Our Being Linguistic

Ignacio G. Ver Since we are a conversation And can hear one another
Friedrich Holderlin

Hans-Georg Gadamer (2001, 39) cites the above excerpt from Holderlin to help him sum up the linguistic turn of his thinking. Similarly, this essay intends to arrive at how it is that our being linguistic sums itself up in our being a conversation. What does it possibly mean that our being linguistic is our being a conversation? This essay gathers inspiration from experiences that manifest our being caught up in language or our being bound to language. A being caught up or a belonging to the experience of language that takes place, for instance, in a gathering where shared words and words recited in are themselves the bonding that happens or where words that travel long distances not only remind us of what it means to be with each other but is itself one of the ways by which we actually are with one another. This also takes place where words beckon us to further speech or writing, where one cannot remain silent after hearing such words. It appears inexhaustible the way we, individually and collectively, undergo experiences of being caught up in language. It also appears that our being caught up in language manifests our intimacy with the reality that shows up in speaking, hearing and conversation, in writing and in reading. It is in this light that this essay poses the question of what we are about in speaking and in conversation, in writing and in reading, what is there to learn of who we are in our being linguistic? Of Speech and Conversation In speaking a language, in saying something on something, is it the case that language is a tool we use? We may have this impression given how we may think that we have to master a language (as one masters a tool) in order to express oneself, in order to say what one means. But do we master a language? What happens as we go about speaking or as we learn to speak a language? Gadamer (1977, 62) cautions us that language is never simply an instrument that we make use of as we need to and that we lay aside as we dont need to. As with any use of an instrument, the user occupies a central place, given the users needs and purposes and given how the user actually manipulates what is used to serve its needs and purposes. As Gadamer (Ibid.) himself words it: We never find ourselves as consciousness over against the world and, as it were, grasp

after a tool of understanding in a wordless condition. Rather, in all our knowledge of ourselves and in all our knowledge of the world, we are always already encompassed by the language that is our own. If language, our speaking and wording, is an instrument used for some end, then this assumes that we recognize a state of affairs prior to this speaking and wording, just as we recognize an unscrewed bolt or an unhinged door prior to our utilizing instruments to set them working. But there is no way of recognizing any situation apart from our speaking about it, apart from the way we wordedly deal with it. While an infant does not yet speak a language in the way that someone elder does, does it follow that the infants dealing with toys, for instance, is not in any way linguistic? Or would it be more appropriate to speak of the infant as already involved in the process of being linguistic? Rather than standing apart from or being exempt from language, experience is bound to language, to being spoken of, to being worded. Seeking and finding words to express it belongs to the experience itself (Gadamer, 1992, 417). Experiencing something comes to some fulfillment as we find the wording that determines it, the wording about which we can argue and consent to. Do we not have experiences that testify to how arriving at the right word is establishing ourselves as experiencing or as having experienced. And this also goes for experiences that we consider strange or ineffable. There is a wording that belongs to the experience itself. There is no unworded thinking. Or, there is no thinking that does not lean toward or be disposed to being worded, spoken and heard. Thinking is a wording. The expanse of thinking, of thinking about is also the expanse of language, of being worded. All thinking is drawn into the play of language. There is no freedom to make use of or not to make use of language. Being linguistic is not at our disposal, as tools and instruments are. Furthermore, unlike a tool, language is not what it is apart from its use, apart from its saying or apart from the said. The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it - what is said (Gadamer 1977, 65). As we freely speak and discuss, our manner of speaking, and whatever rules or forms we speak by all stand in service of disclosing what is said. Only when speech is inhibited, as in the violent interrogation of a caught spy or because of some hidden agenda or some image being protected in the face of those spoken to, do we take extra effort to become aware of how we speak or how we think we should speak for achieving certain desired ends. Just as there is no understanding of things apart from language, so also is there no understanding of language apart from things said. What would there be left to speak of or about language apart from what comes to be said in language? Moreover, in our experiences of speaking and hearing what is spoken, it is not we, the hearers and speakers, who are the focus of the happening that is taking place. Rather, it is the coming into language of the said or what is made present in the speaking. Yes, there would be no said without one who says. Nevertheless, my chosen action in the wording of the said appears to be more the action of the thing said upon me than my own action upon things. 2

This will once more appear as we move from speech to conversation. To speak is also to speak to someone or at least for someone, anyone who can hear. If my speaking cannot do that then there is something amiss with my speech. Rather than speaking of conducting a conversation, Gadamer (1992, 367) refers to a conversation in terms of the interlocutors allowing themselves to be conducted by the subject matter that comes to stand through the course of the conversation. Looking at the way a conversation unfolds, of words solicited from what had just been said, of the twists and turns a conversation takes in reaching its conclusion, the partners conversing appear far less the leaders than the those who are led by the subject matter of the conversation. No one can know beforehand how a conversation is to take place and where it will lead to. Conversation is the process of coming to mutual understanding. And this mutual understanding is reached as the conversation itself arrives at a common language, a shared way speaking about the subject matter (Weinsheimer 1985, 212). Gadamer (1977, 66) highlights what he takes to be the operation of conversation through the concept of play. Any play, whether a play of light, of waves, or of words, involves a to-andfro movement. The play, Gadamer (1992, 103) indicates, is the occurrence of the movement as such. The play fulfills itself only if the player loses himself in play. It is not really a desire for winning or being skilled at playing that answers for our being held captive by play. Our fascination in playing is our being caught up in the movement of play itself. The players are not the subjects of play; instead play merely reaches presentation through the players (Ibid). Playing is a being played. Similarly, the subject matter of a conversation is not mine nor yours. And yet it comes to stand in language through us, through the play of statement and counterstatement, the subject matter reaching presentation through us. And it will come to peculiarly stand as others have fallen into and have allowed themselves to be led by the subject matter. A player who does not lose himself in play or who refuses to be swayed by its to-and-fro movement, Gadamer (Ibid.) considers a spoilsport. This can take the form of a player who becomes bored of the to-and-fro movement or who too preoccupied with winning cannot enjoy a good swing back that answers her/his given swing. The spoilsport in conversation can take the form of one who is too proud to risk opinions held or who is safeguarding some hidden agenda. In all these cases, there is a refusal to let go and allow oneself to be led by the play of the game or the play of the subject matter between us through conversation. The spoilsport appears to be one who not only retains a hold on himself but who sees him/herself as the initiative behind what can possibly happen. The player, on the other hand, of the game or the conversation, recognizes her/himself as a participant, as one who takes part of a happening that is not of her/his willing and planning. This to-and-fro movement of conversation also takes place in speech, just as it does in thinking that Plato describes as the dialogue of the soul with itself (Gadamer 1977, 66). Speech involves a tension between the 3

individualization of words spoken and the conventions of meaning of such words (Ibid, 85). While working with the conventions of meaning that words hand down, the event of speech is also an individualization of the words meaning as such words are solicited by the situation of the speaker. Furthermore, every conversation has an inner infinity and no end (Linge 1977, xxxiii). There is really no final, ending word to any conversation. Countless others after us will also find themselves falling into conversation, being led by the subject matter of the conversation we just had. Similarly, the individualization of words in speech will be as infinite as speakers can speak, for example, about being joyous or being at fault. Of Writing and Reading Similar to speech and conversation, there is also the saying of the said, something also comes to stand in language in writing. Unlike speech and conversation, however, the written word attests to the said on its own. In speech and conversation, the coming into language of the said remains connected to the context of saying. This context includes the interests and opinions the speakers have, how speakers intend their co-discussants and thus speak and word things the way they do. The subject matter plays itself out in the to-and-fro movement between all these. With the written word, however, all we really have is itself. And this does not present us with a deficient mode of saying. For what the written word means is not enclosed within the intentions of its author. The said in writing displays for us, the readers, how much more is meant than whatever intentions the author may have had. What is fixed in writing has raised itself into a public sphere of meaning in which everyone who can read has an equal share (Gadamer 1992, 392). This is the public sphere that is only actualized by reading. A text speaks through its being read. We cannot speak of the saying in writing apart from the reading of writing. And this coming to speech of what is written through its being read is just like the to-and-fro movement, the play of conversation. Reading is not an uncovering of an already given meaning. No reader simply takes in or simply reads what is there. Reading and understanding a text is unfolding my being addressed by it. And being addressed by the text happens as the subject matter of the text comes to be said as I, the reader, say it, too. On the one hand, the reader can only read and understand from within his/her linguistic horizon. And yet, on the other hand, reading and understanding is of what the text says as the text itself says it. Reading, like conversation, is also the process of arriving at a common language, in which the coming to speech of the text (its coming to say what it says as it is read) is said in a way in which the reader, says it, too. The understanding of something written is not a repetition of something past but the sharing of a present meaning (Ibid.). We do not find ourselves having to refer and relate back to ancient Greek culture to be moved and transformed by the fate of the character Oedipus in Sophocles

Oedipus Rex. One need not be a Filipino to find oneself addressed by the nobility of Crisostomo Ibarras decisions as narrated in Jose Rizals Noli Me Tangere. This sharing of a present meaning that happens between the present reading of a written text also takes place between future readers of this written text. As Gadamer (Ibid, 340) tells us: The line of meaning that the text manifests to him as he reads it always and necessarily breaks off into an open indeterminacy. . . future generations will understand differently what he has read in the text. There is no reason for us to delimit who can be addressed by the written word. Just as anyone who can speak and hear can be addressed by what comes to speech, can fall into conversation and be led by the said, so also anyone who can read can be addressed by the written word. And the common language that reading, like conversation, creates is a common saying that is created anew in the different events of reading. It is a reading and understanding differently of the same subject matter. It is the same subject matter of the weakness and folly of Macbeth, or the same subject matter declaring self-sovereignty and independence of a nation, but only as these subject matters are read by, as these subject matters address themselves to someone who is from a different time and place, someone who speaks differently and yet is able to say what the subject matter says. For in order to be able to express a texts meaning and subject matter, we must translate it into our own language (Ibid, 396). Understanding the written word both frees us and binds us (Ibid, 163). It frees us from being enclosed within our peculiar situation. Reading the written word is also a binding of the reader with those before him who have been addressed by the text, with those after him who will also read and understand what it means to be addressed by the text. The ability of the text to address any present time is also the possibility the written word offers for community. This is what can be called the communality of the written word. It is a communality shared by the present not only with those who have come before but also those who will come after. The Open Space of Conversation Our ways of being linguistic are each conversation-like. To speak of something, even if only to myself as I am thinking or to myself as I am in the process of writing, is to speak from within a linguistic context where my speaking is done in relation to what had been said by others, in relation to texts that I have heard or read, to texts that have sedimented and have become part of our everyday socio-cultural life. Speaking involves a play between the agreed upon meanings that words have as they are used and the peculiar circumstance of speaking that solicits how these meanings are to be worded in another way. This is the open space in which speech happens, the open space in which a language lives. There is no speech apart from this open space, for words are not signs standing apart from what it is a sign of. Rather, something comes to language in speech. 5

And what comes to language is reworded differently in different circumstances, by me or others. This open space of conversation is further highlighted by conversation itself. We have seen how we do not really conduct a conversation but fall into or are drawn into one. The people conversing are being played by the subject matter that comes to speech through them. Involved in this open space of conversation is how we, by ourselves, are not the source of the wording, of statement and counterstatement, of question and answer that happen in the course of a conversation. Rather than serving as the center around which things happen in a conversation, we remain centered onto the subject matter around which the conversation proceeds. Only the spoilsport stubbornly affirms him/herself as the center. And in this spoilsport case, no conversation happens. Furthermore, this openness of conversation is shown in that any conversation is never the last word to be said but will remain a finite, particular saying that remains open to other ways of saying. Writing and reading also depict this openness of what is conversation-like. While the read text does not talk back like a partner in conversation, nevertheless, reading involves a way by which I apply myself to the text in such a way that the text unfolds a possible way of experiencing and behaving for me, i.e., the coming to speech of the text (its coming to say what it says as it is read) is said in a way in which the reader, says it, too. We have also seen how this open space in which the intersection and interaction between the reader and the text happens will remain open to ways by which other readers will find themselves addressed by what the text says, as I myself have been. This open space is also manifest in the way the text, through reading, conjoins with other texts, continuing or reacting against other texts. All these make up the life of the text, a life that would cease if we were to impose only one way of interpreting the text. There is no life of the text outside of this open space of conversation. Speaking different languages does not cause this open space of conversation to be splintered into segregated spaces according to the different languages. We speak differently of loving and hating, of praising and celebrating, and there is no leveling off of these differences. Good translations result from a bringing together of two languages, a crossroads between two peculiar ways of speaking about some subject matter. While the speaker of a language may find that s/he cannot precisely express what another language expresses, as it is peculiarly expressed in a language, it, nevertheless, remains possible for a language to speak about what another language expresses. Even if I may not be able to speak about lovemaking, for example, in the way people from a certain culture do so, I am able, at the least, to speak about how they speak about lovemaking as strange or untypical. Nothing is so strange and unfamiliar that one cannot at all say anything about it, even if only to start by saying that it is strange and unfamiliar. We partake of the open space of conversation as speakers and listeners, writers and readers of different languages (even if we could speak several languages, it is one language that is operational as actually used and thought through and lived). And while we do so, as English writers, or German speakers, or readers of Spanish texts, our linguistic involvement partakes of the space of conversation that any other language does. There is no space of conversation exclusive to English readers, writers and speakers, and neither is there an exclusive space of conversation for other languages. Translation indicates how speakers of different languages share in an open space of conversation. There is simply no way to delimit this space of conversation. To attempt to do so is to be the spoilsport, stubbornly unwilling to be swayed by the life of texts, by the solicitations of speech and conversation, by the enriching exchange that happens between the reader and the written text. There is no way to outrun or see from the outside this open space of conversation. Whether

it is the truth that we are painstakingly searching for, or our coming to an agreement about the good appropriate for this unprecedented circumstance, or figuring out how to overcome ones midlife crisis, or of rearing kids and planning for a refreshing and wholesome family weekend, all this is possible as linguistically mediated, i.e., as processed through and by language, whether through speech, to myself or to others, whether through texts handed down, as read or as heard, whether through the effects of the written word read as this eventually sediments and becomes part of our everyday socio-cultural life. And all this linguistic mediation happens in the open space of conversation. For we are a conversation, And we can listen to one another As developed in the course of this essay, conversation is not simply something we take up and do. We are drawn into a conversation, held captive by what can come to speech through us in the course of our conversation. Furthermore, we have seen that the to-and-fro play of conversation, the exchange of question and answer, statement and counterstatement equally happens in writing and in reading, even in talking to myself in thinking, recollecting and planning. This conversation structure happens in any linguistic mediation. There is nothing of who we have become and who we can be that is not linguistically mediated, i.e., that has not been processed through the wording that is thinking, the conversations I have had with others, the reading of texts, the possibilities for living that has been made possible by the effects of the written word read. It is in this sense that we are a conversation. Moreover, our being as being linguistically mediated is a being in the open space of conversation. Our possibilities for being are the possibilities that emerge from and are worked out through the way that words call forth other words, through the way that what comes to be said will remain open to what has not been said and can still be said. And our possibilities for being would be impoverished if the open space of conversation were not as open as it can be. There are many ways the open space of conversation is intentionally or unintentionally delimited and, so, distorted. This can be seen in the case of discrimination, where voices are marginalized because they are treated as secondary and inferior. This bars us from the ways the word, or the subject matter of conversation, or the life of texts can possibly unfold through them. The effect of the written word read, then, would not be as effecting and transforming as it could be. To argue against discrimination is also safeguarding the open space of conversation in which we can be at home and be ourselves. In recognizing that what comes to language comes to language through us, i.e., through the exchange of conversation between speakers, or between reader and text, we also recognize that we can serve to hinder what can come to language. This is what the spoilsport does. Being stubbornly engrossed in our own agenda, we may play favorites with our choice of words, leaving others out, proclaiming that only those who can speak the way we do can take part of the conversation. Our being linguistic does not only refer to a capacity for speaking, hearing, and reading. Our being linguistic also refers to our way of being as beings who can speak and read and listen to one another. As speakers and hearers, as writers and readers we encounter the demand upon us to safeguard the open space of conversation, to maintain the openness between speakers and hearers, between readers, between texts that come together through reading. It is by safeguarding this open space of conversation that we can live together, that we are able to live beyond borders that isolate. If it makes sense for us to refer to or to claim active membership in a community of seekers for the truth, it can only be so because we equally promote an open space of conversation and uphold

ourselves as caretakers of it. It is also in this sense that we are a conversation. As children of the word, we will always be invited to be tasked as caretakers of the open space of conversation, safeguarding its openness in whatever involvements we may find ourselves in, or in whatever career or profession we may have carved out for ourselves. Whether I am a doctor diagnosing what appears to be a sickness, or a domestic helper bargaining for a raise, or people arguing about the best person to vote for the president of a country, in all these and in whatever other involvements there is present ways in which we either uphold and/or argue for the open space of conversation or we play the spoilsport who delimits and distorts the space of conversation. In promoting literacy, enabling people to read and write is a way of maintaining the openness of this open space of conversation. The Internet also provides a way of fulfilling the open space of conversation. People from different parts of the world can converse with texts unavailable in a hard-copy form and they can converse with each other. The Internet has enabled us to see a greater extent of this open space of conversation. It has enabled us to all the more recognize that the open space of conversation does not play favorites, that anyone who can speak and hear can partake in the conversation. Of course, the Internet can also be used as an instrument for the spoilsport, delimiting the life of texts, illegitimately reserving for the few the space of conversation. Discussion Questions and Activities. 1) Trace out how an involvement of yours (as a member of a family, of a school or civic organization, etc.) is significantly bound to language. And how this chosen involvement participates in the open space of conversation, as a player or as a spoilsport. 2) In small groups, discuss how your being linguistic as this is manifest in your involvements actually collaborates or can collaborate with others in maintaining the open space of conversation open. 3) In small groups, discuss what reservations you may have about the claims of being linguistic that the article forwards. Attempt to provide alternative suggestions that are appropriate descriptions of and inferences from our being linguistic. References Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2001. Gadamer in Conversation: Reflections and Commentary. Translated and edited by Richard Palmer. London: Yale University Press. __________. 1977. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and edited by David Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press. __________. 1992. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall. New York: Crossroad Publishing Corp. Linge, David. 1977. Editors Introduction. In Philosophical Hermeneutics by

Hans-Georg Gadamer. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weinsheimer, Joel. 1985. Gadamers Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method. New Haven: Yale University Press.