1 - Defining the issues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
Summary
Introduction
The practice of incorporating earlier materials into the body of a later composition is as old as literacy itself. Where the language of the earlier source text is used to advance the literary or rhetorical purposes of the later author, the technique is termed “quotation” or “citation.” Quotations can be used to provide authoritative grounding for a questionable assertion, to illustrate a point made elsewhere in more prosaic form, to embellish the style of an independent composition, or simply to impress potential readers with an author's literary knowledge. Western literature is replete with echoes of long-forgotten works whose language thus remains part of the living literary heritage of the culture.
As used in the present study, the term “citation technique” refers to a relatively narrow and technical aspect of this broader phenomenon of “quotation.” The word “technique” is employed here in the sense of the Greek τέχvη, designating the practical means by which a particular project is carried out. The issue here is not how faithfully a given citation adheres to the sense of its original context, nor how the older language functions in its new rhetorical setting, but rather the mechanics of the citation process itself. Included under this heading are such practical matters as whether an author quotes from memory or from some sort of written text, what cues the author uses to signal the presence of a citation, how quotations are ordered within the primary composition, and how the author handles the wording of his source text. The latter question is especially important for the present study.
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- Paul and the Language of ScriptureCitation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature, pp. 3 - 30Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992