“耳听为虚”“无法言说”与“死亡的沉默”——对语言使用的方法论反思

“Believing is not from Hearing”,“Unexplainable Situations”,and“Silence due to Death”:Are Scenarios for Reflections on Language Centred Methodologies

“话语”“叙事”“文本”等材料的使用在社会科学研究中占据了相当大的比例,对这些材料的使用和限制已经有相当数量的讨论和反思。本文在认知人类学对“通过语言的转译来研究文化”这一现象进行批判的基础上,探讨三种“非话语”“非叙事”“无文本”的情况,即“眼见为实,耳听为虚”(语言的欺骗性以及思维与语言的不对应)、“无法言说”与“说不出口”(无论是由于文化上的羞愧还是道德准则的限制)以及由死亡带来的沉默(死亡本身以及那些“还没来得及说的”)。本文试图通过这三种不同类型的案例来关注语言与现实的不完全对应,反思语言与文化更为复杂、不确定的关系,以引起对不同田野调查材料的关注,进而丰富以语言为中心的方法论讨论。

“Discourse”,“narrative”and“text analysis”have been commonly used in social science research.Many studies have pinpointed the limitations and the problems of using these methods.This paper adopts cognitive anthropology's critique that culture is probably not even“language-like”,to reflect on the relationships between language and social reality,and their mismatching and more complicated,uncertain relationships.Three different scenarios are presented to reconsider these relationships:“seeing is believing”(as language can be deceptive as well as ideas and expressions do not always correspond),“unexplainable”as well as“speechless”(for example,unspoken due to culturally induced shame or restriction based on moral obligations),and“silence due to death”(namely,the dead as well as what is left to be spoken).The paper calls for more attention to various types of materials that can be collected in field research so as to enrich on-going discussions about language-centred methodologies.