After Babel

• Ja

  2023-02-15
  Our languages simultaneously structure and are structured by time, by the syntax of past, present, and future. In Hell, that is to say in a grammar without futures, ‘we literally hear how the verbs kill time’ (Mandelstam’s penetrating comment on Dante and on linguistic form echoes his own asphyxia under political terror, in the absence of tomorrow). But ‘at other times,’ itself an extraordinary locution, it is only through language and, perhaps through music, that man can make free of time, that he can overcome momentarily the presence and presentness of his own punctual death.
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  There could be no personal, no social history as we know them, without the ever-renewed springs of life in future-tense propositions. These constitute what Ibsen called ‘the Life-lie,’ the complex dynamism of projection, of will, of consoling illusion, on which our psychic and, conceivably, our biological perpetuation hinge. There can be spasms of despair in the individual and in the community, solicitations of ‘neverness’ and of that last great repose which haunted Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Suicide is a recurrent option, as are resolutions of communal extinction, by sacrificial violence or a refusal to bear children. But these nihilistic temptations remain fitful and, statistically considered, rare. The language fabric we inhabit, the conventions of forwardness so deeply ent...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  Whatever may be the proto-linguistic or meta-linguistic codes of other species, I would want to argue strongly that man alone has developed a grammar of futurity. Primates use rudimentary tools but, so far as has been observed, they do not store tools for future usage. There is a vital sense in which that grammar has ‘developed man,’ in which we can be defined as a mammal that uses the future of the verb ‘to be.’ Only he, as writes Paul Celan in Atemwende, can cast nets ‘in rivers north of the future.’ The syntactic development is inextricably inwoven with historical self-awareness. The ‘axiomatic fictions’ of forward inference and anticipation are far more than a specialized gain of human consciousness. They are, I believe, a survival factor of the utmost importance. The provision of conc...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  The spectrum of Greek tenses occasions but is also realized in the genius of Thucydidean historicism. The pattern is one of reciprocal ‘triggering’ and actualization. If current biology is right, precisely the same reciprocity obtained between the origins of language itself and the enabling-responsive growth of the cortex. Pre-condition and consequences are aspects of a continuum. ‘II est impossible de ne pas supposer,’ writes Monod, ‘qu’entre l’évolution privilégiée du système nerveux central de l’Homme et celle de la performance unique qui le caractérise, il n’y ait pas eu un couplage très étroit, qui aurait fait du langage non seulement le produit, mais l’une des conditions initiales de cette evolution.’What I would emphasize is the interdependence between that evolution and the avail...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  A cognate duality marks the coexistence of language and of time. There is a sense, intuitively compelling, in which language occurs in time. Every speech act, whether it is an audible utterance or only voiced innerly, ‘takes time’—itself a suggestive phrase. It can be measured temporally. It shares with time the sensation of the irreversible, of that which streams away from us, ‘backward,’ in the moment in which it is realized. As I think my thought, time passes; it passes again as I articulate it. The spoken word cannot be called back. Because language is expressive action in time, there can be no unsaying, only denial or contradiction, which are themselves forward motions. Hence the wish, so literal when it refers to menace, to curses, to taboo speech, ‘if only I could call back my words...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  Are there, in the common locution, felt realities ‘too deep for words’? The analogy of music and of the invention of melody—about which so very little is known—does allow the notion of forms of ‘thought’ or energized significance that are, in some highly abstract yet also physical mode, relations between levels or centres of internal tension. One can imagine psycho-physical consonances or dissonances of inner pitch creating a condition of unbalance, of ‘overloading’ or ‘short-circuit,’ that can only be resolved through an expressive, performative act. Is there, as is felt in dreams and the penumbra of uncertain waking, a syntax of shape, colour, motion, spatial relations, that is somehow located in the mind but ‘lies further’ than words? Do we experience it when we ‘grope for’ a word?We ...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  In what language am I, suis-je, bin ich, when I am inmost? What is the tone of self?
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  When I began thinking about language—this vaulting across one’s shadow and attempt to examine the skin of one’s shadow from within and without being itself a peculiar action and one to which few cultures have been prone—obvious questions turned up. Questions implicit in my own circumstance, but also of a far wider theoretic interest.Was there, despite my inability to ‘feel the fact,’ a first language after all, a Muttersprache vertically deeper than the other two? Or was my sense of complete parity and simultaneity accurate? Either alternative led to problematic models. A vertical structure suggests an alignment of strata throughout. In that case, which language came second, which third? If, on the other hand, my three languages are equally native and primary, what manifold space contain...
• Ja

  2023-02-15
  This polyglot matrix was far more than a hazard of private condition. It organized, it imprinted on my grasp of personal identity, the formidably complex, resourceful cast of feeling of Central European and Judaic humanism. Speech was, tangibly, option, a choice between equally inherent yet alternate claims and pivots of self-consciousness. At the same time, the lack of a single native tongue entailed a certain apartness from other French schoolchildren, a certain extraterritoriality with regard to the surrounding social, historical community. To the many-centred, the very notion of ‘milieu,’ of a singular or privileged rootedness, is suspect. No men inhabit a ‘middle kingdom,’ all are each other’s guests. The realization that the chestnut tree on the quai outside our house was no less a m...
• Fangfang

  2022-05-25
  为了成为思想，语词通过这种变形不再能够被我们的感官所通达，并且失去了它们的重量、噪声、线条、空间。但为了成为语词，思想在它那一方面放弃了它的快速或者缓慢、出其不意、不可见性、时间、我们对它具有的内在意识。”这种向相反方向同时进行的变化，梅洛一庞蒂补充道，的确就是语言的神秘。
• 昭质

  2022-05-04
  自18世纪50年代起，“语言和观念相互影响”的问题开始流行。哈曼在1760年的《对一个学术问题的探讨》（Versuch uiber eine akademische Frage）中思考了这个问题。他认为一个群体思维和感觉的方向与其“言语的轮廓”有决定性的一致。大自然为不同种族提供了不同形状和颜色的眼睛；同样，人们的唇、舌、颚也有微乎其微但至关重要的差异。这些差异便是语言的扩散和多样的源头。语言对某一文明实质的展现不亚于其衣装和社会习俗。每种语言都是特定历史——文化形态的“显灵”或明确展示。
• 花猫谢恭霓

  2021-06-05
  每个语言行为都有一个时间限制，没有永恒的语义形态。使用一个词，就是在其先前的全部历史中发出一个回响。一段文本属于某个特定的历史时期，它具备语言学家所谓的历时结构。全面的阅读即是竭尽所能地重估其直接价值，重现言语产生时的真实意图。
• 树

  2021-03-22
  我已经简述了自己的信念。在很大程度上，不同的语言是对生物生态条件的约束和普遍局限性所提出的不同的、有内在创造力的反命题。它是特定群体对自身经验和想象构造的遗产进行保存和传播的工具。我们还不知道转换生成语法所设想的“深层结构”是不是真实存在的普遍现象。但如果是的话，人们过去说过、现在所说的万千语言就可以被理解成对生物共性造成的无差别限制的直接反抗。“表层结构”令人震撼的多样性不是用来对“深层结构”进行或然的语音表达，而是对它的逃离。在母语使用者之间进行内部交流时，语言带有强烈而深刻的默契，只是部分地、勉强地向外人敞开。语言的一个主要部分是封闭以及有意的模糊。这种意图古已有之，它的执行远在我们心灵的公共国度之外，所以我们对它毫无意识。但它存在于语言多层的构造和顽固的特异性之上，会在不同语言碰撞时显现出来。这些观点都无法被证明。我强烈地感受到，关于“他异性”和元/非信息的假设，最能地描述语言多样性的真相；在我看来它其他猜测更接近语义、历史和心理的真实情况。当我们对翻译实例的研究实在地触及语言多义、私密的本质时，就会发现它如何把自己施加于该案例上。或许我们误解了巴别塔的传说。塔象征的不是受祝福的大一统、通用语言局面的终结。语言令人不明所以的过剩早已存在，并实际上让类的事务变得复杂。在建造塔时，各个民族无意中触及了一个重要的秘密：只有在沉默时才可能有真正的理解。他们沉默着建造，这是对神的威胁。
• 树

  2021-03-22
  迄今为止，绝大多数艺术和历史记录都是男人留下的。“性别翻译”或语言交流中断的过程基本上都是由男性视角观察的。相关的人类学（这个词本身就带有雄性意味）会把证据扭曲，就像白人旅游者处理本地人提供的消息时那样。有极少数伟大的艺术家向我们展现了女性语中的天才，也发现了双方翻译的不完美或不坚持所造成的损害。拉辛丰富而专注的作品来自他能“听到”两性在对话中的对立。他的重要剧作中都存在翻译危机：在极端的压力下，男女都向对方宣称自己是绝对的存在，到头来只发现他们对情欲和语言的不同体验早已将他们“阴阳两隔”。
• 树

  2021-03-22
  事实上，女人是否更爱挥霍言辞？男人对此的执着超过了统计数据所支持的范围。它似乎与远古时期对性别差异的认识有关。或许多言这个指控掩盖了男性对女性“挥霍”自己取得的食物和原料的恨意。但是尤维纳利斯提到月亮，则表明一种内向的忧虑，正是它将男性和女性某个核心的方面隔开。女人的言语倾斜、词语的滔滔不绝，这些臆断可能象征着男性对女性月经的忧惧，虽然他们的认识通常反映着无知。在来自男性的讽刺中，女人生理的这种不知所以的流动和释放，是长存的主题。本・琼森将语言间断和性不持久两个主题在《沉默的女人》中统了起来。“地就像个导管，”寡欢先生（ Morose）这样说他的假冒新娘，“再打开的话地会带着更大的力喷出东西来。”“导管”蕴含着污物和排空的含义，十分粗鲁。整个戏剧都是如此。高潮部分再次把女性的多言和邪秽联系起来：“噫，吾心！汝碎邪？汝碎邪？地狱最毒最毒的把戏中最毒的莫过于此！要一娼妇，如此聒噪！”相反，当女人的声音甜美轻柔时，男人又会觉得愉悦。“秀美的吻”，如《雅歌》中所说，是女人的华彩。而更好更称心的美是沉默。寡 言的妇女/少女这个形象给《俄狄浦在科罗诺斯》中的安提戈涅，或里庇得斯笔下的阿尔刻提斯赋予了独特的悲情，而沉默是她们贞洁、牺牲和优雅的象征。一个男性神袛残忍地霸占了卡珊德拉和她的言语，她倾吐的言语其实是他的她似乎完全远高了语言，被推残殆尽。虽然用来描述无生命的物件，济慈“没有被凌暴的沉静新娘”精确地表达了对女性寡言品质古已有之的联想。这些价值观凝结在了考利欧雷诺斯对维吉利亚的致意中：“我的可爱的静默的人儿。你好！”这句话的乐感和韵味都很神奇，而它的戏剧效果也同样精妙。莎士比亚精确地表达了男 ——一个充满自负的阳刚之气的角色——的偏见。女人不会这样与情人打招呼。不过女人在反唇相讥上也毫不迟疑。埃尔维拉的声音响彻历史。别让他再说一个词；他的双...
• Juvenalis

  2020-11-15
  当前的语言学有更妥帖的工作要做。在承认语言更为深刻、更为重要的进程远远超过真实或潜在意识层面（这是乔姆斯基的假设）之前，我们应该先看一看文学中那些关乎其命脉的混乱，这正是意识以最敏锐的姿态进行运作的地方。为了更了解语言和翻译，我们必须把注意力从转换语法的“深层结构”上移开，转向诗歌那更为深邃的结构。“谁也不知道它来自何方”席勒如是形容语言从深渊向光明的涌动。没人知道它来自何方：又象[像]是深处的涌泉，歌人的歌唱是发自内心，它唤醒心中神秘的感情，不让它在那里酣眠。
• 魚小呆

  2013-09-16
  History is a speech-act, a selective use of the past tense.In short, the existence of art and literature, the reality of felt history in a community, depend on a never-ending, though very often unconscious, act of internal translation. It is no overstatement to say that we possess civilisation because we have learnt to translate out of time.
• 花猫谢恭霓

  2021-08-17
  儿童，作为受压迫的、反抗的阶层，会像无产阶级或少数种族群体一样盗用压迫者的词语，把他们的修辞、禁忌和规范的习语做成笑话。幼儿园或胡同里下流戏谑的歪诗可能具有社会学意义，而不是精神分析学意义。孩提时代有关性的鄙语通常基于对真实性事神秘化的解读，而不是生理上的了解，这反映了儿童对成人领地的入侵。
• 看不见的城市

  2021-02-26
  音乐字宙（ music of the spheres）与毕达哥拉斯的和声表现的正是神圣言语的隐秘构造，而日后歌德也在《浮士德》的开篇中重述了这点。席勒休斯的沉思将波墨的隐喻发挥到了极致，他重新回到了艾克哈特的神秘主义，宣称神自天地开初起就只说过一个词。这次发言蕴含了全部真实。没有任何已知语言中能找到这个宇宙发言的影子；巴别后的语言也不能复归于此。人类声音的散乱多样而神秘，它让人们互为聋哑，它屏蔽了道（ Logos）的声音。除了寂静别无他途。因此席勒休斯认为，所有活人之中，唯聋哑人最接近于失落的伊甸园中的语言。