Language Play as Experimenting with Forms of Life

ENANGEL who-is-at cityu.edu.hk
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 16:04:03 +0800

The insight attained in Wittgenstein's
Philosophical Investigations received a clear
echo from the Continent. After a lengthy
phenomenological investigation on hermeneutic
experience, Gadamer came to conclude that
there is a close tie between language and how
we exist as humans in Part III of his Truth
and Method. To Gadamer, language is the
horizon in which we humans can have a world.
Going beyond Homboldt's insight that "every
language should be seen as a particular view
of the world" (TM,p.440) and thus learning a
new language means to acquire "a new
standpoint in regard to one's previous
worldview" (TM,p.441), Gadamer found
something unacceptable in this view because
it leads to the following conclusion:
because we always more or less totally
carry over our own worldview, even our
own language-view, into a foreign
language, is this achievement not
experienced in a pure and perfect way.
(TM,p.440)
To Gadamer, Homboldt overlooked something
important in trying to achieve "a pure and
perfect way": the understanding of a foreign
language "is impossible if one's own
worldview and language-view' is not also
involved." (TM,p.442) Gadamer had no dispute
with Homboldt on the point that "every
language should be seen as a particular view
of the world", but his phenomenological
investigation had shown him that this
particular worldview is not something that we
should and can shake off; rather, it is the
only starting-point through which we can
enter the hermeneutic circle so that true
understanding would be attained. The
understanding in Gadamer's mind is not merely
the understanding of foreign languages or
technological knowledge; instead, his concern
is, in his terms, hermeneutic ontology, the
ground of how any understanding is possible.
It is the quest for this ground that brings
him to language. On the other hand, drawing
on Heidegger's insights, Gadamer followed his
teacher to maintain that the ground of
understanding is the fact that human
existence is essentially a being-in-the-
world. Therefore, to Gadamer, language is
not simply a particular worldview; it
constitutes the world in which we live as
humans. As human beings, we do not have a
world if we do not have a language and vice
versa. It may be better to explain this by
his own words:
Language is not just one of man's
possession in the world; rather, on it
depends the fact that man has a world at
all. The world as world exists for man
as for no other creature that is in the
world. But this world is verbal in
nature. This is the real heart of
Humboldt's assertion (which he intended
quite differently) that languages are
worldviews. By this Humboldt means that
language maintains a kind of independent
life vis-a-vis the individual member of
a linguistic community; and as he grows
into it, it introduces him to a
particular orientation and relationship
to the world as well. But the ground of
this statement is more important, namely
that language has no independent life
apart from the world that comes to
language within it. Not only in the
fact that the world is presented in it.
Thus, that language is originally human
means at the same time that man's being-
in-the-world is primordially linguistic.
(TM,p.443, bolding mine.)
Seeing language and the world in this light,
Gadamer claimed with confidence that
"hermeneutic experience is verbal in nature."
(TM,p.443) In other words, language is
fundamentally understanding in working. Just
like the later Wittgenstein, Gadamer had gone
beyond language and entered into the realm of
the nature of human existence. His
phenomenological investigation on language
had revealed that our existence is
fundamentally linked to language---language
grounds the being of humans as an existence
with a world, i.e., his/her being-in-the-
world. Consequently, a language-game does
not only constitute a form of life; rather,
the human form of life is a language-game.

With this understanding of the relation
between language and our human existence as
being-in-the-world, we can look at the
language-play of the at-risk youths recorded
in this study from a different perspective.
At first sight, the instances of language-
play seem to be unrelated incidents scattered
randomly during the recording period.
Moreover, their occurrence is comparatively
rare except in the video-recordings. These
pose a problem for us to generate a
meaningful pattern for their behaviors.
However, drawing on Wittgenstein's and
Gadamer's insights, we can see that these at-
risk youths are playing a coherent language-
game with their peers. In this game, the
occasional instances of language-play are
simply moves in the game. This becomes
obvious when we compare this "peer language-
game" with another one, the language-game
between the kids and their parents. On one
occasion during the audio-recording, one kid
borrowed the investigator's mobile phone to
call his mother. The way he talked to his
mother was so dramatically different from the
way he talked with his peers that someone
might mistakenly identify him to be two
persons before and after the call if the
whole process was not followed through. Not
only that the words he used were different,
his voice also returned to a more boyish and
submissive tone. Another example can be
found in the video-recording. In this case,
the whole group was allured to play an
adventure game in which the group would
"survive" only with its members' careful
consideration for avoiding all unnecessary
and/or hazardous moves, plus some luck.
After a while, it became obvious that there
was a significant difference between the
language used by those kids who were absorbed
into the adventure game and those who did not
find it interesting. Among those absorbed
into the game, their linguistic activities
all centered around how to achieve the
objective of the game and their speech had a
significant difference from the "peer
language-game" that they engaged in during
other recorded periods. This difference was
evident because they immediately fell back to
their "peer language-game" when the adventure
game was over abruptly. On the other hand,
for those not so absorbed in the adventure
game, they engaged themselves in language-
play in a higher frequency than on other
occasions.

So the question is: What kind of moves are
these instances of language-play? I will
characterize them as the move of breaking
rules, not in the sense that they are moves
to create confrontation, but in the sense
that they are moves to experiment the
possibility of creating another form of life,
to initiate a renewal of the language-game.
This was shown clearly in the language-play
by those kids who found the adventure game
uninteresting during the video-recording.
The intention of their language-play was so
apparent that, at one point, those kids who
were absorbed in the adventure game rebuked
them, "We come here to play game, not talk!"
In other words, since the language-play is a
clue to invite their peers to play another
game, the language-play is also a signal
showing their feeling of boredom, frustration
or any dissatisfaction with the present form
of life. In this sense, they are moves of
breaking the rules; some kids try to use
their language-play to break through the norm
imposed on them in a particular language-game
which they do not like.

Another example can illustrate this point:
In the audio-recording, there were two points
where the same kid intentionally used obscene
language and names of pornography magazines
in his language-play. The importance of
these incidents should not be overlooked
because these kids did not employ this kind
of words frequently in their language. On
both counts, it happened at the point when
this kid became aware that his speech was
being recorded by the investigator. This
example shows that these instances of
language-play are still moves of the "peer
language-game" and not moves of a language-
game of confrontation. As a volunteer worker
to this group of at-risk youths, the
investigator had somehow developed a peer
relationship with them. This is obvious in
the conversations between him and the kids
recorded during the way home and the time
spent in TV game centers. This is also shown
in the difference between the way how the
kids spoke to him and the way how they spoke
to the social worker, who had a closer tie to
the adult authority than a peer. As the
tapes are not supposed to be exposed to any
authoritarian figures in their lives, the
language-play is supposed to be playful
rather confrontational. It was a move to
create embarrassment for the investigator to
balance the uneasiness felt in being watched
or being subjected to a passive, controlled
position in the "research language-game", in
which they do not have any say. This further
shows the kids' understanding of these words
as taboos in the investigator's world and how
they make use of this to assert their agency
instead of becoming passive objects being
monitored.

Therefore, these instances of language-play
are moves to break the rules rather than to
construct a new form of life positively. The
kids were experimenting with the possibility
to create a form of life rather than
experimenting with creating a form of life.
This brings us to the question: why language-
play? Why is language crucial as their moves
to experiment with the possibility? This is
because language can engage their peers so
that an immediate response can be invoked to
show whether one's creative act is successful
or not. Through these interactions, they can
really have a world, a world of their own,
i.e., a world in which they are subjects
rather than objects. This explains some of
the kids' attitudes towards the adventure
game during the video-recording: to
understand the game needs to play it
seriously; to play it seriously means to be
the acting-agent of the game; to be the
acting-agent of the game is to enter the
world of the game; to enter its world makes
it possible to understand the game. Without
entering into this circle, some other kids
were left behind. They could not enjoy the
game and even felt the whole setting
dominating. This may have a significant
implication on youth education: a child
cannot have a true learning experience unless
he can truly become an agent in the world of
what he tries to learn.

These observations are not claimed to be
proofs of Wittgenstein's and Gadamer's
insights. On the contrary, their insights
are the starting-points to gain this
understanding of the at-risk youths'
language-play. As shown by Gadamer,
understanding cannot be separated from one's
own world, one's own horizon, the truth of
their insights, therefore, may be tested in
how much closer they can bring us to the
world of these youngsters.

References

Hans-Georg Gadamer: Truth and Method,
translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer
and Donald G. Marshall. (New York: The
Continuum Publishing Company, 1994.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical
Investigations, translated by G.E.M.
Anscombe. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1958.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus, translated by D.F. Pears
& B.F. McGuinness. (London and New
Jersey: Routledge Humanities Press
International, Inc., 1961.)