Grafting the Intentional Relation of Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Linguisticality

Abstract

This article seeks to reposition two philosophies central to qualitative research: hermeneutics and phenomenology from their current location in the interpretive traditions to one closer to the critical and radical traditions we believe are more congruent. We hope to show that these philosophies are most productive for qualitative research when considered as “grafted,” such as in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. By deepening two of these philosophies’ central constructs, intentionality and linguisticality, we not only make their ungrafting improbable, but also show the centrality of this hyphenated philosophy to qualitative research.

Keywords

qualitative research philosophical hermeneutics phenomenology intentionality linguisticality

The greater miracle of language lies not in the fact that the Word becomes flesh and emerges in external being, but that that which emerges and externalizes itself in utterance is always already a word.

Gadamer (1975/1989, p. 419)

Introduction

Phenomenology¹ and hermeneutics² took shape as philosophies critical of the way philosophy was conceptualizing the notion of being as a being that stood separate from the world of existence and could be explained by the scientific standards of the time. Although distinct and having different philosophical and theoretical roots, since Heidegger’s “turn,” we argue that phenomenology and hermeneutics can no longer be considered as separate philosophical orientations. In fact, the proliferation of ways these two terms get taken up in research reports, sometimes as false synonyms to “lived experience” and “interpretation,” suggests a need to dwell on their interdependency in a way we hope facilitates a deeper understanding of their import to qualitative research. More specifically, we believe that a good example of this grafting³ occurs in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s (1975/1989) philosophical hermeneutics in that it positions language, or, more importantly, the “linguisticality of understanding” (p. 391), at the center of inquiry. Linguisticality can be conceived of as the capacity for language that gives language structure. Although Gadamer is not explicit about what he means by linguisticality, the beginning quote suggests that linguisticality precedes all language; it is the already-there of language, and makes our ability to use language and move from one language to the next possible. Using language is not just about our verbalness; it is about the way we structure our thinking about the world. It preexists us. There are no nonverbal experiences, only experiences not yet put into words. Or put differently, we have many nonverbal experiences, the sensation of air on our arms, the feeling of hunger or fear, but the structure to put these into words is already there, so that when we seek to do so, we are not at all surprised to find that it is “always already a word.”

We believe that linguisticality is a fundamental issue for qualitative research because it is

a limitless medium that carries everything within it—not only the “culture” that has been handed down to us through language, but absolutely everything—because everything (in the world and out of it) is included in the realm of “understandings” and understandability in which we move. (Gadamer, 1977, p. 25)

Furthermore, while many qualitative researchers criticize positivist and statistical research for boiling down complex phenomena into decontextualized and sometimes generalizable statements most often communicated through numbers, we (qualitative researchers) too fall into a similar trap with regard to our relationship with language. Much like quantitative researchers use tools of measurement to get at what they are seeking, qualitative researchers often treat language as such a tool (this is especially true, it seems, in many of the textbooks introducing qualitative research). In other words, we treat language as a “given”—a presumed “of course” from which we (collectively) code, categorize, identify themes, make assertions, theorize, and so on. We argue instead for a philosophical orientation to language, one that positions language as a “virtue,” as the very matter to be wrestled with, and central to the meaning of being.

We understand that the matter of language has been well theorized by many continental philosophers “outside” hermeneutic and phenomenological traditions. For example, Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) notions of dialogism and the utterance have helped us see the innumerable ways in which language moves in and through relations, has histories that cannot be tied down, and does not “belong” to the individual invoking language in any sort of pure sense. Like Bakhtin, Derrida has helped us in similar ways. In an edited volume focusing on some of Derrida’s key philosophical insights, Ian Maclachlan (2004) points to one of Derrida’s many contributions—the indeterminacy of meaning. He writes,

The generation of French philosophers who precede Derrida had looked to the notion of a “mixed system” (an amalgam of approximate mental categories with apophantic statements in pure logical form) as the source of indeterminacy; Derrida refers instead to the need for context in the determination of the meaning, and the fact that as no context can saturate the meaning of an utterance (i.e., as no utterance is only comprehensible in a given context (whose “completeness” Derrida would in any case contest)), there is the possibility of an infinity of meanings in any utterance (just as there is a possibility for the utterance to be placed in an infinity of new contexts). (Maclachlan, 2004, p. 63)

Although we are drawn to Maclachlan’s reading of Derrida’s indeterminacy here—especially that context is necessary for meaning, but cannot saturate the meaning of an utterance, nor can the infinitely possible meanings be determined in any given utterance—our readings, embodiments, and practicings of phenomenology and hermeneutics are not of the indeterminate, nor are they determined by this conception of the indeterminate. Rather, what we focus on in this article are the ways in which hermeneutics and phenomenology can help qualitative researchers open up the infinite meanings humans bring into being in and through their (our) contextualized intentionalities and linguisticalities. And although Derrida has helped us realize the indeterminacy of language, we find it necessary and helpful to open up some of these (as Vagle states in his theorizing of a post-intentional phenomenology) partial, fleeting meanings to see what can be learned. We argue, then, for a deeper understanding of the philosophical concept of intentionality and of linguisticality’s constitutive relation to being—extending these notions from their early philosophical roots by paying careful attention to how meanings slip, slide, shift, change, do, undo, and so on “in and through” our infinite linguisticalities and intentionalities.

Philosophical Inquiry

What does it mean to conduct philosophical inquiry? A straightforward answer might be that just like sociologists draw on sociological theories in their work, qualitative researchers might draw on philosophical theories to inform their work. However, following Heidegger and Gadamer, we are advocating for something more specific than just being philosophically informed; rather, we are placing philosophical questions about the meaning of being at the center of qualitative inquiry. We can hear the groans already about the utility of such an elusive topic; however, for our purpose, it is not about defining the meaning of being as it is an articulation of the nature of being in the world and what that entails for inquiry. In the second part of our article, we will articulate how philosophy has guided our research practice in a more personal style as a way to illustrate the importance of philosophical questions of being in qualitative research, and the way being and inquiry are closely connected, a point Heidegger (1953/1996) makes:

Regarding, understanding and grasping, choosing, and gaining access to, are constitutive attitudes of inquiry and are thus themselves modes of being of a particular being, of the being we inquirers ourselves in each case are. Thus to work out the question of being means to make a being—[one] who questions—transparent in its being. (pp. 5-6)

This inquiry into being from the perspective of our situatedness in the world continues the concern that continental philosophers have for how to conceptualize the relationship between knowledge and wisdom (Critchley, 2001). Specifically, although not necessarily agreeing about what this means or looks like, continental philosophers are interested in bridging the gap “between theoretical questions of how one knows what one knows, and more practical or existential questions of what it might mean to lead a good or fulfilled human life” (Critchley, 2001, p. x). Therefore, philosophically informed inquiry of this sort is deeply connected to practical issues of human importance. Furthermore, Gadamer’s (1975/1989) cross-disciplinary inquiry to examine “what is common to all modes of understanding” (p. xxviii), opened a way to integrate methodologies from the arts and humanities into the human sciences, where they had generally been ignored or dismissed by advocates of “scientism.”⁴

Intentionality and the Turn to Being and Language

Although hermeneutics and phenomenology have a rich history and have been taken up by theorists in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes, our focus is specifically on how the grafting of philosophical hermeneutics and hermeneutic phenomenology places being at the center of philosophy and the social sciences. This fusion of phenomenology and hermeneutics is often conceptualized as “the turn,” and, while Heidegger is usually denoted as its protagonist, others infer that it was already present in Husserl’s phenomenology (Grondin, 2003; Noé, 1992). Nevertheless, Jean Grondin (2003) argues that identifying who initiated this turn is less important than understanding how phenomenology “called forth a hermeneutic turn from within”⁵ (p. 7, authors’ translation). Noé (1992) explains that this calling forth occurred because of the “Janus-faced character of Logos” (p. 118), a concept that forms the basis of Husserl’s Logical Investigations: “The noun logos derives from the Greek verb legein, meaning ‘to say’ something significant. Logos developed a wide variety of senses, including ‘description’, ‘theory’ (sometimes as opposed to ‘fact’), ‘explanation’, ‘reason’ . . . ‘prose’” (Stead, 1998, p. 817).

In other words, because language itself means multiple things, phenomenology had to account for its hermeneutic characteristics. Grondin (2003) adds that Husserl’s adoption of Brentano’s notion of “intentionality,” described as the idea that consciousness is not anything on its own, it is always of something, further contributed to the issue because Brentano defined the term hermeneutically as the intention residing both within and beyond the words or texts themselves. Grondin explains that Husserl chose this concept as a way to merge the word with its object and not because he intended to analyze the sense words brought to the object in intentionality. It is Heidegger who took this step. However, Grondin states that Heidegger’s move has been misidentified as a simple turn to language when in fact it was a radical ontological fusion of language and being. Heidegger was not only critical of phenomenology’s (and philosophy’s) instrumental use of language but was also most critical of the way language was positioned as secondary to the phenomenological project. For Heidegger, language is not only the manifestation of a thing; it is the thing itself (Grondin, 2003). This proposition is foundational to Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. However, Gadamer, immersed in philology (the study of literary texts), called this the phenomenological turn in hermeneutics because he believed hermeneutics, similarly to Heidegger’s critique, also used language in an instrumental way as the instrument of thought and not as the dwelling place where thinking occurs (Grondin, 2003). For Gadamer (1975/1989), everything we can know and experience is brought forth in language:

Language is not just one of man’s possessions in the world; rather, on it depends the fact that man has a world at all. The world as world exists for man as for no other creature that is in the world. But this world is verbal in nature. This is the real heart of Humboldt’s assertion (which he intended quite differently) that languages are worldviews. . . . But the ground of this statement is more important, namely that language has no independent life apart from the world that comes to language within it. Not only is the word world only insofar as it comes into language, but language, too, has its real being only in the fact that the world is presented in it. (p. 440)

Intentionality, therefore, orients us both to the “as” of the meaning relationship and to the “way of language” into the “as.” Gadamer models the dynamic nature of language on conversation, seeing the conversation as an enabling process of inquiry that focuses on the saying of the thing so as to help its saying emerge.

Thinking Philosophically With Philosophical Hermeneutics

In the foreword to the second edition of Truth and Method, Gadamer (1975/1989) explains that although his “book is phenomenological in its method” (p. xxxii), he has “retained the term ‘hermeneutics’ (which the early Heidegger used) not in the sense of a methodology but as a theory of the real experience that thinking is” (p. xxxiii). Although this may seem confusing at first, consider that Heidegger saw phenomenology as the basis of what constitutes being (i.e., the being of beings) and hermeneutics as how the structures of what constitutes being are known to being (Heidegger, 1953/1996, pp. 32-33). This means that the how-of-the-structure of what constitutes being cannot be separated from the experience of being; both are necessary to understanding being. What we are talking about here, and what joins these two interdependent facets of experience together is the “mode of being” of intentionality and its relation to meaning. While phenomenology has focused on how meaning is experienced in intentionality, the being or experience of being, and hermeneutics has focused on how it is that we mean at all, the method of the being in intentionality, both position the experiencing being in an intentional relation to the world as the significant point of departure for understanding being. It is for this reason that intentionality becomes the cogwheel for philosophical inquiry drawing on phenomenology or hermeneutics and our point of departure.

To reiterate, our argument is that intentionality is the “being” of being and linguisticality is its “method,” and that neither has been given a full chance to inform qualitative research. The next two sections attempt to deepen our understanding of intentionality and of the linguisticality of understanding and to illustrate their utility to qualitative researchers. To do so, we switch the tone and voice of writing to more of a first-person narrative.

What Is It to Deepen Intentionality?

Mark Vagle

To begin to thoughtfully address this question, it is important to step back a bit to make some fleeting sense of the power and importance this philosophical concept can hold.

Nearly 2 years ago, now, a colleague (Ajay Sharma) and I were having a lively discussion about phenomenology at an old diner in downtown Athens, Georgia. We frequent this locale on occasion, especially when we are looking to have thoughtful and engaging conversations about philosophical ideas. During this particular conversation, I tried to convey the importance of intentionality—not only to phenomenology, but also to qualitative research more broadly. My colleague and I ended up “stuck” over and over again—me extolling the profound importance of intentionality, he looking at me with furrowed brow wondering what all the fuss was about. I spent considerable time using synonyms such as inseparability, connectedness, unity—and phrases such as “putting back together what Descartes had separated” and “always, already in relation with” to illustrate how Husserl, and then Heidegger, had opened the doors to a whole line of philosophical thinking that turned Western thought on its head. My colleague, entering philosophy from poststructural perspectives, still did not understand the importance—of course, one cannot separate subject and object! Moreover, from a poststructural perspective, one would never even want to talk about a stable subject (or object for that matter). Such a binary does not even exist. To which, I would respond by suggesting that if it weren’t for phenomenology, post-folks would not have been able to even conceive of such ideas. Perhaps about 30 minutes into this part of our back-and-forth, my colleague said something that has become incredibly important to my ongoing theorizing of intentionality, “Well, Mark, I guess that what is given to others, is virtue in phenomenology.”

Exactly!

This was arguably the most important sentence uttered during this conversation. Phenomenologists are profoundly interested in this connectedness, this unity that subjects have in the world—a connection and unity they cannot, not have. For as we are alive, as we “be,” we are so, in intentionality with all those things around, in, and through us.

My colleague’s words are important for phenomenologists to consider—especially if phenomenologists want their work to make sense to others. I have found it necessary, then, to get much more nuanced about describing intentionality. Why is intentionality a virtue in phenomenology and a given elsewhere? And if this is the case, then how do phenomenologists make a convincing case regarding the value of making a “given” a “virtue”?

Studying Intentional Relations

Studying humans’ intentional relations with the world is no simple matter, especially considering that intentionality, I argue, might be one of the most misunderstood philosophical concepts in U.S.-based qualitative research. For phenomenologists, intentionality is the interconnected meaning fabric (threads for Merleau-Ponty, 1947/1964) that runs through all relations and is one of the central methodological commitments in phenomenological research. Intentionality is not, as it is often used in everyday discourse, one’s purpose or intent. Rather, it is something that is always, already in all relations. Intentionality is inescapable, is challenging to pin down, and is therefore very difficult to study (as a unit of analysis) well.

The complexity of learning to study intentionality first lies in the reality that it counters centuries of philosophical thinking that has situated meaning in minds, rather than “out-in” the complex, messy relationships among humans and the world(s) they experience. Working from Sokolowski’s (2000) assertion that Western thought has been stuck in an egocentric predicament, it is important to philosophically unpack intentionality to provide some clarity around this notion—and to illuminate how intentionality can be studied “in” fields of study such as literacy education research, arguing that a new-ish phenomenological research approach that I recently described as post-intentional (Vagle, 2010a, 2010b) can be particularly useful—as can Ihde’s (1993) philosophizing of a postphenomenology.

How Did Studying Intentional Relations Become a Virtue?

The egocentric predicament that Sokolowski (2000) refers to was born in Descartes’ assertion that the mind could be “removed” from the world—that consciousness and meaning could be encased in and of itself. Humans, then, were conscious only of their representations of the world (i.e., stuck in our heads). Throughout the subsequent 300 to 400 years, Western philosophy followed this doctrine and came to refer to this aspect of Descartes’ work as the Cartesian split. That is, through Descartes, subject and object (philosophically speaking an “object” is anything in the world—other people, things, ideas, memories, desires) were conceptualized as detached from each other. This separation had a monumental influence on science and in particular the social sciences. It came to be assumed that scientific inquiries in the natural sciences made perfect sense in the social sciences as well. Studies of mathematics, biology, and psychology were given primacy because they either constructed laws and theoretical representations of phenomena or examined how these phenomena were made meaningful in the mind.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Edmund Husserl—a mathematician ironically—started writing about a philosophy of lived experience that would in effect put back together what Descartes had separated. Husserl called this philosophy phenomenology and argued that its most central commitment was the idea of intentionality. For Husserl (1936/1970), human consciousness was always conscious of something. The preposition of became incredibly important as it turned philosophical attention toward the inseparable connection between subject and the objects of the world. Consciousness was intentional in that it was always directed toward something “outside” of the human mind—and this directedness also connoted interconnectedness. In other words, there could be no conscious meaning without a world—meaning could only occur between humans and the world. Phenomenological philosophers following Husserl (e.g., Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre) have further distanced phenomenology (and Western thought) from the Cartesian split by conceiving intentionality as a way of finding-oneself-in relation to the world (Heidegger, 1953/1996), bursting forth toward the world (Sartre, 1939/2002), and being connected through intentional meaning threads (Merleau-Ponty, 1947/1964). Whatever the image, phenomenological researchers (e.g., Dahlberg, 2006; Giorgi, 1997; van Manen, 2001) try to stay true to this philosophical tenet and make the intentional relation under investigation the unit of analysis in phenomenological research.

Deepening Intentionality Conceptually to Study Intentional Relations More Deeply

Studying analytic notes from two phenomenological studies I have conducted (Vagle, 2006, 2011); carefully reading phenomenological philosophy—namely, Sokolowski (2000) and Moran and Mooney (2002)—and two qualitative research methods texts that are situated in poststructural frames (Lather, 1993; St. Pierre, 1997); and reviewing my lecture notes, lesson plans, and emails I have written while teaching phenomenological research courses led me to think more seriously about how to conceptualize intentionality more deeply, which resulted in two substantive assertions:

the importance of the preposition “in,” and

the value of studying intentionality post-intentionally.

The Importance of the Preposition “In”

Following a class session with doctoral students interested in putting phenomenological philosophies and conceptions of pedagogy in closer dialogue with one another, I sent an email to them. This excerpted portion of the text reveals some of my initial thinking about the importance of the preposition “in,” in studying intentionality:

For as long as I can remember, I have heard people say that they distinguish being “in love” with someone and saying “I love” someone. The in-love seems to be more a state of being, one marked by depth, multiple facets and dimensions . . . connectedness (or at least perceived and felt as such). Saying “I” love someone seems a bit more removed, a bit more contained in one person.

The field of literacy research, as an example, has many fruitful spaces for this “in” phenomenological research. Literacy researchers study, for instance, how some readers are positioned as struggling (e.g., Hall, Burns, & Edwards, 2010). Other literacy researchers study the embedded nature of class and classism in literacy pedagogies and materials (e.g., Dutro, 2009) or how it might be possible to imagine a dialogic literacy classroom (e.g., Fecho & Botzakis, 2007). As a phenomenologist, I can see complementary research interested in what it is like for students who might be positioned as struggling when reading canonical texts but quite “successful” when reading texts they choose. Phenomenologically speaking, the focus of the work would be how the students find themselves in struggle with some texts and not others. The unit of analysis would not be the students, the teachers, and other adults who are positioning the students as struggling readers, nor the texts. Rather, the unit of analysis would be how the students are “in-struggle.” With regard to the embedded nature of class and classism in literacy pedagogies, the phenomenologist would be interested in how those who experience such pedagogies find themselves in these classist pedagogies (e.g., Vagle & Jones, 2012).

The Value of Studying Intentionality Post-Intentionally

One critique of phenomenology is that it treats intentionality as static, fixed, and essentialized. This is one particular space in which intentionality must be deepened. Although I find this critique unwarranted, I am interested in considering intentionality in conjunction with some central commitments in poststructural theories. Hence, the central assumption of post-intentional phenomenological research is that “the intentional ‘findings’ of phenomenological research can be de-centered as ‘multiple, partial and endlessly deferred’” (Vagle, 2010a, p. 400). In this way, the “in-ness” of intentionality circulates through relations—further disrupting the egocentric predicament. To illustrate the differences between an essentialized intentionality and a de-centered intentionality, I have created two juxtaposed images (Vagle, 2010b) to help guide researchers in taking up this approach.

Figure 1 (essential core) represents an oversimplification and narrowing of meaning to what is “common” or “shared.” Figure 2 (tentative manifestations) signifies a post-intentional move that resists centering and embraces contexts, situations, and the partial. In Figure 2, the lines can be read as flexible and malleable, and although not visible here, permeable. The points of overlap (gray) are multiple and more temporary. If the image were set in motion, the malleable lines would move and shift, as would the points of overlap.

Figure 1.

Essential core.

Figure 2.

Tentative manifestations.

Returning to the phenomenon of “being-in-struggle” with texts, post-intentional phenomenological research assumes that struggle (as a phenomenon) shifts and changes in contexts over time. The particulars of finding-oneself-in-struggle become nuanced (gray) and shifting. It might, of course, be that being-in-struggle in one moment is different in the next. There is no goal, in post-intentional work, to find the common themes of being-in-struggle and to define them. Rather, it is to see how being-in-struggle is manifested (tentatively) in all sorts of ways—the idea being that opening up these tentative intentional meanings provide a richer, deeper consideration for others to take up.

As soon as one begins to see intentional relations in this manner, one can then begin to see innumerable possibilities—and, in effect, the virtue itself begins to take a different shape. Intentionality, then, remains a phenomenological virtue. However, “posting up” intentionality in this way means that intentionality no longer, on its face, means that one studies one’s directed consciousness (Husserl) or meaning threads (Merleau-Ponty), but that one wades into the messy, complexities of intentionalities that run all over the place as humans live through the world. By making plural intentionality, we then see a new virtue—a virtue of competing complexities.

What Is It to Deepen Linguisticality?

Melissa Freeman

“Linguisticality.” The word itself is a mouthful and dictionary Internet searches bring up statements such as “[t]he word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary” (Linguisticality, 2012). I know that it best captures the central role of language so I will keep it, and attempt to show its importance, not only to hermeneutics but also to qualitative research in general. However, as I begin to narrate my intentional relation with the concept of linguisticality, I am not surprised to find that I am having difficulty separating the question I have set out to answer (i.e., what does it mean to place philosophical questions about, in this case, the meaning of linguisticality in relation to the question of being at the center of qualitative research), from who I am, or the question of being.

When Mark and I first set out the task to better understand the traditions that are dear to us, me—hermeneutics, he—phenomenology, I was hoping for some sort of boundary formation, some way to define hermeneutics and phenomenology in relation to the other. What I had not fully appreciated at the time was how a search for boundaries works against the aim of philosophical hermeneutics, which begins from within a space of in-betweenness and uses this space to mediate new understandings about questions of importance to humans. As Heidegger (1971) explains, “A boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing” (p. 154). To begin this presencing requires opening up this space of in-betweenness in a way that opens up a question, any question, to more questions. Looking back on what Mark has written, it is clear that hermeneutics takes as its point of departure the assumption of being in intentional relations. The task for hermeneutics is to consider how it is that certain manifestations of “being in relation” have taken center stage over others, while simultaneously seeking new possible meanings. An issue, however, with this hermeneutic process is that the ability to pose a question that opens up new possible questions is itself “limited by the horizon of the question” (Gadamer, 1975/1989, p. 357), which presupposes an orientation, a set of assumptions, a particular interest, and so on toward the topic of inquiry. To make my point, let me go further back than Mark in my narrative account and provide a brief “subjectivity statement,”⁶ to portray some of how my horizons have shaped who I am and the kinds of questions that intrigue me.

As a qualitative researcher who primarily studies educational issues, I often reflect on my own experience with schooling, which was, for the most part, a disagreeable and difficult experience. I spent most of my days daydreaming, getting sent out into the hallway to “quiet down,” or just not going, and, without always knowing it, I was already fascinated, and challenged, by interpretation. For example, in a journal entry, I wrote

I remember my first day of kindergarten. I had so many expectations (or at least I think I did) and then this woman opened her mouth and smiled at me in a way that I knew was fake. She hated me (or so I believed) and I instantly hated her. I tell the story that I then kicked her but I can’t say for sure that I recall really doing so—perhaps I only wished I had, perhaps I did. This was Washington DC and I only remember a few things about that year. One memory that stands out was the day of my birthday when the teacher sang the birthday song and then pinched me for good luck. What I hated about the memory, however, was that I was taken by surprise by the pinch and didn’t understand it in the context. Why hadn’t I understood that this was happening to others and was part of the song? What internal world did I live in that I became angry when I was taken by surprise by things? Was my whole life an attempt not to be taken by surprise?

This sensitivity to misinterpreting what others seem to understand instinctively meant that interpretation has always been for me something that requires attentiveness and thought; it does not just happen. The following year, my family moved to Switzerland and after a terrible year in an international school, I was sent to a French-speaking school and immersed, the only English-speaking child, in the daily life of yet another new setting and language for me to navigate. While these frequent moves certainly contributed to my worldview, I believe that becoming bilingual played an important role in how I have become situated in language. Language has never been a “given” for me; it always carries risk (e.g., risk of mistake, of misinterpretation, of ridicule and embarrassment). I believe, however, that the difficulties, and successes, I have experienced thinking in two languages have also shaped how I perceive the world.

The Relationship Between Language and Perception

What these experiences have meant for me as someone who conducts educational research and who teaches and studies qualitative methodologies is that language and perception are continuously in dialogue with each other. I do not take my negative perception of educational systems as the only possible interpretation, or a taken-for-granted view of how things are, nor do I dismiss it as unimportant. In many instances, my experiences mean that I ask questions about what is going on in classrooms and how it affects children from a unique perspective, from the perspective of “being in school” as a multidimensional complex of emotional, social, and academic interpretive situations children must negotiate. Furthermore, my training in the interdisciplinary and cross-paradigmatic world of qualitative methodology that I received at State University of New York, Albany, further pushed me to problematize interpretation. As I learned and incorporated more and more theoretical perspectives into my sense of myself as a researcher, or inquiring being, I felt like David Abram (1996) when stuck in a cave in Bali. To ride out a storm, he

noticed a small, delicate activity. Just in front of me, and only an inch or two to my side of the torrent, a spider was climbing a thin thread stretched across the mouth of the cave. As I watched, it anchored another thread to the top of the opening. . . . I lost sight of the spider then, and for a while it seemed that it had vanished, thread and all, until my focus rediscovered it. . . . And then, abruptly, my vision snagged on a strange incongruity: another thread slanted across the web . . . violating the symmetry. As I followed it with my eyes, pondering its purpose in the overall pattern, I began to realize that it was on a different plane from the rest of the web, for the web slipped out of focus whenever this new line became clearer. . . . And then I saw that there was a different spider spinning this web . . . independently of each other. . . . This widening of my gaze soon disclosed yet another spider spiraling in the cave’s mouth, and suddenly I realized that there were many overlapping webs coming into being. (Abram, 1996, p. 18)

Although you are probably thinking that I have forgotten that my tale is about linguisticality, I hope to show how linguisticality is the perception (the method) of our being, and it is because it can spin webs in multiple independent, as well as mutually dependent, planes of meaning that it holds such potential for human significance. The languages we inhabit—in my case, my experience with school, my bilingualism, and my exposure to multiple paradigms for research—are the beginning point for the dialogue in and between language that philosophical hermeneutics advocates. It is in conversation with others and the world around us that the “thing” in question, in Abram’s case the spiders, becomes perceptually or conceptually real to us:

It is not that the understanding is subsequently put into words; rather, the way understanding occurs—whether in the case of a text or a dialogue with another person who raises an issue with us—is the coming-into-language of the thing itself. (Gadamer, 1975/1989, pp. 370-371)

In other words, understanding anything requires that we actively shift our perception and formulate questions that bring about a possible meaning. We carry this thinking out in language, by wrestling with the way language does or does not contribute to new imaginable ways of seeing. A good example of this is Mark and Ajay’s conversation about intentionality. But the ability to do this lies in the linguisticality of our being; the pre-structures (for lack of a better word) that make language—verbal, gestural, or symbolic—possible. It is linguisticality that shapes “the coming-into-language of the thing itself” and as researchers we need to seek ways to understand its effects. In other words, we need to understand linguisticality’s virtues. An example may help.

Linguisticality as a Virtue

Hermeneutics claims that all experience can be rendered linguistically. A good example of this can be seen in the work that wine tasters do:

Wine tasters must not only develop a sense of taste, or what Lehrer (2009) explains is “a fusion of taste, smell, and texture (tactile sensations), often called ‘mouthfeel’” (p. 6), but they also learn to use, and add to, an extensive vocabulary of descriptors to clearly convey those aesthetic qualities. Lehrer (2009), a linguist, embarked on a study of wine descriptors because she was interested in the “structure of this vocabulary” (p. 4), and how that structure changes over time. She explains, “All languages have resources that enable speakers to increase their vocabulary—by adding new words and by extending the meanings of existing words” (p. 19). What I hope to demonstrate in this example is the way the wine tasters have created a language that mediates between a world of “real” and “fanciful” experiences, or what qualitative researchers might call “actual” and “possible” worlds. In other words, they make use of our linguisticality to fashion new linguistic experiences. Here are a few wine descriptors to illustrate this mediation: “flavors of black cherry, plum, cinnamon, and peppery spice” (Santé Review Panel, 2012, p. 66); “accents of saddle leather” (p. 65); “notes of licorice and dried flowers” (p. 69); “touches of earth, mushroom, and damp stone” (p. 65); “hints of cigar box, tea leaves, and smoky toast” (p. 66); and “chewy aromas” (p. 65).

What I propose is that these wine descriptors enact an impressive hermeneutic feat; drawing on a repertoire of actual real experiences with smell, taste, and texture, they create possible new ones. While some of us may have had experiences with licorice or damp stones, and others with toast and saddle leather, the actual correspondence between our experiences and these descriptors only matter in that they allow the presence of these experiences to become the horizon through which we can imagine these other experiences. Neither our real experiences or the fanciful ones have any more or less validity in this reconstruction, but they are both necessary if we are to bring them successfully into the meaningfulness this event has for us. Although difficult to articulate, what Gadamer helps us understand is that when we speak, we mediate between general concepts that inhabit any given word and particular experiences in the world. This is why we can experience the concrete examples of a “wet stone” or “saddle leather” immediately, while also being able to imagine the abstract idea of “chewy aromas” or new flavors such as plum, cinnamon, and pepper. The reason, it seems, that this virtue of language has become overlooked is that language continues to be treated as something that corresponds to a reality “out there” in the world, or even “in there” in the mind of a speaker, when in fact, language is itself the “there” of our beings.

Gadamer understood this mediating quality of language. He understood that we learn language in the everyday contexts of concrete experiences and that language’s meaning cannot be divorced from those experiences (the phenomenological awareness of intentionality). However, he also understood that language itself has meaning that is contained in it and gets shifted whenever it is alongside other language or experiences (the hermeneutic problem). In other words, language and world co-construct each other. Language alone is not sufficient if an experience is so foreign to us that there is no point of entry to its meaning (this is why teachers spend considerable time picking out picture books that pair desired vocabulary with images—for example, the story of a child’s first subway ride might be the only way rural children can understand words like subway or token). Nor are experiences sufficient if they do not provide a sufficiently rich and diverse ground from which to mediate this linguisticality (e.g., it is likely that to connect the children with subways, the teacher asked them about their experiences with other forms of transportation). Language and linguisticality give life to the “in” of intentionality. Gadamer’s inquiry sought ways to demonstrate how to productively make use of this ontological reality of linguisticality. An example from my own research might be useful to illustrate one way this might guide inquiry.

Linguisticality as a Unit of Analysis

In my dissertation (Freeman, 2001), I examined the way lower, working-, and middle-class parents talked about parental involvement. My interest was in understanding how the discourse of parental involvement would manifest itself in the ways parents talked about their experiences as “involved” parents. My assumption was that regardless of how others might view their involvement, the parents themselves could not, not be in an intentional relation with that discourse, whether aware of this or not, and that this intentional relationship would manifest itself in the unique way each parent’s account combined experience, language, belief, concern, and relevance. Seeking to better understand this linguisticality, I reexamined the four working-class parents’ accounts to consider how they used talk as a pedagogical sculpting of self and other (Freeman, 2010). These parents’ accounts demonstrated the parents’ awareness that language was the matter that they not only had to wrestle with, but also that they needed to actively participate in to gain the skills the language enacted and portray competence of these skills in the eyes of others. Although difficult to explain briefly, the parents’ accounts showed that they used dialogue to learn about school practices, to “be in touch,” while also participating in conversations with teachers and administrators to “be seen to be in touch” with school practices. Language became the medium from which they built the knowledge they needed for action while their participation in dialogue provided the basis for others to believe they already had that knowledge. When language is understood as “the generative and creative power to unceasingly make this whole once again fluent,” and not “a stock of words and phrases” (Gadamer, 1975/1989, p. 553), it becomes possible to understand that its interpretive capabilities reside in our ability to work within its linguistic virtue. In other words, while linguisticality precedes our use of language, we need to actively participate in language to build linguistic capacity.

From an analysis of these experiences and the assumptions guiding philosophical hermeneutics, it seems clear that one of the virtues of linguisticality is its interdisciplinarity; its ability to offer new possible understandings that make use of actively crossing disciplinary and cultural boundaries. The wine tasters understood this virtuality and have made sometimes outlandish use of it. The working-class parents understood this as well and sought out conversation with teachers to foster these qualities. Our hope is that qualitative researchers can also make use of our ability “to put into words” new possible worlds for our beings.

Conclusion

As we stated in our introduction, we know that what we have discussed here is not a “new” idea, in that philosophers (e.g., Bakhtin, Derrida) have theorized language for quite some time—and that other theorists have long been writing about the importance of language for qualitative research (e.g., Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005). However, we hope that this article might serve to reposition phenomenology and hermeneutics from its current location in the interpretive traditions (see Lather, 2006, p. 37) to one closer to the critical and radical traditions we believe are more congruent. We believe that this mislocation is the result of the inability of philosophy, as conceived by Heidegger and Gadamer, to reconceptualize the human sciences hermeneutically, and the power of science to continue to exert its influence despite criticism and challenge.

This article, then, contributes to this discussion by considering how two ontological philosophical traditions, philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenology, provide a philosophical framework for thinking of linguisticality as virtuous rather than a given. Furthermore, this “grafting” of philosophical hermeneutics with phenomenology is intended to bring them together to illustrate their import as philosophies for qualitative research. In this way, we have brought the philosophical concept of intentionality in conversation with linguisticality—and have retheorized some of these “old” concepts in light of important theorizing of context, indeterminacy, and the infinity of meaning.

More specifically, what we showed through deepening of intentionality (M.V.) is how Heidegger, by virtue of moving intentionality out of consciousness and into being, opened up multiple possibilities for intentionalities in qualitative research. And what we illustrated through deepening of linguisticality (M.F.) was the virtuality of linguisticality’s interdisciplinary nature. Although never using the term interdisciplinarity, it is clear that Gadamer refused to reject any one discipline or method, but instead saw our task as one of mediation. This was his way of showing linguisticality’s potential for old and new configurations for being to exist in new ways. Learning how to follow the way of language may mean seeking new interdisciplinary entry points into language’s multiple meanings.

In the end though, we are actually asking the qualitative research community to do something much bolder. We would like qualitative researchers to fundamentally rethink the roles phenomenology and hermeneutics (as grafted ontologies) play in qualitative research. It is indeed unfortunate that these philosophies also have actual qualitative research methodologies that bear the same name—as this conflates the ontologies and methodologies in such a way that the former gets lost among talk, albeit important, of design, data collection, data analysis, member checking, and so on. Instead, we would like phenomenology and hermeneutics to be repositioned as ontological bases for qualitative research. We want to see their grafted relation as a foundation for all sorts of research methods configurations, which could then in turn free ourselves up to new possibilities.

What might these possibilities offer qualitative research? When we think of hermeneutics and phenomenology as methodologies, we are often taken away from linguisticality as a virtue. However, when we do this grafted ontological work—when we leave the grafted hyphen between phenomenology and hermeneutics—we are living out our research “in” linguisticality. In many ways, the language of research already does this philosophizing. What we are calling for is a deepening of our awareness of how, and in regard to what questions, our research makes language “be.” It was by being in linguisticality that Mark and Ajay were able to follow its lead and open up the question of phenomenology being a virtue versus being a given. From this turn to the “in” of intentionality, new ways into inquiring about struggling readers, for example, could be conceived. For Melissa, the experience of needing to navigate another language made being-in-any-one-language much less of a given. However, we now understand that it is not necessarily language that is limited, but we who fail to see its potentialities. Again, the search for the right word does not reside in the dictionary but in the rich linguistic ways that language is already being its interdisciplinary self, and in the new possibilities it holds within itself. The same holds true with qualitative research writ large—It is not that language is limited, but we as qualitative researchers who often fail to see the innumerable possibilities that linguisticality holds.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Melissa Freeman is an associate professor of qualitative research methodologies in the University of Georgia’s College of Education and chair of the Qualitative Research Program. Her research focuses on the role of language and dialogue in the construction of meaning and understanding, philosophical and critical hermeneutics, and alternative forms of representation in research and evaluation.

Mark D. Vagle is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. He conducts, and teaches doctoral seminars focusing on phenomenological research. Currently, he is using what he has termed post-intentional phenomenology to critically examine some of the broad philosophical and social concerns that take concrete (lived) shape in the curriculum and pedagogies of elementary education.

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