1. Hermeneutics: A Communicative Model BT101 Dr. Jeannine Brown

2. Meaning as Communicative Intention a. Description of View: 1. The author’s intentions communicated in the text is the focus. 2. Distinction between the author’s psychological motives for writing and the author’s communicative intention. The goal of interpretation is the communicative intention.

3. Meaning as Communicative Intention “Meaning is the complex pattern of what an author intends to communicate with his/her audience for purposes of engagement, which is inscribed in the text and conveyed through use of both shareable language parameters and background-contextual assumptions” (Scripture as Communication).

4. 1. Meaning is determinate 4. Meaning is meta-cognitive 3. Meaning involves a pattern of meaning – complex yet determinate 2. Meaning is sharable: based on shared linguistic signs and contextual assumptions Characteristics of Meaning in this View:

5. Criticisms of this View: 1. Focuses on hidden, psychological intentions of the author In Response: hidden motives vs. communicative intention 2. Too simplistic (singular meaning) In Response: ‘pattern of meaning’ is meant to illustrate the complexity of meaning (yet still affirm meaning as an entity with boundaries) “To say that verbal meaning is determinate is not to exclude complexities of meaning but only to insist that a text’s meaning is what it is and not a hundred other things” (Hirsch, Validity, 230).

6. 2 1 3 2 1 Normative Stance 3 say do ? imply Locution/illocution; Explicit-implicit What does text What does text assume? Assumed background context What is implied author’s stance (point of view)? Implied reader (intended response for reader) Text – Projected World Assumed Context Textual World

7. 4) A Historical Survey of Viewpoints on Author, Text, and Reader a. Schleiermacher (1768-1834)  Called “Father of Modern Hermeneutics”  Distinguished between the objective and subjective (or psychological) dimensions of interpretation  Goal of Interpretation: “To understand the text first as well as and then better than its author did.”  Dilthey, who later popularized Schleiermacher’s work in hermeneutics, had as his goal: “To understand the author better than the author understood himself.”

8. 4) A Historical Survey of Viewpoints on Author, Text, and Reader b. Heidegger (Being and Time, 1927)  Meaning is a property (not of texts but) of the reader’s way of knowing. Nevertheless, meaning is not an imposition on texts but a horizon in which ‘Dasein’ is disclosed.  Detached, objective judgments will not disclose meaning. Only in ‘meditative’ thought will the hidden be revealed.  Centrality of the Hermeneutical Circle: Meaning is located in the interplay between the interpreter and the text.

9. 4) A Historical Survey of Viewpoints on Author, Text, and Reader c. Gadamer (Truth and Method, 1960)  Meaning occurs in the fusion of the horizons of the text and the interpreter.  Emphasized the unique nature of written language: In the act of writing, “meaning has undergone a kind of self-alienation.”  Moved away from the text as a control for meaning: “Understanding is not merely reproductive but always a productive attitude as well.”

10. 4) A Historical Survey of Viewpoints on Author, Text, and Reader d. Post-Modern Hermeneutics:  Derrida and others advocate a ‘deconstruction’ of the text, claiming that texts are radically metaphorical and full of potential rather than actual meanings.  Gunn and Fewell: “We understand texts to be inherently unstable, since they contain within themselves the threads of their own unraveling. Broad Range of Theories/Approaches One Example: Deconstructionism

11. WORLD BEHIND TEXT Author motives Culture Original Audience Specific situation TEXT Embodied Intention [of Author] WORLD PROJECTED BY TEXT READER AUDIENCE writes enters illuminates

12. Spectrum of Intentionality Communication -----------------------------------------Self-Expression Ordinary Writing Epistle Narr Poetry Music Visual Art Ordinary Writing Epistle Narr Poetry Music Visual Art Scientific Writing Scientific Writing Literature Literature