Interpretation


 * Definition**

The OED etymology of interpretation reveals the root meanings of the term as being “to explain, expound, translate, understand.” When taken globally we might consider Palmer’s (1969) distillation of these meanings as simply the processes and event of “bringing to understanding” (p. 13). David Olson (1994) also assists in setting the stage by distinguishing between the phenomenon of interpretation and interpretation as a concept. He writes: To interpret and to have a concept of interpretation are quite different things…whereas interpretation may be a universal feature of any symbol user, the concepts of interpretation are cultural artifacts subject to revision, to development and historical change” (Olson, 1994, p. 116) Thus in this entry we will understand interpretation as sense making and bringing to understanding. Thus, following Olson (1994), we can delineate between three kinds of various meaning making processes rooted in the human condition as symbol users: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic (p. 117). To these we might add Anton (2010, p. 96) “ritualistic” level, referring to the moment-by-moment experience of character, one’s own and/or another’s, as accomplished in either harmony or dissonance guided towards the demands of situational propriety.


 * Meaning Making Processes: Pragmatic and Ritualistic**

At the pragmatic and ritualistic levels, where meaning is derived from coordinated actions, we find interpretation studied as a “bringing to understand” involved in interpersonal communication. For instance, the emphasis on “alignment of interpretations” as an indicator of understanding between associates (Deetz & Stevenson, 1986, p. 230; Knapp, et. al. 2002, p. 14). Or as we might find in the notion of illocutionary force and “conversational implicatures” noted by Grice (1989, pp. 22-31). Or, more still, in the works of Erving Goffman and the articulation of symbolic interaction given by Blummer (1969), writing that “self-indications” and “interpretations” are the how of human symbolic being in the world (p.79). Or we might consider the research in communication and gender  that note “differing” interpretive styles associated within the masculine and feminine forms of talk (Tannen, 1990 pp. 24-25).


 * Meaning Making Processes: Syntactic and Semantic**

Examining the syntactic levels of interpretative processes nudge us toward considering textual hermeneutics, as the interpretation of texts. Hermeneutics is often understood as the “practice of interpretation” (Jasinski, 2001 p. 281). The Greek messenger God Hermes (or the Roman god, Mercury) was said to mediate or relay messages from gods to human beings. Thus, the etymological senses of the word interpretation are also found in attempts to define hermeneutics as a process of communication, for instance as a saying, an explaining, and a translating (Palmer, 1969, p 13). Other scholars have also identified a tripart nature to interpretation as consisting of “reading, explicating, making sense” of a text to and for and audience (Mailloux, 1990, p. 121). Essentially, these views hold near to classical understandings of interpretation as a mediating process between text, interpreter and audience (as either a party of one, or of many). Authorial intent and the text become objects of study, lending to a turn to methodological processes for guiding interpretation. Or as we find early in Erasmus’ letter to Martin Dorp calling for a method of reading that would “accommodate the meanings of words [text] to speakers” meaning (interpretations) (Eden, 1997, p. 3).

The spirit of syntactical sense making also undergirds the sense of interpretation associated with the father of modern “general hermeneutics,” Friedrich Schleiermacher (Palmer, 1969, p. 84), wherein a text is opened up to a hermeneutical circle being read in oscillations between parts and the whole. Here we might consider what Jasinski (2001, p. 288), following Ricoeur (1970, pp. 20-36), identifies as “two rival” hermeneutic postures with direct consequences for rhetorical criticism, postures of “appreciation” and of “suspicion.” As a posture of suspicion, one can consider the critical theory of Stuart Hall. His encoding/decoding, and articulation theories of message design, each positing an active interpreter between production and ideological subjectivities within in domination (Hall, 1980, p. 325). Or we can consider a posture of appreciation such as the interpretive sociology of Max Weber and his concept of Verstehen, or understanding rooted in first and foremost appreciating subjective interpreting human beings within environments (1991 p.7). And in rhetorical studies, Rosenfield (1974) argues for an appreciative stance that would offer foundational prolegomena for the aspirations of critical projects, albeit cropped of metaphysical presuppositions of subject/object realism presupposed in suspicious postures (p. 490). In the end, however, each continues a classical hermeneutic tripart towards the aims of developing methodological precision.

Finally when examining the semantic level of interpretive processes, we find hermeneutics as a radically ontological understanding of self, world, and others that is rhetorical. Thus, within the communication discipline, particularly in the 70’s and early 90’s, some rhetorical scholars sought to explore the potential of an “observed but unseen” relation between rhetoric and hermeneutics (Hyde & Smith, 1979 p. 348, Rosenfield, 1974 p. 490, Leff, 1997 p. 198, Deetz, 1978 p. 21). At this time, this was a renewed interest in the potential of hermeneutics for contributing to rhetorical enterprises largely motivated by modern understandings of hermeneutics rooted in the work of Martin Heidegger and Hans Gadamer. Far removed from the Aristotelian work On Interpretation that viewed interpretation as a related the creation of propositional statements about some referent, modern hermeneutics viewed interpretation as the most basic way of being-in-the-world, both ontological and existential. Here interpretation is understood as a part of “all understanding [and] cannot be seen in this process as a subject constructing reality or giving meaning to the meaningless [or text] but as the internal movement of the interaction to unite itself with itself” (Deetz, 1978, p. 21 ).

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 * References**

Palmer, R. E. (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Olson, D. (1994). The world on paper. New York: Cambridge Press.

Anton, C. (2010). Sources of significance. Indiana: Purdue Press.

Deetz, S. & Stevenson, S.L. (1986). Managing interpersonal communication. New York: Harper & Row.

Knapp, M.L., Daly, J.A., Albada, K. F., Miller, G.R. (2002). Background and current trends in the study of interpersonal communication. In M.L. Knapp & J.A. Stevenson (Eds) Handbook of interpersonal communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing

Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Boston, MA: Harvard Press.

Blummer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand. New York: Ballentine

Jasinski, J. (2001). Sourcebook on rhetoric. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publising

Mailloux, S. (1990). Interpretation. In F. Lentricchia & T. McLaughlin (Eds.), Critical terms for literary study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Eden, K. (1997). Hermeneutics and the rhetorical tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and philosophy: An essay on interpretation. (D. Savage, Trans). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Hall, S. (1980). Race, articulation and societies structured in dominance. In Sociological theories: Race and colonialism (pp.305-345). Paris: Unesco.

Weber, M (1991). The nature of social action. In W.G. Runicman (Trans.) Weber: Selections in translation. Boston: Cambridge University Press.

Rosenfield, L. W. (1974). The experience of criticism. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 60, 489-496.

Leff, M. (1997). Hermeneutic rhetoric. In W. Jost & M.J. Hyde (Eds.), Rhetoric and hermeneutics in our time: A reader. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Deetz, S. (1978). Conceptualizing human understanding: Gadamer’s hermeneutics and American communication studies. Communication Quarterly, 26, 12-23.