How should we write so that others truly understand us? That question has been important to so many. Writers, at least those beyond a quite low level, want to be understood. The demands of understanding are different for fictitious and scientific writing. A writer of fiction can be obtuse, or intellectually seclusive, accepting that some will never bother to read it. He can be deliberately ambiguous. If a social scientist did this he would defeat his own aims - namely to give a clear account of what he has understood and experienced.
Not long ago a colleague of mine argued; When you show something, there is something else that remains hidden. That sentence made sense to me. The metaphor was the sheet of paper. I could hold it up to you and show you one side - but what would the backside hide? However, the more I thought of this - I found it to be a false question. If we take the metaphor a bit further, we could actually be shown both sides of the paper. And then while one is turned our way, we would simply remember the contents of the other side. Likewise - when you read a text you can only read one line at the same time. All the other lines we have to remember.
But we'd be crazy to think that we assemble all those lines in our head. What we do instead is to form a more general impression of what has been said. From a young age, as we get more educated, we are trained to understand more and more things holistically. To assemble information into a coherent whole. When we first learn about the vikings, they first seem just like some weird fighters that sailed all along the english coast looting and pillaging. (After a few years we learn the meaning of those words as well). Then at high school, we learn that these were mostly chiefs and farmers on the scandinavian coast, and finally at the university level we learn of the intricate economic dealings, the linguistic barriers of understanding and so forth. The understanding at the young age can only be given in the general terms of what is already known to the child; swords, horses, boats, people, kings and coastlines. At the intermediate level we know a little about politics, trade, the human condition and agriculture. Then, we learn about macroeconomics, collective intentionality, the conditions of peace and war and so on. The holistic knowledge is deepened. There are no sides to a sheet - its just depth of detail. And the depth of our detail determines our ability to reason within that world.
But not everything can readily be explained in known terms. And many things that are known one way, should rather be understood another way. The cultural anthropologist, after a long study of strange cultures, needs to get home and explain to his colleagues what he saw. To a certain extent he can do this with known terms. "They have such and such economics, such and such family structure etc." But there is a limit to this approach. Say that someone has a different family structure than the double- nuclear family that we have come to know. Say that the parent- child relationship isn't so strong so children are just as likely to sleep over with uncles and aunts as at home. Just that single fact is easily reportable - after all I just did. The technique is to take a known, and say how what you talking about differs. But when you want to talk about is how this new structure effects everyday life - how it produces different feelings, language, ideas and morals - then you need something more. You need understanding. The very same understanding you get that depth of detail.
Our understanding of our own culture is built up on more than just language. We've seen movies, pictures, and heard stories of Vikings. We learn to know that they were fierce, and we imagine that they were huge bulky awesome swords swinging pirate- like creatures. We can almost just know what Viking- hood is. This richness of experience to create understanding is totally absent from the social scientific article - which is filled with white parts (paper) and black parts (ink) - usually only in the form of words.
But there is hope. After all, if fiction writers can to construct worlds from paper and ink, then why can't we? But to do this we must be attentive to more than what words mean - what they denote. We must also know what we feel when we hear them, and how they affect us. We must know their connotations and their pragmatics.
Connotations can be understood as all possible interpretations of an utterance. By clever use of connotations, one gives the reader a good idea of the subject matter that goes beyond denoted meaning. For instance, if I were to talk about norwegian farm landscapes, I would use already known descriptions to give particular associations. The ocre read barns, with barn doors agape, spotted the landscape. White machine made hay balls were stacked against the roads which partitioned the fields. Farmers were nervous of having these stolen.
The descriptive manner gives rise to particular fantasies. These general ideas can then be hewn into a more concrete shape. But the general understanding must come first - or else there is nothing for the text to play against - no understanding in which the structure can sit.
Connotations engage our imagination by demanding that we create an impression of the context in which they function. If we didn't they wouldn't make sense to us. They do this by being indeterminate - without a fixed reference. They don't point to a particular place, we just have to get it. But their indeterminacy requires that the writer has a good handle on the ideas which flow in the minds of the readers. Or else the mental images that the readers make could end up becoming very uninformative, or at worst just plain wrong. In order for this not to happen, it is important that the formal conceptual structure of the paper is good. The formal conceptual structure is made up of the arguments and the scientific terminology. Arguments tend to have a logical structure, which is universal to all cultures. Scientific terminology is domain specific, but otherwise similar across countries.
I make it sound like connotations are optional, but that isn't true. They are there whether you'd like them to or not. This is a strong argument for being aware of them and taking them into use. But I would argue that a sensible use of connotation brings with it something more. Employing connotative meaning entails using idiosyncratic language. Bringing them in in an imaginative way teaches the reader about the culture from the inside. It provides a road map for the mind to travel that aligns with the road map of the ones who live there. Just as the images of a picture book, our imagination is something different from black and white text. The aboutness of our imaginations is it self a type of understanding. With both concepts and the images we are more equipped to ask the right questions, think the right thoughts, and understand the truth of the situation. We are venturing into pragmatics.
The pragmatic meaning is the one that is brought forth in the hearer. Whereas denotation and connotation is a feature of the sentence - to understand the pragmatic effect, you must understand how the sentences effect and change the hearer. The way I'm going to use it is slightly different though. I'm going to extend the pragmatic effect to change the nature of objects and contexts as well. Remember that I am still writing about writing, and not about a society. If, through writing, we get a good understanding of a society , we get an understanding of it's workings and changes. It's ebbs and flows. Then, when we learn of a new feature of that society, we get a sense of how those changes ripples through that society. We get a sense of how things change.
A pragmatic understanding becomes then something more akin to how the natural sciences proceed. They use hypothetic- deductive reasoning. They use their imagination, and then test that hypothesis. The text cannot become so rich in detail that everything is explained, but it can give an understanding so great that the reader inherently understand how the facts spread out and effect the society. The reader can roam around in the conceptual landscape, and make deductions, inquiries and so on. The reader may not be able to answer these by him or her self, but they can provide a stepping stone to more exploration, more research, an entry point to good debates and so on.
If all this seems a little abstract, try to imagine it like this. The denotation, along with the formal conceptual structure, make out the skeleton of the text. They carry the heaviest load, and give an outline to what is to come. A dead structure that tells of the shape of the truth. With connotation you ad muscles, the carrying component which explains the movement of the structure. It makes sure that the concepts, or joints don't bend in impossible ways. Finally the pragmatic meaning is represented by the outer layer, the skin, eyes and hair. It explains motivations, attraction and life in a meaningful way. The way that is commonly understood in that framework.
You will notice that I have not explicitly told you how to achieve this in writing. This is honestly because I don't exactly know how to do it myself. Good writing inspires the imagination. So where would you like it to go?
But not everything can readily be explained in known terms. And many things that are known one way, should rather be understood another way. The cultural anthropologist, after a long study of strange cultures, needs to get home and explain to his colleagues what he saw. To a certain extent he can do this with known terms. "They have such and such economics, such and such family structure etc." But there is a limit to this approach. Say that someone has a different family structure than the double- nuclear family that we have come to know. Say that the parent- child relationship isn't so strong so children are just as likely to sleep over with uncles and aunts as at home. Just that single fact is easily reportable - after all I just did. The technique is to take a known, and say how what you talking about differs. But when you want to talk about is how this new structure effects everyday life - how it produces different feelings, language, ideas and morals - then you need something more. You need understanding. The very same understanding you get that depth of detail.
Our understanding of our own culture is built up on more than just language. We've seen movies, pictures, and heard stories of Vikings. We learn to know that they were fierce, and we imagine that they were huge bulky awesome swords swinging pirate- like creatures. We can almost just know what Viking- hood is. This richness of experience to create understanding is totally absent from the social scientific article - which is filled with white parts (paper) and black parts (ink) - usually only in the form of words.
But there is hope. After all, if fiction writers can to construct worlds from paper and ink, then why can't we? But to do this we must be attentive to more than what words mean - what they denote. We must also know what we feel when we hear them, and how they affect us. We must know their connotations and their pragmatics.
Connotations can be understood as all possible interpretations of an utterance. By clever use of connotations, one gives the reader a good idea of the subject matter that goes beyond denoted meaning. For instance, if I were to talk about norwegian farm landscapes, I would use already known descriptions to give particular associations. The ocre read barns, with barn doors agape, spotted the landscape. White machine made hay balls were stacked against the roads which partitioned the fields. Farmers were nervous of having these stolen.
The descriptive manner gives rise to particular fantasies. These general ideas can then be hewn into a more concrete shape. But the general understanding must come first - or else there is nothing for the text to play against - no understanding in which the structure can sit.
Connotations engage our imagination by demanding that we create an impression of the context in which they function. If we didn't they wouldn't make sense to us. They do this by being indeterminate - without a fixed reference. They don't point to a particular place, we just have to get it. But their indeterminacy requires that the writer has a good handle on the ideas which flow in the minds of the readers. Or else the mental images that the readers make could end up becoming very uninformative, or at worst just plain wrong. In order for this not to happen, it is important that the formal conceptual structure of the paper is good. The formal conceptual structure is made up of the arguments and the scientific terminology. Arguments tend to have a logical structure, which is universal to all cultures. Scientific terminology is domain specific, but otherwise similar across countries.
I make it sound like connotations are optional, but that isn't true. They are there whether you'd like them to or not. This is a strong argument for being aware of them and taking them into use. But I would argue that a sensible use of connotation brings with it something more. Employing connotative meaning entails using idiosyncratic language. Bringing them in in an imaginative way teaches the reader about the culture from the inside. It provides a road map for the mind to travel that aligns with the road map of the ones who live there. Just as the images of a picture book, our imagination is something different from black and white text. The aboutness of our imaginations is it self a type of understanding. With both concepts and the images we are more equipped to ask the right questions, think the right thoughts, and understand the truth of the situation. We are venturing into pragmatics.
The pragmatic meaning is the one that is brought forth in the hearer. Whereas denotation and connotation is a feature of the sentence - to understand the pragmatic effect, you must understand how the sentences effect and change the hearer. The way I'm going to use it is slightly different though. I'm going to extend the pragmatic effect to change the nature of objects and contexts as well. Remember that I am still writing about writing, and not about a society. If, through writing, we get a good understanding of a society , we get an understanding of it's workings and changes. It's ebbs and flows. Then, when we learn of a new feature of that society, we get a sense of how those changes ripples through that society. We get a sense of how things change.
A pragmatic understanding becomes then something more akin to how the natural sciences proceed. They use hypothetic- deductive reasoning. They use their imagination, and then test that hypothesis. The text cannot become so rich in detail that everything is explained, but it can give an understanding so great that the reader inherently understand how the facts spread out and effect the society. The reader can roam around in the conceptual landscape, and make deductions, inquiries and so on. The reader may not be able to answer these by him or her self, but they can provide a stepping stone to more exploration, more research, an entry point to good debates and so on.
If all this seems a little abstract, try to imagine it like this. The denotation, along with the formal conceptual structure, make out the skeleton of the text. They carry the heaviest load, and give an outline to what is to come. A dead structure that tells of the shape of the truth. With connotation you ad muscles, the carrying component which explains the movement of the structure. It makes sure that the concepts, or joints don't bend in impossible ways. Finally the pragmatic meaning is represented by the outer layer, the skin, eyes and hair. It explains motivations, attraction and life in a meaningful way. The way that is commonly understood in that framework.
You will notice that I have not explicitly told you how to achieve this in writing. This is honestly because I don't exactly know how to do it myself. Good writing inspires the imagination. So where would you like it to go?
