From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Dec 30 1999 - 02:11:55 EST
What is wrong with word studies?
One way to approach this question is to raise the question "What is a
text?"
A text is a semiotic system. A group of signs become a text by virtue of
the relationships which are established between the signs. Without these
relationships you do not have a text.
Word Studies (the popular kind) proceed as if a sign (word) could
fulfill the function of a text. They treat a word as if it were a text.
This simply does not wash. It is bad theory and it produces bad
exegesis.
To see how silly this procedure is you need to apply it to a modern
work. Lets say that a Russian scholar born and raised in Moscow wants to
study Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" in the original English. So our
Russian scholar starts by doing extensive lexical research on
Hemingway's vocabulary and produces a Theological Lexicon for the
Hemingway Corpus (TLHC). Then our Russian scholar produces a Russian
language edition of the "The Sun Also Rises" with numbers under each
word that can be used as an index into the TLHC.
Now along comes a college senior (in Moscow) who wants to do a paper on
"The Sun Also Rises." Before starting her paper she gets a hold of a
copy of TLHC (steals it :-))) and also the Russian edition of "The Sun
Also Rises" with numerical codes. This girl does not know English very
well and does not attempt to read the English version, but equipped with
these two Hemingway reference tools she is confident that she can write
an authoritative paper on "The Sun Also Rises." She writes here paper,
which includes detailed discussion of Hemingway's use of language. She
turns in her paper and gets an A on it.
What is wrong with this picture?
Clay
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
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