RITA MASCIALINO

1
RITA MASCIALINO

• HOW PRAGMATISM DISTORTS THE MEANING
• OF LITERARY TEXTS
• (Der plötzliche Spaziergang -
• The SuddenWalk, by Franz Kafka)

2
Meaning

• Meaning is an evolutionary product of adaptation
  and as such it has a large objective basis
  without which life would have finished at its
  arising
• Meaning does not arise with language, it has
  existed at least since the beginning of life on
  Earth, from biosemiotics to the natural and to
  the formal languages
• Meaning is at the core of what humans recognise
  as comprehension, knowledge and communication

3
The meaning of language and Pragmatism

• Nevertheless, the meaning of language is seen by
  Pragmatism (Peirce), which is the most accepted
  hypothesis upon the meaning of language, as
• 1.having no universal objectivity
• 2.depending on the subjective experiences and
  habits of every individual
• 3.having some effect on action
• according to Peirces words, language in general
  
• is a confused form of thought whose only
  meaning, if it has any !, lies in its tendency
  () to produce an action (Peirce 1931/51/98
  5, 15)

4
Weakness of Pragmatism

• On the basis of Peirces Pragmatism and
  hypothesis about the meaning of language, it
  results or should result that
• 1.Pragmatism cannot develop a scientific way to
  interpret the meaning of language
• 2.Pragmatism cannot develop a democratic culture
  based on the general use of reason

5
The importance of language in general and of
literary texts in particular

• 1.Meaning is a product of adaptation as well as
  all semiotic systems including language,
  therefore language cannot be a confused form of
  thought (Peirce) but since having an ability in
  the use of language beyond everyday life is not
  easy, language can easily become a confused form
  of thought
• 2. The language of literary texts is a most
  important linguistic area because it lets us know
  mental worlds which would be otherwise expressed
  at the utmost fragmented in single images or
  would remain completely unconscious being they
  not required in concrete life were these worlds
  not expressed in the language of poetry, mankind
  would therefore have a great lost of identity
• 3. Of course, the language of literary texts must
  be objectively understood for it to be
  advantageous

6
Discussion

• As a justification of what has been said, some
  pragmatic interpretations of a literary passage
  will be presented in comparison with a new
  interpretation not based on Pragmatism, but based
  on the Spatial Hypothesis (Mascialino 1997 and
  ff.) finalized to identify in a more scientific
  way the meaning of language, specifically of the
  language of fantasy, of literary texts
• The presented intralinguistic interpretations
  belong to the English and Italian cultures, but
  also many further English, Italian, American,
  Spanish, French, German interpretations and
  translations have been controlled

7
Original German passage from Kafkas Der
plötzliche Spaziergang (The Sudden Walk/Stroll)

• Original German text of the passage (Kafka 1913,
  hrsg. Max Brod/Fischer Verlag 26)
• , während man selbst, ganz fest, schwarz vor
  Umrissenheit, hinten die Schenkel schlagend, sich
  zu seiner wahren Gestalt erhebt.
• The enlarged and underscored phrase is in
  particular, even if not only, at issue here
  because of its importance as to the meaning of
  the passage and of the whole tale

8
Premise a short contextualization of the passage

• In a most rough and paraphrastic outline
• The tale represents a protagonist at home with
  his parents after dinner as usually they always
  perform the same actions such as some work or
  play without speaking with each other, so living
  in a routine, at the surface of life without
  expressing their personality out of the small
  boundaries of mental conformism after much
  analytic considering and doubting, the
  protagonist takes the decision to go out in the
  night and to leave that kind of life where he
  feels prone and cannot let emerge and know his
  true personality
• Some interpretations in English and Italian will
  follow as
• examples of pragmatic distortions of meaning

9
English translations of the German passage

• - , while you yourself, a sharply defined black
  silhouette, slapping the backs of your thighs,
  rise to your true stature. (Neugroschel 2000
  30)
• - , while you yourself, firm as can be, black
  with your sharpness of outline, slapping the
  backs of your thighs, rise up to your true
  stature. (Pasley 199217)
• - whereas we ourselves, as indisputable and
  sharp and black as a silhouette, smacking the
  backs of your thighs, come into our true nature.
  (Hofmann 2007 10-11)

10
English translations of the German passage

• - , while you yourself, boldly drawn black
  figure, slapping yourself on the thigh, grow to
  your true stature. (Muir 1993 11)
• - , while you yourself, a firm, boldly drawn
  black figure, slapping yourself on the thigh,
  grow to your true stature. (Muir 1999 398)
• - , while you yourself, absolutely solid, black
  and clear-cut, slapping your thighs, rise and
  assume your true form. (Crick 2009 8)

11
Italian translations of the German passage

• - , mentre noi ci eleviamo solidissimi e ci
  stagliamo in netti contorni, battendo con le mani
  le cosce, fino a trovare la nostra vera forma.
  (Schiavoni 1992 65)
• - , mentre noi, solidissimi, neri per lassoluta
  nitidezza dei nostri contorni, battendo con le
  mani dietro sulle cosce, ci si eleva ad assumere
  la nostra vera figura. (Baioni 1983 95)

12
Importance of the action hinten die Schenkel
schlagend in the tale

• On a concrete level, it is exactly this action
  which makes the protagonist/author possible to
  rise up from a prone to an erect position which
  is very particular itself
• On a first elementary level of a paraphrase, this
  action makes the protagonist possible to reach a
  truer, more dignitous and not prostrate
  personality
• On a further more abstract and complex level of
  symbolization, this action introduces the
  interpretation of life produced by the
  protagonist/author as we are going to see

13
Pragmatic interpretation of the action at issue

• Applying the principles of Pragmatism (subjective
  projection of ones own experiences and habits
  etc.), the interpreters, as it cannot be
  otherwise, let us know their own personality and
  Weltanschauung condensed in the slapping-image
  produced by them, but they do not let us know the
  personality and the Weltanschauung of Kafka nor
  the complex image produced by him, because these
  are different from what the interpreters have
  produced

14
The importance of the action for the reader

• If the reader understands the action by himself
  or reads an analysis done by a scholar who has
  extracted its meaning, then he
• 1.can enjoy emotions similar to those concerning
  Kafka
• 2.can add Kafkas perspective on life to his
  own, so enlarging his own mental space and
  Weltanschauung
• and, which is not so unimportant, he
• 3.can know who Kafka is

15
Spatial comprehension of the slapping-image

• We will now apply the instrument of the Spatial
  Hypothesis (main keyconcepts Dynamic Spatiality,
  Exo- and Endospatial Schemes, Exo- and
  Endospatial Plot) (Mascialino 1997 and ff.) in
  order to broadly verify/falsify the validity of
  the slapping-image which is generally given as
  the correct comprehension of Kafkas passage and
  therefore of the whole tale being the phrase
  relevant to the meaning of the whole tale

16
Explicit and implicit area concerning the meaning
of the slapping-image

• Explicit area The slapping-image refers to a man
  who tries to stand up by slapping his thighs on
  their back side, i.e., tries to help himself rise
  up with a somehow stimulating action
• Implicit area As the slapping of the thighs
  represents a stimulation for animals to move, the
  slapping-image refers to a possibly lazy or
  uncertain man who has to be stimulated in order
  to act and who has to do this by himself, because
  nobody else does it or wants to do ithis family
  helps him be proneor because he knows that he
  can and must do the effort by himself

17
Falsification of the slapping-image

• Implicit to the metaphorical standing or rising
  up is the presence of a metaphorical not standing
  position
• 1. If the protagonist should be sitting, then he
  could not slap his thighs on their backside
• 2. If he would lie on his back, then he could not
  slap his thighs on their backside
• 3. If he would crouch down, then he could not
  slap his thighs on their backside
• 4. If he would lie face down, then he could slap
  his thighs, but no standing up could be
  stimulated by this action
• 5. If he would be on his kneels, then he could
  slap his thighs, but the slapping would not
  stimulate the standing up and would make it more
  difficult and even impossible
• 6. The slapping is not so great an action which
  can lead to so great a goal, nor it is an elegant
  action, whereas the German passage consists in a
  most elegant language coherently fit to great
  goals

18
Consistence of the slapping-image

• As shown above
• The Dynamic Spatiality carried by the action of
  slapping the thighs by ones self does not fit
  any standing up, which is why nobody in the world
  has ever slapped or would slap his thighs by
  himself in order to move or rise up, except the
  protagonist of Kafkas tale according to the
  current pragmatic interpretations
• In addition, the slapping is not an elegant or
  great action, it is even sotosay vulgar, whereas
  the language Kafka has chosen to connote the
  action at issue shows a height of elegance and
  greatness which requires consistence with the
  meaning of the passage

19
Some short analysis of the passage

• Let us now have some short analysis both about
  the meaning of the words of which the phrase
  consists and about the underlying syntax not
  only words, but also syntax is always very
  relevant as to the meaning of all possible
  linguistic forms and is particularly relevant in
  this specific case, because it is exactly in the
  correct interpretation of the syntactic form that
  we can achieve the meaning of the passage and so
  of the whole tale

20
Meaning of the German verb schlagen

• The German verb schlagen, roughly considered,
  has two different areas of semantic application
• 1. With an accusative object, the meaning is to
  slap, to knock, to beat, to strike, and the like
  
• 2. With no accusative object, the meaning is to
  perform more times in a rapid succession a
  violent movement with a part of the body, as,
  e.i., when a crocodile repeatedly and very
  rapidly moves his tail violently, or a bird more
  times and very rapidly moves his wings, and the
  like

21
The syntax underlying the slapping-image

• The syntax underlying the slapping-image refers
  to the meaning of schlagen with an accusative
  object, i.e., to slap in the form of a present
  participle directly linked both to the indefinite
  pronoun one (you, we etc.), in German man, which
  has the function of a subject, and to the noun
  the thighs/die Schenkel, intended as an
  accusative object, plural, i.e. The protagonist
  (indefinite subject man) is slapping (transitive
  meaning of schlagen) his thighs (accusative
  object die Schenkel) from their back side
  (hinten)

22
The syntax underlying the original German text

• The German text interpreted by Mascialino
  (1996, 2008) shows a nominative absolute with
  schlagend in the form and meaning without any
  accusative object, i.e.
• the hind thighs/die Schenkel are the subject of
  schlagend with meaning to perform a violent
  movement many times in rapid succession with a
  part of the body, i.e. the hind thighs (die
  Schenkel as definite subject of the phrase) are
  kicking (intransitive meaning of schlagen)

23
The black-horse-image

• The movement concerned in this nominative
  absolute is performed with the hind legs, which
  implies a four-limbed animal this action is
  typical of horses When they rise up from a prone
  position, they hit repeatedly and violently their
  hind legs including thighs, then they rise up by
  kicking with their hind legs and swinging their
  body, including head and mane, elegantly and
  powerfully up and down, left and rights, forward
  and backward till they are thanks to this most
  beautiful action erect the protagonist lets us
  also know that the horse is black as the night
  all around, schwarz vor Umrissenheit so he gives
  us a powerful black-horse-image, the image of the
  protagonist who is no more a man, but has
  transformed himself into a rising black horse

24
The horse symbol

• 1.The horse symbol is manifold shortly, the
  horse in general is always linked to great
  elegance and power it is considered as a
  sinister son of night and mystery, linked to
  death and life, able also to achieve the highest
  skies starting from its dark origins
• 2.A black horse is a.o. a symbol for the power of
  the instincts, for erotic vitality and for the
  unconscious world of the mind, of imagination
  when it is not or not yet in the form of
  scientific concepts, but in the form of fantasy
• 3.A white horse is a symbol for the power of
  reason which controls the instincts, for the
  conscious world of the mind, which gives the
  comprehension of life scientific outlines and, in
  this sense, limits

25
Why a black horse in Kafkas passage

• 3.Kafka has chosen a black horse for his passage
  and phrase in order to represent at the level of
  a most suggestive image the deepest unconscious
  dark regions of his mind to which he as a great
  poet is in particular linked and the power of
  which he knows to be a superior power in
  comparison with the limiting power of reason he
  as a black horse sees in the black night and goes
  where reason itself cannot have any direct access
  being reason associated with light which it needs
  in order to be reason

26
Translation of the original German passage by
Rita Mascialino

• - , mentre da sé, del tutto solidi, neri di
  contornità, le cosce dietro scalcianti, ci si
  erge verso la propria vera forma. (Mascialino
  1996 30 2008 27)

27
The synthetic linguistic forms for the synthetic
actions performed in the German passage

• Corresponding to the rising of a powerful black
  horse performing the continuous and fluent
  action of kicking and swinging, the language does
  not show any fragmentation in doubts and
  analytic details which connote the preceeding
  long part of the tale dominated by the limits of
  everyday life and reason so, the passage proves
  to be the goal of the whole tale

28
Comparison between the Dynamic Spatiality of the
slapping-image and the black-horse-image

• The synthetic language as to the words and syntax
  employed in the German text is in complete
  opposition with the possible presence of a
  confused action such as a slapping of the thighs
  on their back side which cannot produce a solid,
  compact, powerful and elegant image the Dynamic
  Spatiality intrinsic to the black-horse-image
  fits coherently the power and elegance of the
  language intrinsic to the German passage together
  with its corresponding meaning

29
Why an indefinite subject of tale and passage

• With an I-subject the human features of the
  protagonist would have been too much in the
  foreground and, understanding the passage, we
  would have had, at least at first, the arising of
  the image of a human with some horse features,
  whereas we have in the passage most directly the
  sudden presence of a whole black horse which
  seems to arise from under the earth and which
  lets us forget the human features of the
  protagonist exactly softened by the use of an
  indefinite subject

30
Why hind thighs instead of hind legs

• Because the hind thighs of a horse are a better
  symbol for power and vitality than its thinner
  legs and because the black-horse-image is centred
  upon the elegance of power, upon vitality,
  including erotic vitality.

31
How the tale ends

• After the height of power, elegance, and vitality
  intrinsic to the passage Kafka adds the
  possibility of the protagonist transformed into a
  black horse to go and see a friend in order to
  know how it is with him. A friend in order to
  share the world of poetry with its advantages for
  humans with someone who does not fear to receive
  the visit of such a black horse used to walk and
  see in the darkness, i.e., a friend who does not
  fear to meet the unconscious world of
  imagination, whereas most humans fear to have
  contact with the dark unconscious world

32
Conclusion

• It has been shown that Franz Kafka has not only
  transformed himself into a repulsive black
  cockroach (Die Verwandlung), as believed till now
  by scholars and common readers, but that he has
  transformed himself also into a most powerful and
  elegant black horse He is a cockroach in the
  morning, in everyday life, and is a powerful and
  elegant black horse in the night, where the
  mental worlds of fantasy can rule less disturbed
  by day duties and reason, by light which
  eliminates the shadows produced by imagination
  (Mascialino 1996, 2008)
• It has also been shown that Franz Kafka is not an
  author who cannot be understood, as many
  pragmatic scholars on the contrary state

33
Conclusion

• It has been shown that the meaning of the
  language of poetry can go completely lost because
  of current hypotheses and theories upon the
  meaning of language
• It has been shown how the meaning of literary
  texts can be identified by applying a scientific
  hypothesis, a scientific method such as the
  Spatial Hypothesis (Mascialino 1997 and ff.)

34
Conclusion

• Concluding, there is in general a lack of sound
  interpretations of the meaning of literary texts
  not filling this gap, the power of poetry, as
  Robin Allott (2008) has masterly defined the
  importance of the meaning of poetry for mankind,
  will continue going lost with the consequence of
  a damage for culture, of a smaller and smaller
  identity as well as a greater and greater
  barbarism for mankind.