California Baptist University
Introduction (Abstract)
Culture is what we make of the world and people around us. We interpret cultures to be shared understandings and mutually acceptable beliefs equipped with successful social interactions. The history of humankind and culture is simply based on the hermeneutics of the world, meaning how we interpret the cultures and history to be. In this analysis, we will explore anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s hermeneutics cultural theory and explain why and how we interpret the world as a “text”.
Cultural Hermeneutics Theory
In Clifford Geertz’s theory of hermeneutics, he describes three key details that define the lay out for social interactions within a culture. These three elements include life as a game, life as a drama, and life as text (Bell, 2008). In order to understand this element that we will be focusing on, life as text, we must comprehend what defines “text” in this theory. Geertz discussed text as being anything printed, comprehension of written texts, and how “text building” is central to the work of a number of areas of knowledge production including literature, history, law, music, politics, etc. (Geertz 1980, 177). Therefore, in a nutshell, Geertz’s theory of hermeneutics is defined as the way that we interpret social interactions and text within our culture.
Application to Oral Interpretation
The cultural theory of hermeneutics is closely related to oral interpretation and performance. The ability to absorb meaning through a performance or oral interpretation is how we apply the hermeneutics theory and performance together. According to our text, even Aristotle recognized the relationship between the text of a play and its embodiment onstage in performance (Bell, 2008). Many elements of a performance involve the text that Geertz discussed in his theory. Based off of Richard Bauman’s ideas, these elements of “text” in an oral interpretation can include plot, character, song, diction, figurative language, special codes and parallelism. When we look at texts, they are usually tied to the medium that is used to gage our understanding (meaning) of them which can be any media source such as oral interpretations, television, radio, and film.
Text and Geertz’s Theory
The text I chose to relate to Geertz’s hermeneutics theory is the print magazine Cosmopolitan which is something I read and am influenced by regularly. This is considered to be a cultural text (according to Geertz’s theory) because it is used as an interpretation medium for our current culture and it is printed pages which is an example of “text” in his theory. Even something as simple as a movie on the television, or a presidents State of the Union address can be considered a text under Clifford’s theory.
Conclusion: Relating to Oral Interpretation Text Performances
As we have learned thus far, oral interpretation is how we interpret literature. Literature, being a “printed” text, is a way that we can interpret culture, according to Geertz’s theory of hermeneutics. We know that hermeneutics is text interpretation based on changes in the world (Moon, 2014). As we see, oral interpretation performance and hermeneutics both have a relationship with text, performance and interpreting meaning whether it be the meaning of the performance or the text itself. Creating words on a page, rather than out loud in speech, enables consciousness that values analysis, visualization, and isolation (Bell, 2008). Therefore, it is important to note that text is vital to performance and vice versa and we need both in conjunction with each other to interpret anything.
References
Bell, E. (2008). 3. In Theories of performance. Los Angeles: Sage publications.
Moon, P. (Director). (2014, March 15). What are hermeneutics? [Video file]. Retrieved January 24, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woQEXuH_0GA
Page, M. D. (1988). The Anthropologist as Essayist Clifford Geertz. Place of publication not identified: Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse.
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