The hermeneutical privilege of language

The German philosophical expression-Vorhabe, Vorgriff characterizes all linguistic interpretations. Even at that, there is no element of culture where Vorgriff, the forestalling and anticipatory prefabrication of concepts, is as obviously present as in human language. Despite the function of interpretation, language is relative to every culture.  Robert miller (1968) in a dissertation under the title “the linguistic Relativity Principle and Humboldt in Ethno linguistics” came to some modest and wary conclusions after a thorough discussion of Hamann, Herder, Humboldt, Saussure, Cassirer and especially Leo Weisgerber. Cultural relativity makes every language represents a distinct worldview since there exists a unity between language and thought (Gadamer, 1987).  Linguistic writers have pointed out that words can have manifold meanings and connotations. The word language as spoken by a particular culture can recall to us very different meanings depending on the circumstance in which we hear it. For a culture egbe (Kite) recalls a bird, for another egbe recalls the gun, yet for the third something totally different from the two. In spite of these varieties, we understand what language means to people of different cultures. For Theoplius Okere (1983) the word “culture for instance can recall to us very different meanings depending on the circumstances in which we hear it. For one man it will recall the cultivation of land, for yet a third, electric light or even fashion. Based on Hermeneutical privilege of language, the world “now” is always easy and clear to understand. However, it is difficult to define the expression “now.” This show that “egbe” can mean many different things. It is an “occasional” expression which means that its meaning can only become clear when one knows the ocassions or circumstance in which it is used. This occasional meaning says a great deal of truth about language in general (Okere, 1983). This means that every meaning of a word has also a situational horizon. Therefore, a word has really no transparent and adequate meaning unless it is merely idealized. All meaning conveyed by speech is fatally situational (Kleine, 1981).

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Gerald Ogbuja

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