A Discourse Analysis

of Three Ancient
Greek Textbooks
Peter Sipes
Thesis Defense presentation
26 March 2015

Ancient Greek, the language

Not genetically close
to English
Not genetically close
to Latin, though there
was much contact
Chart hides ancient
polycentrism
Graphic from Chang et al. (2015)

Ancient Greek, the language

Polycentric for sure
Epic (not shown)
Attic (pink)
Ionian (purple)
Doric (tan)
Aeolic (yellow)
Koine (not
shown)

What is a language textbook?

Things you already
know
Presents L2
Presents L2s
culture
Image source: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/19/travel/la-trgab-20101219

What is a language textbook?

Things you dont
already know
Authority
Position
Ideology
both L2 culture
how L2 is presented
Image source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/124241608/ theenchiridion-medium-adventure-time?ref=shop_home_active_16

Positioning & Authority

Textbooks can be understood
as the legitimate version of a
societys sound knowledge
the knowledge that every pupil
has a primary responsibility to
master (Dendrinos, 1992).

There can be interactive positioning in which what one

person says positions another... However it would be a
mistake to assume that positioning is necessarily
intentional. (Davies and Harr, 1990)

Second-language textbooks
carry authority by virtue of
having content that is related
to other social institutions
outside the school or the
classroom (Dendrinos, 1992).

A pitfall for EFL textbooks

EFL books in Great Britain overrepresent the white middle-class
population with their concerns about
holidays and leisure time, home
decoration and dining out, their
preoccupation with success,
achievement and material wealth.
(Dendrinos, 1992: 153)

Image from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article2795822/vintage-british-seaside-posters-sell-auction-new-york.html

Because actually
Absent, or nearly absent
are the great variety of
minorities, people of
African, Indian,
Pakistanese [sic] descent
who make up a
considerable part of the
population; and the
problems of the illiterate
masses are rarely or
never mentioned.
Image from: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/opinion/newsrooms must-reflect-modern-britain/5078753.article

(Dendrinos, 1992: 153)

Does this apply for AG textbooks?

Image from: http://www.brynmawr.edu/classics/images/pitsapanels.jpg

presentation of literary register

spoken register not really
preserved
centered on Attica and Athens
Athens didnt dominate
Greek world of antiquity the
way it does today
literature written by the educated
and urban elite
in a rural and uneducated
society

Classical Humanism
Curriculum is content-driven.
[It is] characterized by the desire to
promote broad intellectual capacities,
such as memorization and the ability
to analyze, classify, and reconstruct
elements of knowledge.

Raphael, School of Athens from https://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/The_School_of_Athens#/media/File:Sanzio_01.jpg

Knowledge is considered to be a set

of truths which should be revealed by
the authority (teacher or textbook)
and mastered by the pupil
(Dendrinos, 1992: 104-105).

Methods within Classical Humanism

Grammar-Translation

Cognitive

traditional method
language as an autonomous
meaning system (Dend., 1992: 106)
3 steps to learning
teach grammar point
????
know the language

reaction to Behaviorist
philosophies of SLA and in C.
H. according to Dendrinos
specific goal of language
teaching is the development
of linguistic competence
(Dendrindos, 1992: 107)

The study itself

The books

What they have in common

Athenian dialect
heavy use of
narrative in
instruction
ummm.

Image source: Shakko/Wikipedia

Ancient Greek Alive

Starts with spoken language
Moves to non-Greek stories
Animals and Nasruddin stories
compares to Aesop

Vocabulary in lists
Only in review chapters
shortest vocab list of books in study

Cultural essays
Grammar-Translation despite
amount of narrative (sc.
Translationese)

JACT: Reading Greek

Narrative is a greatest hits of Greece
s ancient literature
Vocabulary list is long enough to
reach 80% coverage
in lists that accompany readings

Very little cultural exposition in

English
could be used in class with GrammarTranslation or Cognitive approach

Athenaze
Narrative follows a family
somewhat tied to the Peloponnesian
War
shows domestic life

Cultural essay with chapter

tied to narrative in some way

vocab list short

but there are two books

Cognitive instructional approach

Lexis
A potentially endless, though surmountable
task
~65 lemmas cover 50% of Ancient Greek text
~1,100 lemmas cover 80% of text (Major, 2008)
~4,000 can pass as fluent (Milton & Alexiou, 2009)

Can stand in for syntax and morphology

this study ignores those aspects of language
research has found lexical knowledge correlates with
reading ability (Schmitt, 2010: 4)

Lexis and Zipf curves

Blue line necessarily

reaches 100%
Red line shows long-tail
effect
Frequency isnt
important
Shape is
Not continuous
(despite appearances)

Whats hiding in the tail

is why vocabulary
acquisition is so tricky

Zipf curve early in book

See the lump near
the left end of the
curve? What is
that doing there?

Zipf curve in the middle of the book

Zipf curve at the end of the book

Though things
do get weird.
Why?
Different
dialect or

Zipf curve at the end of the book

a too short
passage.

Lexis and coverage

Platos Republic, book 1
Coverage % Tokens

Lemmas Note

50%

4,637

53

80%

7,419

304

95%

8,810

972

Still not as long as Majors 80% list

98%

9,088

1,276

Heres where you can start guessing meanings from context

100%

9,274

1,753

Shorter than Majors short list of 65

Data from Steadman (2012) and Perseus (2014)

How do they stack up with lexis?

Textbook

Majors 50% coverage

Total Vocabulary

JACT

61 (63 in glossary)

1,318

Ancient Greek Alive

61

682

Athenaze

59

603

Rate of lexis learning: JACT

Rate of lexis learning: AGA

Rate of lexis learning: Athenaze

Culture
accessible for modern
languages
not as accessible for
classical languages

Upper image: Steve Swayne

Lower image: Flickr user Agnee

Culture in narrative
Women & Slaves
both had limited roles in literary sources
textbooks uneven in presentation
JACT nearly zero slaves, women presented
better
Athenaze domestic story, presents both more
fully
Ancient Greek Alive no Greek culture in the

Culture beyond narrative

many cultural topics presented in essays
outside of the Ancient Greek narrative
textbooks again uneven in presentation
JACT virtually zero non-narrative cultural
presentation
Athenaze essays tied to narrative themes
Ancient Greek Alive essays only, with some
striking choices about topic