings including symposia and schools. By identifying the presence and function of nonGreeks in Attic oratory, examining the rhetorical strategies and linguistic features deplored by the orators, as well as juxtaposing close readings of relevant passages within the broader historical and social-political contexts, the project will demonstrate the dynamic relationship between the orators and the audiences, and elucidate Athenian public and private discourses about the 'barbarian other' as a matter of cultural identity and processes, as well as a result of individual strategies and choices. Through exploring and exposing the (ethnic) biases, problematic assumptions and habits of thought that underlie the rhetoric of 'otherness' in ancient political and everyday discourse, the project will help reflect on the strategies and language used in contemporary discourse concerning foreigners and outsiders, in particular, on what role of the rhetoric of the 'other' plays in political and educational domains.