Hermeneutik och grammatik : Fenomenologiska undersökningar av språket som tal och teknik

Abstract in English

This thesis is a phenomenological investigation into the differences and similarities between language as speech and language as a technique. Speech is the practice of producing and understanding utterances. A technique is the organizing mechanism of speech, the structure that gives it a regular form. While speech is heavily dependent on context and interpretation, a technique is unaffected by the circumstances of any specific situation. The principal property of a technique is its iterativity, i.e. the ability to be repeated in an infinite amount of speech.

Typically, linguistics has assumed that one of these two aspects of language is the proper object of linguistic research. Seldom has it dealt with both aspects at once with the aim of bringing them together in an integral theory of language. Thus, the questions arise how language can consistently be said to consist of both speech and technique, and how linguistics can account for both parts of language in a coherent manner. In this thesis, I set out to answer these questions by proceeding in a radically hermeneutic fashion for speech and in a radically grammatical fashion for the technique. I do not attempt to lessen the distance between speech and technique by suggesting a more grammatical concept of speech or a more hermeneutic concept of the technique. Instead, I insist that they ought to be kept clearly apart while we pay attention to their mutual dependence within language as a whole.

The thesis presents two general concepts of language as speech and as a technique, which are elaborated in two separate investigations. Emphasis is put on their unique properties and structures. Finally, I suggest that an integral concept of language has to unfold in three steps: 1) on basis of the similarity between speech and technique, 2) on basis of the dissimilarity between speech and technique, and 3) on basis of the relation between speech and technique.