Absract
Translation can only take place from one community to another when their horizons can be fused. If the disparity is too great, then one horizon is distorted in order to fit into that of the target language and culture. In substantiating this claim, several concepts are discussed. First, translation theory is predicated on the assumption that signs are translated from one community to another through language. This involves the use of signs, but traditional semiotics has conflated meaning and form into a sign function that make translation more difficult. Hence, the concept of traditional semiotics needs to be rehabilitated. Second, a model of language is presented that separates signs into epistemological and ontological realms. This implies a Cartesian model of translation in which thoughts and ideas are separated from their objects. This emphasis on consciousness is balanced with a rehabilitated model of consciousness proposed by Gadamer. This means that translation not only involves consciousness but also epistemological distance. Third, a practical philosophy of hermeneutics is employed in the translation of the traditional culture of Hawai’i. Translation assumes that horizons are fused, but when disparate cultures are brought together, this is not the usual outcome.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Hans-Geog Gadamer (1989) argued that translation involves interpretation. This is because each community has a horizon and people come from different backgrounds and it is not possible to totally remove oneself from one’s background, history, culture, education, and language. Each community, in other words has an entirely different system of attitudes, beliefs, and ways of thinking. A horizon designates everything from a particular position or point of view. Each horizon is situated. Understanding occurs when one tries to stand within the horizon of another community. Gadamer (1889: 304) treats understanding as a conversation or dialogue in which translators from different communities attempt to interpret texts or stories that are based on their past experiences and value-laden traditions (Vorurteil). The problem is that people have a “historically effected consciousness” (wirkunggeschiches Bewußtsein) and this means that they are embedded in the particular culture that shaped them. Hence, interpreting a text involves a fusion of horizons where translators find a way to articulate the text of the other through their own background. The success of this task is the focus of this essay.
It is argued that in order to translate from one language to another, one needs a workable model of semiotics. Unfortunately, traditional semiotics hinders translation rather than enhance it. For this reason, traditional semiotics is rehabilitated so that it can provide a better access to other sign system and cognitive frames across languages. This is the focus of the first part of this essay.
The second part has to do with the philosophy of language and the role that language plays in thinking. Gadamer argues that language is the medium of human experience. One exists within a language. Language is the fundamental way in which one exists in the world. Hence, one is situated in language and understanding takes place in that situation of linguisticality (Sprachlichkeit). He is not saying that language is an instrument of thought but has a more Heideggerian view of language in that language serves the object in that it lets it come into being (Erscheinung). For Gadamer, experience is not wordless. It becomes an object by being named. One seeks the right word that belongs to the thing. Hence, for Gadamer, the word belongs to the thing. In this section of the essay, the dialogue between Gadamer and Habermas will be revisited as this divergence of thought plays a major role in translating scientific concepts.
In part three, a practical philosophy of hermeneutics is employed in the translation of the traditional culture of Hawai’i into American culture. The focus of this application has to do with the Hawaiian Wedding Song. It is argued that the disparity between these two horizons is significant and what purports to be a translation amounts from one culture into another is more of a distortion of the source towards the target language and culture. The author assumes that most translations are of this nature.
2.1 THE REHABILITATION OF SEMIOTICS
As noted by Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) inherent in the concept of the sign is the linkage between meaning and form. He referred to his system of signs as semiology. What is important in this model is that both meaning and form need to co-occur. . A meaning without a form is not expressible and a form without a meaning is ineffable Charles Saunders Peirce (1955) presented his own model of sign theory which he called semiotics. One of the major differences between these two theories of the sign is Peirce included the concept of the interpretant within the context of meanings and forms. Both of these theoretical models of the sign need to be revised. Although they provide clear statements about how meaning (content) and form (expression) are related, they also obscure many of the underlying assumptions associated with these models.
2.2 THE SEMIOLOGICAL PLANES OF MEANING AND FORM
The first major problem with the concept of the sign is that it is located within the same mental space. Louis Hjelmslev (1969) was well aware of this problem and he argued that they should be relegated to different planes. He argued that the signified (meaning) was located on the content plane and the signified (form) was found on the expression plane. Such a dyadic definition of the sign places it totally within the realms of meaning (epistemology) and form (ontology). Ferdinand de Saussure, it should be noted, treated the sign as a mental object. He allowed forms to exist within the mind but not as physical objects. In this regard, he has omitted the realm of ontology from his model. His forms were mental objects. Such a model of semiotics limits sign systems only to epistemology and does not account for ontological signs. In such a model, symbols are grounded as mental objects and not as physical objects. These assumptions merit re-investigation. The meaning, it is argued in this reanalysis, should belong to the realm of epistemology and the form should belong to the realm of ontology. This was the rationale behind glossematics (Hjelmslev, 1969).
The relationship between epistemology and ontology can also be found in a reformulation in the triadic concept of the sign proposed by Peirce (1992). More will be said about this later. What was implicit in the writings of Hjelmslev was the claim that the concept of the sign needed to be reformulated. This shift involves moving from Hjelmslev’s semiological planes to philosophical realms.
2.3 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REALMS OF MEANING AND FORM
By moving away from the sign as a semiological unit, one moves into the sign as a philosophical concept. Content is no longer situated in the plane of content, but it is now part of an epistemological system. Form is no longer located on the semiological plane but is now part of the study of all human forms (ontology). Hence, the sign needs to be reformulated with in this new context. If one were to leave the reformulation of the sign as merely the connection of form and meaning, it would not explain other aspects of semiotics that needs to be discussed, viz., the concept of the interpretant (Peirce, 1955). The best way of introducing this is by considering a far more interesting model of social semiotics, the model of Berger and Luckmann on their theory of the social construction of reality.
2.4 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
The social construction of reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966) characterizes a sociological concept that was slowly emerging among European scholars. However, it was Berger and Luckmann who not only articulated the new paradigm but coined the terms that are characteristically associated with this movement. One of the major premises of this new school of thought is that knowledge is socially constructed. They argued, for example, that what one considers to be real in one culture may not be so in another. What is real to an American businessman may not be seen as real, for example, to a Buddhist monk. Each of these individuals has constructed different social realities. They went on to demonstrate that these social values were constructed through several concomitant sociological processes (externalization, reification, and internalization). They noted that ideas, thoughts, and feelings cannot be shared with others unless they are first externalized through language.
A thought without a form is ineffable. Meanings must have a form or pattern of existence in order to be shared with others. Once ideas, thoughts, and feelings are encoded into a language, they become objectified or reified. They exist as objects or things outside of the speakers who produced them. It is interesting to note that most linguists only study this aspect of language, viz., dictionary meanings and grammatical rules. Finally, linguistic codes exist in a social context among members of a speech community and these coded forms influence them. Once this happens, the social and cultural language patterns are internalized. Berger and Luckmann created this model of simultaneous processes because they noted that the leading linguistic models only focused on linguistic codes. What is important about their model is that it establishes a relationship between meaning and form and it implies a resolution of the dichotomy between epistemology (knowledge structures) and ontology (world of things). This model also accounts for the triadic sign proposed by Peirce (1955) in which an the content of a sign is split into two parts: one is connected to an object in the real world (ontology) and the other is connect to the effect of the sign in the mind of a potential interpreter (Noth, 1995). The dynamic interaction between the externalizing of epistemological markers of feeling, ideas, and concepts and the internalization of ontological markers (indices, icons, symbols and cultural artifacts) emerge as socio-cultural practices. They constitute reality-loops in that they form bonds between epistemic signs that are externalized as ontological forms and vice versa. Something that is socially constructed and participates in reality-loops is considered to be real and meaningful.
In the philosophy of structural communication, meanings are externalized and expressed as ontological forms. These same forms are also interpreted and internalized as epistemic signs. What is important about these reality-loops is that they involve both form and content. One cannot exist without the other. Ontological signs are created during the process of semiosis (sign making) and during the process of structural hermeneutics (sign-interpretation). The former is characteristically associated with the creation of ontological signs and the latter with epistemological signs. Hence, there are two kinds of social and cultural relations associated with signs. Hence, there are two kinds of culture: one is associated with the structure of meaning (epistemology) and is called culture in the mind (Shore, 1996) and the other can be found as the expression or the externalization of ideas (ontology) and is called cultural materialism (Harris, 2001).
The process of taking meanings and making them into tangible and visible forms (language, art, architecture, music, dance, and social behavior) is called Structural Semiosis. Once a form has been externalized, it exists as an ontological marker (index, icon, or symbol), at this stage, it is objectified and is treated as an object. The reverse pr ocess of taking objects and assigning meaning to them is known as structural hermeneutics. These patterns of externalization and internalization form reality-loops. Together, they constitute the social construction of reality (St. Clair, 2006). There are a myriad of such reality-loops that make up the culture of the mind (epistemology) and the culture of material form (ontology). It is this dynamic interaction between the two realms (epistemology and ontology) that was the focus of activity theory (Leontiev, 1979). It was the connection of the ego pole of the self to the object pole of reality that was the focus of the phenomenology of Husserl (1980). Reality-loops affirm cognitive interaction with the human environment. They create ontological markers through the externalization of concepts and develop knowledge frameworks in the process of internalizing them. This activity creates a bond between the subjective realm of epistemology and the objective realm of ontology. However, the interpretant in this model differs from that of Peirce in that an interpretant is required in structural semiosis (from meanings to objects) and another interpretant is involved in the process of structural hermeneutics (from object to meaning).
2.5 THE DUALITY OF SIGN FUNCTIONS
As noted above, there are two functions associated with signs that have been overlooked in sign theory. One has to do with the creation of signs from meanings (Structural Semiosis). The other has to do with the assignment of meanings to forms (Structural Hermeneutics). Both of these are signs. They are not structurally the same. They do not have the same properties nor do they have the same function.
|
Structural Semiosis |
Structural Hermeneutics |
Function |
This is the process of taking a meaning and providing it with an ontological form. |
This is the process of taking an ontological form and providing it with meaning (placing it within a system of meaningful forms) |
Property |
semiosis |
interpretation |
Transition |
from meaning to form |
from form to meaning |
Mapping |
from the epistemological realm to the ontological realm |
from the ontological realm to the epistemological realm |
|
Symbolic Interactionism |
Ethnomethodology |
Realm |
Epistemological |
Ontological |
System |
Meaning are tied to reality-loops |
Social Practices are tied to ontological markers |
Function |
How meanings function within an epistemological system |
How practices within the sociology of everyday life function within an ontological system |
One can best waus tp understand how these systems operate can be found by considering the difference between two sociological theories: symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Adler and Adler, 1980) and ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967; Mehan and Wood, 1975). When Blumer (1969) coined the term "symbolic interactionism" he used it to demonstrate how people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them. He also noted that these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. What is important about this concept is for the purpose of renovating sign theory is that it is housed within the realm of epistemology. Symbolic interactionism has to do with meanings and meaning systems. Whether one is creating forms from meaning or interpreting forms in order to assign them meaning, the focus is, nevertheless, on meaning. Ethnomethodology, on the other hand, is concerned with the procedures by which that social order is produced, and shared. It has to do with the meaningful, patterned, and orderly character of everyday life. It is is something that one must work to achieve and this means that one has a method for doing so. Hence, ethnomethodology belongs to the realm of ontology.
Within the sociology of knowledge, the schools of symbolic interactionism, dramaturgical sociology, and labeling theory (the sociology of deviance) are all agency focused disciplines and they are concomitant with the philosophical realm of epistemology. The disciplines of ethnomethodology, phenomenological sociology, and existential sociology are all demote the concern with agency and this disciplines are concomitant with the philosophical realm of ontology. Meaning are tied to reality-loops are not new to sociology. They are various versions of this concept operating as feed back mechanisms.
What makes this use of reality-loops different is that social Practices are tied to ontological markers and the agency behind those practices is associated with epistemological markers. Function How meanings function within an epistemological system How practices within the sociology of everyday life function within an ontological system What is important about this dichotomy between meaning systems and social practices is that the study of culture exists within and across these two realms. One cannot describe a culture only from an epistemological perspective. It must include the objects, things, behaviors, and social patterns created by that culture. A system of meanings based on signs is the original meaning of the dyadic sign of Saussure (1974). With the addition of the ontological realm, one can map an epistemological system into objects in the ontological realm. This is the rationale behind material cultures. Hence, one can describe a culture in terms of its system of meanings as well of its system of social practices, cultural artifacts, and social scripts. The problem with such a systemic analysis, however, takes on a very different concept of system when signs function not as exosemiotic processes but as endosemiotic processes (Gudwin, 1996). What one finds in endosemiotic processes are closed systems in which communication takes place between the compontents of the system through a system of signs. This system could be a mathematical system (Gudwin, 2002), a computational system (Gudwin, 1996), an organizational system (Van Heusen and Jorna, 2002), or a biosemiological system (Barbieri, 2003). Endosemiotic systems differ substantially from exosemiotic systems in their mapping functions. It is now time to consider how the concept of self form reality-loops. It is by means of reality-loops that the two realms are integrated as sign systems.
2.6 REALITY-LOOPS
As noted earlier, the concept of reality-loops is characteristically associated with a structural philosophy of communication. The processes of Externalization and Internalization espoused by Berger and Luckmann (1966) have been revised and recodified. The process of taking meanings and externalizing them into tangible and visible forms (language, art, architecture, music, dance, and social behavior) begins with Structural Semiosis. Once a form has been externalized, it exists as an ontological sign. It is objectified and becomes associated with ontology as an entity within a system of entities. The reverse process of taking objects and internalizing them by assigning meaning to them begins as structural hermeneutics. Hence, both structural semiosis and structural hermeneutics are part of an internal system of signs referred to as the structural philosophy of communication. These patterns of externalization and internalization are stablished as bonds of practical consciousness, they form reality-loops. Together, they constitute the social construction of reality. What is socially or culturally real is that which has been socially constructed to interface with the ontological realm and the navigation and the negotiation of meanings in that realm is profoundly related to the epistemological realm. There are a myriad of such reality-loops that make up the culture of the mind (epistemology) and culture expressed in material form (ontology).\
2.7 PHEMONENOLOGY OF REALITY-LOOPS
Peirce (1955) argued that one of the divisions within philosophy consists of the study of phenomena (the world of appearances). This follows the Kantian distinction between Noumena (things that cannot be known of the real world) and Phenomena (things that can be known of the real world (Kant, 2000). Why is this important? It is significant because Peirce argued that all that one can know of the real world is its appearances, its qualities. He placed a high value on the role of qualities in his model of semiotics. Out of the nine categories that Kant developed in his philosophy of pure reason, Peirce only kept three of them and the most important of these was that of quality which he referred to as Firstness (the domain of thought that governs qualities). Another reason why Peirce places a high premium on qualities can be found in his definition of reality. It is a term, he argues (House and Kloesel, 1998), that was invented in the thirteenth century to signify having properties. Hence, he argued that “real” is a way to say that a thing is real if its predicates are true. Although he makes a distinction between existence and reality,
Peirce avoids dualistic or subjective interpretations of being. He makes no distinction between epistemology and ontology. For him, they are the same thing (Deledalle, 2009: 70). Hence, it is not surprising that his second domain of thought (Secondness) is existential, a physical force, a reaction to nature. This approach will not be followed in this reanalysis of the concept of the sign. The model espoused in this essay assumes that reality is socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). In this model, reality is a special mode of being that differs from existence. In such a model the subjective interpretation of being is important. Hence, the role that phenomenology plays in reality-construction is provided below: There are several differences between this semiotic model of reality construction and that of Peirce. Sign theory belongs to the philosophical realm of phenomenology. It is a realm of appearances, but those appearances are made up on ontological markers. This is why it was referred earlier in this essay as the realm of ontology. It has physical features (noumena) that cannot be truly known. What are known are those various morphological forms and these forms can be found in human languages. Its qualities can be described as adjectives’ the things that are occur in the ontological realm are designated as nouns or substantives; nd its actions are best described in terms of verbs. Unfortunately, Peirce limited his ontological markers to qualities. He should have included nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, aspect markers, and other basic grammatical forms into his theory of categories. Another difference between Peirce and the philosophy of structural communication has to do with the concept of the interpretant. It is a vague term created by Peirce that needs to be further articulated. There is agency involved in the creation of ontological markers (structural poesis) and there is agency involved in the interpretation of previously formed ontological markers (structural hermeneutics). They are not the same. The first is associated with the human ego and the latter with the social self. They do different things and perform different functions. The human ego is associated with creativity. It is associated with feelings, moods, thoughts, and ideas. When one attempts to externalize these epistemological markers, they are limited by linguistic codes. The richness that exists within the system is difficult to articulate due to the given limitations of language codes (grammar, morphology, syntax, and semantics). The social self, on the other hand, is connected with adjusting to the social environment. It must deal with social roles, social scripts, and other forms of practical knowledge. There is a disparity between these two forms of self and the ego must learn to adjust to the social self. Society functions as a parent and the ego as a child (parent-child relationship). The concept of the individual presented in this essay involves three main components: the ego, the biographical self, and the social self. The ego contains the id. This inclusion of the id within the ego is necessary as it plays an important role in works of Jacques Lacan (Mcgowan, Restuccia, and Kunkle, 2004). The role of the social self is well known as it plays a central role in symbolic interactionism (Hewitt, 1976). What is different in this model of the self can be found in the placement of the biographical self interacting between the ego and the social self. The biographical self provides an individual with a sense of his own personal history. It forms the basis for the construction of the social self and it is the source of most of human agency. It provides the individual with the self as a psychological object. Another difference between Peirce and the current model has to do with ontology. It is treated as an endosystem much in the way that it is done within the philosophy of the embodied mind (Merleau-Ponty, 1942, 1945, 1964; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Rodriguez, St. Clair, and Joshua, 2005). There are biological transducers that connect human beings to their environments. These transducers create special epistemological markers within the human being. These markers are further organized by modules (Fodor, 1983). Hence, there are no simple isomorphic mappings between the endosystem and the morphological markers. In this model, the concept of recursive signs as proposed by Peirce will not work.
3.0 PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS
Modern philosophy began with the Cartesian concept of consciousness (Descartes, 1999). Gadamer and other postmodern philosophers felt a need to move away from this Cartesian emphasis on consciousness. Much of the discussions among these postmodern philosophers had to do with the process of understanding. Friederich Schleiermacher (1998) developed a model of hermeneutics that was concerned with the interpretation of various types of religious and historical texts. He reasoned that the art of understanding played a major role in his model of interpreting texts. He noted that people interpret texts in two ways: one is grammatical and the other is psychological. With a focus on the latter process, he defined hermeneutics as the art of moving inside the thought of another person and understanding their thought from that perspective. Gadamer (1989: 197) found this approach to hermeneutics to be rather limiting because it only focused on the historical worldview of these texts. Consequently, he was not able to transcend the interpretation of these texts. He was limited by his focus on psychology. Wilhelm Dilthey (1966, 1970) saw in hermeneutics the possibility of establishing a framework for the human sciences (die Geisteswissenschaften). Disciplines, he argued, are created by human beings. They have an espistemology. Dilthey made a distinction between explanations (Erklärung) and understanding (Verstehen). The process, he reasoned, takes place from the inner life of understanding to the outer life of forms that are used as explanations. The natural sciences are content with explanations but the human sciences require understanding. In addition, the human sciences are temporal. They understand themselves in what they create historically. They create things as expressions of life. For Dilthey, language provides the fullest expression of human life. Although Dilthey made an improvement to the study of hermeneutics, Gadamer felt that he was still concerned with deciphering the historical past and not involved in understanding the human experience. He placed too heavy an emphasis on historicality.
Gadamer’s ideas on hermeneutics are close to those of Martin Heidegger (1927) in that he sees understanding as the way in which human beings exist in the world and not as a method for grasping psychological or historical meaning. Every act of interpretation, Gadamer argues, is based on human understanding. Furthermore, understanding is ontological. It is an integral part of being.
3.2 OVERCOMING ALIENATION
Both Heidegger and Gadamer see alienation as an inheritance from the Englightenment, a period that emphasized reason and self-consciousness. Gadamer argued that the Enlightenment distanced human beings from experience. It did not enable them to understand their human existence. He wanted to overcome the dichotomous thinking because it set up a distance between what it means to be human and the experiences that one encounters in being human. When one emphasizes self-consciousness, he argues, one distances the subject from the object and this means that one distances a subject from his experiences. Hence, this detachment restricts one’s understanding of life to conceptual knowledge.
3.3 AESTHETIC CONSCIOUSNESS
One example of how people area alienated from their experiences can be seen in Gadamer’s discussion of aesthetic consciousness. He contends that people approach art as a form of perceptual enjoyment. This approach to art does not constitute knowledge (Gadamer, 1989: 87). People go to museums to experience the art but this art is placed in a separate space from everyday life. Its function is simply to elicit feeling. Art, Gadamer argues, should be an encounter with the world. It should be an experience of that encounter. Art is something that one belongs to (Gadamer, 1989: 101). One should be transformed by this experience.
3.5 HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
One’s knowledge of a historical event is characterized by distance. The past is objectified and task of historical consciousness is to reconstruct the world of the historical object in order to grasp its meaning. This is what Schleiermacher did with his method of hermeneutics. He wanted to return to the original circumstances in order to grasp its meaning. Because human beings are finite and historical beings, they can never return to such original circumstances. Hence, Gadamer (1989: 168-169) says that one must integrate these past events into contemporary life. He accomplishes this through what Heidegger halls fore-having (Vorhabe). In order to understand a thing, one must have the thing in advance. Every interpretation involves a fore-concept (Vorgriff). Every understanding must already be a part of a decision on how to perceive that thing (Gadamer, 1989: 269). Everything, he claims, has this fore-sight (Vorsicht) and this is what makes understanding possible (Gadamer, 1988: 276). This assemblage of ideas is similar in many ways to the concept of conceptual frames used in cognitive linguistics (Lakoff, 2004). A frame is a mental construct that influence thinking. It sets up a situation and then provides scenarios that operate within that configuration. Certain words invoke that frame. If one denies a frame, the frame continues to exist. Hence, the frame is a structure that the concept carries with it to provide content to that frame. Cognitive linguistics, however, goes beyond frames and includes metaphors that are used through analogical reasoning to create concepts and the frames that contain them. It should be noted that the avatar of frame analysis is Erving Goffman (1986).
3.5 TRADITION
Gadamer states that tradition is really a part of being human. He expresses this concept of tradition as the handing over of the past (überlieferung) because the past is always present within a tradition. Hence, people should be addressed within their tradition. Historical consciousness recognizes that it is part of a living tradition and that it was formed by that tradition. What this means for Gadamer that the subject as a knower does not act in the Cartesian sense, but only participates in an event within a tradition. If one is to fully understand the language of a community, then one must come from the tradition in which that language was spoken. However, a tradition is also alien and strange and hermeneutic consciousness requires a play (Spiel) between familiarity and strangeness. In other words, it requires interpretive distance that facilitates the filtering out of understanding across disparate horizons. It requires a fusion of these horizons (Horzontverschmetzung). . It should be noted that play for Gadamer is a mode of being-in-the-world. One loses himself in play; he does not objectify it and hold it at a distance. When one is absorbed in play, he is no longer a subject. He acts the play. He enjoys a sense of freedom associated with being-in-the-world even though plays have rules because play is a form of self-representation. One represents himself for someone. In play, one is transformed. He becomes a different person. Each celebration in art, music, or drama is a repetition in which the past is brought into the present and made contemporary. The original essence is always something different (Gadamer, 1989: 123).
3.6 LANGUAGE AS EXPERIENCE
When one interprets another culture, one does so through language. All interpretation presupposes language. This is because the medium of human experience is language. One is situated within language and a translator is a person who is comfortable in the languages being translated. He makes what is spoken in one language intelligible in another. He finds the best way to make the subject that he is translating intelligible in the second language. For Gadamer (1989: 388), language is not a tool. For an example of how language is used as a tool, one should look at the work of Serge Vygotsky (1963; 1978)
Instruments used by Human Beings according to Vygotsky |
||
Symbolic Instrument |
Language is a symbolic instrument |
Language belongs to the Realm of Epistemology |
Instruments of Technology |
Technology is an ontological instrument |
Technology belongs to the Realm of Ontology |
For Vygotsky, intelligence had to do with the capacity to learn from instruction with tools. Hence, the teacher plays a central role in this context. The teacher is there to help the student go beyond his current level of competence. Hence, intelligence is an index of what a student can do and is capable of doing while interacting with adults. The move from the present level of development to the new potential level of development is called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This zone is too difficult for a child to manage alone and for this reason it is done with a mentor, a teacher, helping adult. The use of apprenticeship in education is called scaffolding. The teacher helps the student to move to the next rung on the ladder of ZPD.
Child’s Understanding of the world |
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) |
Adult’s Understanding of the world |
X |
Transitional Stage, |
Y |
One moves from position X to position Y with the help of a mentor or teacher. The task is determined by the teacher as a ZPD. One the task is accomplished, a new task is arranged. This series of tasks is called “scaffolding.” |
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Gadamer argues that language goes beyond being an instrument of thought, it is the medium of thought. Just as the air that one breathes is a medium in which one lives, so too is language a medium in which ones thinks and lives. Humans exist in the medium of language. It is the preferred object of interpretation (Gadamer, 1989: 389). Objects have a being in language. The process of understanding is fundamentally one of linguisticality. Hence, when one enters into a language one is bound by its horizons.
3.7 FACTUALNESS
The object of understating has its life within language. Gadamer reduces all understanding to language. It is the real medium of human beings. Language is a mirror of culture. It constitutes a Zeitgeist. If something is factual, it is because it is recognized and deemed to be a significant by humans. The world that comes into language is a world that is significant to humans (Gadamer, 1988: 456). Factualness shows that human beings do not control the world of their experience. Humans facilitate the development and the growth of the world by things. Things and people are able to enter into language and so become a part of the human world. It is in language that the human world is disclosed. Linguisticality constitutes human communication. Language is the horizon of all experience. One belongs to language. It is the space of human belonging (Zugehörigkeit). Through language, one is taken into a common world that is shared with others. It is a space in which people belong together. It is a world in which subjects are not isolated. It is a non-Cartesian world.
4.0 THE HAWAIIAN WEDDING SONG
The Hawaiian Wedding Song provides an informative example of translating from one cultural horizon to another. This song was written by Charles King in 1926 for his operetta, "Prince of Hawaii." It's Hawaiian name is Ke Kali Nei Au (Waiting Here for You). The English words were written by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning in 1958. Although they were not intended to be a formal translation of the Hawaiian lyrics, they nevertheless do function as an information translation of that song. Hence, they are discussed in this section of the essay.
4.1 TRADITIONAL HAWAIIAN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
What are some of the horizons that need to be fused or merged in order to translate this song into English? The most obvious problem has to do with the Hawaiian musicology. Before the arrival of the missionaries, the Hawaiians did not know about tonal music. Their music did not involve the use of melody. There were two types of vocal traditions: mele oli and mele hula. The former are performed as solo chants without accompaniment. The oli are chanted on special occasions such as rituals and ceremonies. The mele oli use only a few notes in a simple melody. The mele hula are chants accompanied by dance (hula) and often by musical instruments such as the drum (pahu), the gourd (ipu heke), the gourd rattle (uliuli), and the slapping of the hands on the chest (pai umauma).. This music has a regular metrical rhythm. These Hawaiian chants (mele) were sonorous and repetitive and the emphasis was on maintaining a Polynesian tradition rather than on making music.
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Hawaiian music has its own cultural horizons. The vocal traditions consists of solo chants (mele oli) and chanted accompanied by music and dance (mele hula). The traditional musical instruments are the drum (pahu), the gourd (ipu heke), and hand slapping (pai umauma). |
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A few years after the arrival of the missionaries, however, they acquired a new musical tradition of singing Christian hymns (himeni). Another hybrid form of music soon developed when the members of the monarchy who were musically gifted composed songs that were combined with the melodic tunes of Europe. King Kalakaua and his brother along with their sisters Likelike and Liliuokalani wrote many songs that have become a part of Hawaiian musical culture. Queen Liliuokalani, for example composed more than 100 songs including the famous Aloha Oe. In 1836 King Kamehameha III founded the Royal Hawaiian Band. The band was led by Heinrich Berger who was brought over from Germany by King Kamehameha V and he wrote many new Hawaiian songs including the Hawaiian national anthem. He was also the original conductor of the Honolulu Symphony. With the arrival of the Portuguese immigrants from the Azores in the 19th century, Hawaiian music took on a new style with the arrival of the braga from Portugal and the cavaquinho from Brazil. These were the prototype for the Hawaiian instrument known as the ukulele. Finally, the slack-key guitar became an integral part of Hawaiian music. By the time that Charles King wrote the Hawaiian Wedding Song, tonal music was already a part of Hawaiian music culture. Hence, the Wedding Song is written from the perspective of Western culture. It is written as tonal music. Obviously, the two horizons can be merged because they were already similar to each other. If this song were to be done as a mele hula, for example, the disparity between their ethnomusicology would make translation rather difficult.
4.1 THE HAWAIIAN SONG AND ITS TRANSLATION
The other horizon that needs to be addressed has to do with translating Hawaiian into English. Some of these problems ascertained from a comparison from the Hawaii language and its rough translations into English (King 1926, 1943).
Ke Kali Nei Au (Waiting For You) - |
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Eia au ke kali nei |
Here I am waiting I've searched for you Sealed forever to you I desire you (desire) You're mine (you're mine) Fond remembrance of the one who came Listen you, my heart's desire My flower, my fragrant lei You are my blossom (you, my blossom) My desire is always to be with and close My lei (my lei) |
4.2 WORD ORDER
The Hawaiian language differs from English with regard to word order. It would appear that this is a problem, but it is not. Hawaiian is a verb initial language (VSO) in which the subject (S) occurs before the object (O). As McCawley (1970) notes, English is a verb initial language (VSO) in its deep structure but a verb medial language (SVO) in its service structure. Hence, the placements of elements within a sentence differ in a predictable manner. Both, for example place their question markers (QM) at the beginning of the sentence.
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Hawaiian |
English |
Word Order |
[Ua ‘ike] [ke kanaka] [‘i ke ali’i’] |
[The man] [saw] [the chief] |
Question Markers |
Pehea ‘oe? How are you? |
Who saw John? |
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However, what are different between these languages are their patterns of stress. Hawaiian is a syllable-timed language. It has a staccato rhythm. English, on the other hand, is a stress-timed language and is places a heavy emphasis on certain positions within word phrases. This problem was overcome by the composer of the song by diminishing the chanting rhythm of the Hawaiian language and replacing it with more melodic tones. Once again a translation has taken place but at the expense of the source language.
4.3 ASPECT MARKERS
English grammatical terminology is based on Latin which marks events as either being completed or not-completed. Consequently, a completed event is marked by the Latin perfective and a non-completed event is marked by the imperfect. In the Romance languages derived from Latin, one finds the same grammatical terminology and it is concomitant with the Latin concept of the perfect and the imperfect aspect markers.
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Perfect |
Imperfect |
Latin |
The action was carried out |
The action was not carried out |
Spanish |
Cantó (he sang) |
Cantaba (he was singing) |
English, however, has a different kind of aspect system. It is essentially a German language that was influenced by Normandy French. The aspect markers in English have to do with punctuals (one time actions), durations, and iteratives.
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English form |
Commentary |
Punctuals |
He dropped the ball |
This is a one time action |
Duratives have V en |
He has eaten He had eaten He will have eaten He would have eaten |
The action begins in the past and lasts into the present |
Iteratives be V ing |
He is eating He was eating He will be eating He would be eating |
The action is iterative and began in the past and lasts into the present |
Because the nomenclature characteristically associated with Latin grammatical terminology is misleading when used in English, the aspect markers of punctuality, duration, and iterative will be used to explain how these markers function in English.
Hawaiian also has its own aspect markers and the problem here is that tense and aspect markers have been conflated so that a translation into English from Hawaiian may be semantically ambiguous.
Tense Markers |
Hawaiian |
English |
Present Tense |
Structure: ke + Verb + nei |
I work |
Past Tense |
Structure: i + Verb |
I worked |
Future Tense |
Structure: e +Verb |
I shall work |
Aspect Markers |
Hawaiian |
English |
Present Durative |
Structure: ua + Verb |
I have worked |
Past Durative |
Structure : ua + Verb + e |
I had worked |
Hawaiian has no iterative aspect. The present indicative of the verb may be translated either as the present tense or as the present iterative construction.
Ke hana au “I work or I am working”
Subjunctive |
Hawaiian |
English |
Present Subjunctive |
Structure: ke + Verb |
If I worked |
Past Subjunctive |
Structure: ina + Verb |
If I had worked |
Future Subjunctive |
Structure: ina e Verb |
If I shall work |
English has two subjunctive systems. One of them came out of the Germanic subjunctive formation that one finds in Old English, and the other involves the use of modals in Modern English to form new subjunctive structures. Either of these may be used to translate the Hawaiian subjunctive into English.
Old English Subjunctive System
“If I were a rich man …”
“Were I a rich man …”
Use of Modals to express Subjunctivity
“You must speak Hawaiian” is ambiguous
Epistemic: It is surely the case that you speak Hawaiian
Deontic: It is a requirement that you speak Hawaiian
Another more functional kind of aspect has to do with the proximity that one has from the speaker. These are used with present tense markers.
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Hawaiian |
English |
Close to the Speaker |
ke + Verb + nei |
Speaking to the person here |
Distant from the Speaker |
ke + Verb + ala |
Speaking to the person there |
More distant from the Speaker |
ke + Verb + la |
Speaking to the person over there |
This distinction is also used for determinatives.
Hawaiian |
English |
Commentary |
Ke puke |
The book |
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Ke puke ia |
This book |
The demonstrative is composed of the article plus the locative marker. Dialects of English also make this distinction: This book and this-here book . |
Ke puke la |
That book |
Dialectal variants: That-there book, that book there |
The following difficulty in translating aspect from Hawaiian to English is indicative of this conflation of tense and aspect.
Hawaiian |
Grammatical Explication |
Translation |
Eia au ke huli nei |
Eia is a locative (here is) + au (I or me) |
I've searched for you |
Commentary: The English present progressive shows that an action began in the past and continues into the present. The English durative has to do with an action that begins in the past and lasts until the present. The Hawaiian sentence does not have a present progressive structure. However, it is translated into English as a iterative aspect. |
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The problem is how does one translate from one language to another when there are no equivalent grammatical structures? In linguistic theory, this is done by creating an abstract intermediary structure that relates universals to particulars. For Fodor (1983), the semantic domains are universal and for Chomsky (1993), the mathematical principals that govern and bind grammatical structures are universal. The fusion of grammatical horizons can be easily accommodated within linguistic theory however it encounters problems in dealing with the phenomenological levels of human experience as used in social and cultural practices. This is the problem that Gadamer (1989) wrestled with. He wanted to favor the concrete particulars over the abstract universals.
4.4 SEMANTIC DOMAINS
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in the fusion of horizons between Hawaiian and English can be found in the semantic domains. The following sentence from the Hawaiian Wedding Song demonstrates that these languages and cultures differ in how they view the center of emotions in their respective cultures.
Maha ka `i`ini a ka pu`uwai |
Maha is a verb (rest) |
Calm the desire of my heart |
Pu’uwai is used as the center of emotions. This is a Western concept. Emotions in Hawaiian are felt in the Na’au (intestines), ôpû (stomach), or loko (entrails). For example, Na’au pôkole means short tempered. It is literally short intestines. Ôpû nini means jealous. Literally stomach ointment. Loko ino means heartless. Literally it means wicked or evil entrails. |
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These examples are indicative of the problems associated with the translation from a Polynesian language into a Germanic Creole (English). Their semantic domains are disparate.
5.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS
The proposed rehabilitation of semiotics opens up the way for a more integrated model that can map elements from the epistemological domain such as cognitive frames with the expressions in the realm of ontology. An important part of this model includes the discussion of human agency.
Agency in this rehabilitated model of semiotics includes the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id plays a minor role in this model, but the Ego functions as the Self and the Superego functions as the Social Self. The socially constructed self or the biographical self is an expansion of the Mirror Self in Lacan (1999). What began as the mirror image model of the self is transformed over time into a socially constructed model of the self. In the aforementioned figure, it portrays the self as an artist who is part of an intellectual community. He models himself for that community. It is his cognitive frame. His social scenarios are addressed to that community. His works of art (structural semiosis) is addressed to that group. His interpretations of art (structural hermeneutics) are based on that audience. Since there are many frames in ones social life, the interaction of the self with others in different cognitive frames is best expressed in terms of graph theory in which there are vertices and edges associated with aristocratic circles of contacts and plebian contacts in small world theory (Chartrand, 1985; Watts and Duncan, 1998).
The vertices, in this case, do not represent people, but cognitive frames. The activities within those frames are articulated social scripts. Traditional semiotics cannot handle this kind of complexity in dealing with the interface between meaning systems and ontological forms or expressions. Small words theory, however, only presents a minor part of the far more complex process of social interaction as evidenced in the writings of Jonathan Turner (1988).
5.1 THE ALIENATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Gadamer contends that the task of philosophy is to overcome the alienation of consciousness from the experiences of life. He directs his attack on the natural sciences and feels that the natural sciences have distanced people from the lived experiences of the world. This alienation occurs, he claims, because the prevailing attitude in these sciences is to dominate and control nature. Habermas (1985) countered this attack on the natural sciences. These sciences, he argued, can arrive at truth and moreover it can provide important information to the world of human experience. In other words, he claimed that philosophical hermeneutics is incomplete. It depends on the medium of language in order to arrive at truth, but the natural sciences can operate without language. Habermas went on to write about how difficult it is to transcend one’s own zeitgeist within philosophical hermeneutics. He brought into play the case of psychoanalysis where one is convinced of his own distorted view of communication and where an outsider, a therapist, must be brought into the situation in order to rectify the situation. When people are in a situation, he explains, they do not have the ability to see things beyond their own horizon. The analyst functions as an external standard against which a hidden pathology can be revealed. Furthermore, hermeneutic consciousness must reach beyond language. Habermas believes that a distinction needs to be made within Truth and Method (Gadamer, 1989) between authority and reason. Gadamer, he notes, is deluded into accepting authority as a positive presupposition for understanding. As a matter of fact, he adds, authority is legitimated force and not legitimated knowledge. Hence, reason is a standard that stands against authority. For example, in Thomas S. Kuhn’s Theory of Scientific Revolutions, normal science represents authority, in the period of crisis, the reactions against authority was based on reason, and the establishment of a new revolutionary science was also based on reason (Kuhn, 1964).
One of the differences between Habermas and Gadamer has to do with their own theoretical constructs. Habermas (1981) is a neo-Hegelian. He has built into his model of communicative action (Theorie des kommunikativen Handels) the concept of social evolution based on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel, 1977). Hegel, it has been argued (St. Clair, 2002) has blended two metaphors from Plato and Aristotle. From the latter, he took the idea of growth (Greek: physis) as a change from material form through the final cause and from the former he took the concept of the world of ideal forms. His book on the Phenomenology of Spirit is based on Aristotle’s motor cause, the energy that takes a form from its beginning into its final form. Hegel called this motor force spirit (Geist). History, for Hegel, was a continuous growth in the Aristotelian sense in which the final form was the world of ideal forms. Nevertheless, history for Hegel is never complete because it continues to grow. Habermas sees society in this way. It is continuously evolving. From his point of view, the model proposed by Gadamer appears to be rather static and incapable of growth.
5.2 LANGUAGE AS BOTH AGENCY AND EXPERIENCE
Rene Descartes (1999) placed too strong an emphasis on self-consciousness. This led Edmund Husserl (1965) to attempt to transcend the ego and account the existence of the world. He argued that ideas are real (Husserl, (1962) because they involve intention. Heidegger (1927) redefined the experience of being human away from man as a rational being into one who is a being-in-the-world. He did not want to accept human beings as agents in the world and focused his attention on the experiences of being. Gadamer (1989) had a philosopher that was similar to Heidegger but his concern was with using hermeneutics as a method to arrive at his truth of the world. What has happened in this transition from Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, to Gadamer, a postmodern philosopher, is a denial of the significance of self-consciousness and agency in language. He argued that language is not a tool. Tools require human agents. Instead, he placed great emphasis on language being a medium of human experience. The model of structural philosophy proposed by St. Clair (2010) argues that agency has a role in human experience. Postmodernism cannot divorce itself from modernism. Human beings are agents in the world as well as beings-in-the-world. The limitations of philosophical hermeneutics are most evident in the debate between Habermas (1985) and Gadamer. Science and technology are part of being human. There are more avenues to knowledge than those provided only by language. However, language is a primary instrument of thought as well as a medium of thought. This is why the concept of reality-loops go well beyond the linking of thought and experience. They constitute the social construction of reality.
This essay began with the realization that traditional semiotics could not adequately be used as an instrument of translation and interpretation across linguistic communities. The work of Gadamer on philosophical hermeneutics was used to investigate how language and experience are involved in the experience of being human. Although Gadamer did not see language as an instrument of thought, it is. It is also a medium of human experience. Both are required in translation. The social self plays a strong role in the social construction of self. Agency may be human, but it is also social. People act in the presence of others. They exist for others. Intentionality is connected both to agency and to the experience of being-in-the-world. Language, it has been argued (Rodrigues, St. Clair, and Joshua, 2005)) is provides human beings with schemas, frames, and the modern equivalent of the Kantian categories.
The question remains: Can the social and cultural horizons of a Polynesian language be fused with that of American English? The fact of the matter is that when cultures are disparate and their semantic and cultural horizons are incongruent, translations fail. In the case of the Wedding Song, the translation works because traditional Hawaiian assimilated to British and American cultures and the translations are not from the original source but from an acculturated revision of the past.
It is easier to translate from an acculturated source than from an original source. The disparity between cultural models is concealed and one has the illusion that a good translation of the original source has taken place. The fusion of cultural horizons takes place between the acculturated text and the target translation. In this case both cultures share many similarities and the process of acculturation facilitates the translation of the text into the target language. This is where the fusion of horizons best occurs in translation