I posited in my previous posts that:
a. Language is inherent to life. Since there can be no life unless there is a functional coordination between the inner reality of the living organism and the environment which constitutes the ‘outer’ reality.
b. Language evolves. According to what needs to be coordinated. And, since the advent of man, according to their ‘wishes’.
Fast forward to the present.
To the world of alternative facts…
Delanies Lawes, the author of a very interesting paper, “The Theater of the Absurd”, gives us a heads up.
‘Language is unreliable, “one can easily say one thing and do the opposite” ‘.
She ends her study by pointing out “Essentially, the absurd dramatists redefined the art form and created a space in which succeeding movements could flourish.”
Reading forward, I came across an explanation by Kathrin Busch. Clarifying – for us, ordinary people – what Walter Benjamin meant when making the difference between ‘through language’ and ‘in language’.
“he also draws a clear distinction between expression through language and expression within language. A specific content, i.e. what is meant by the word, is communicated through language – as befits its instrumental use. Items of information and semantic content are conveyed through the language as it is defined instrumentally. In contrast, something else again is communicated in language: a very particular type of meaning emerges in the expression or in the manner of speaking and this meaning in no way has to match the content of what is being said. Benjamin now imposes the mode of speaking, the form of language, on the concept of language in general, thereby implying that, for him, the form of articulation is more fundamental for language than the communicable nature of semantic contents or their referentiality. Benjamin’s argument thus goes considerably further than simply stating that the meaning of what is being said is inseparable from the way of saying it, that the content of a speech act is intrinsically bound up with its form. Rather, the more radical argument that the form of speech can produce a completely different, independent and above all latent meaning must be made…”
“However, Benjamin doesn’t just mean that, within a language – in poetic usage for example – the “how” of the act of saying is relevant, but that every language is itself such a form of saying. Language is precisely the formative principle of expression in general. Here, Benjamin picks up on Humboldt’s concept of the inner form of language. According to this, a specific form of saying is expressed in a particular language and, at the same time, a particular cultural significance is generated through this linguistic form.”
Conventional language has failed man… one can easily say one thing and do the opposite…
Hence conventional language has failed man by not being rigid enough. By being a flexible enough ‘space’ where man might say one thing while doing the exact opposite…
Well… not so fast!
“Essentially, the absurd dramatists redefined the art form and created a space in which succeeding movements could flourish.”
By using language in a specific manner, theirs, the absurd dramatists created, opened up, the space for was going to happen next…
Not that different from what Benjamin, and Humboldt, had to say about the matter. That by using language, people build culture. And civilization.
Interact with their environment. Benjamin was also speaking about the “language of things“.
Coordinate their actions. One way or the other. Act as a team or deceive their marks…
The point being that all these people say the same thing.
Using different words and, maybe, even without realizing how close they fit together.
Language is far more than what we say. Far more than what we do…
Basically, language is the interface we use to interact with the rest.
A tool.
A tool which seems to have a mind of its own, but only because it is wielded simultaneously by all of us.
nicichiarasa 