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If interpretation does indeed consist of describing the meanings reflected in the answers to research questions, then it becomes apparent that there are many kinds of meaning associated with diverse types of questions. The following discussion is divided into two parts. The first part identifies several general kinds of interpretation. The second part is devoted to kinds of interpretation that we believe qualify as hermeneutics. Throughout the presentation, we begin by describing each kind of interpretation in relation to the type of meaning it yields. Then we offer questions that would call for such an interpretation. It will be apparent that within a given thesis or dissertation, numbers of different kinds of interpretation may be offered at various places in the document. It also may be apparent that the few types of interpretation reviewed in this chapter are selected from the broader range of meanings that are possible in research. In effect, there are more available types than the few reviewed in this chapter. Some General Varieties of Interpretation The eight common forms of interpretation reviewed in the following paragraphs involve (a) comparing and contrasting, (b) proposing causes (explanatory, predictive), (c) revealing trends, (d) confirming beliefs and practices, (e) challenging conventional wisdom, (f) proposing alternative meanings, (g) attempting to alter beliefs and behavior, and (h) evaluating events, people, policies, or practices. Comparing and contrasting In compare-and-contrast analyses, meaning derives from recognizing how two or more phenomena are alike and are different. Comparing involves identifying similarities among phenomena, while contrasting consists of recognizing differences among them. Many things can be the objects of compare-and-contrast interpretation--individuals, groups, institutions, activities, belief systems, attitudes, emotions, and more. Individuals: In terms of contributions to the nation's welfare, how have historians rated presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt? Groups: In what ways are devoted Catholics, Muslims, and Buddhists alike and different? Institutions: How do public schools in the Netherlands and in Scotland compare in regard to their curricula, financial support, mode of governance, and students' achievement? Activities: What are the strengths and weaknesses of playing chess versus working crossword puzzles as activities to sustain mental alertness and memory accuracy among the elderly? Belief systems: What are the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the British capitalistic economy and the North Korean state-socialist economy from the viewpoints of production efficiency and distributing the society's wealth equitably throughout the populace? Attitudes: How do opinions about birth control vary by social-class level-upper class, middle class, lower class? Emotions: How similar are adolescent girls and adolescent boys in their feelings about the death of a parent? Proposing causes The process of causal analysis involves two steps (1) identifying a correlation between two or more phenomena and (2) providing a line of logic which suggests that one of those phenomena is the result--at least partially--of the other. The first step--demonstrating a correlation--is descriptive; it consists of showing that when one factor changed, the other also changed, at least to some degree. The second step--establishing a causal link--is speculative, representing the analyst's estimate of how one of the factors has caused, or could cause, a related one. Two versions of causal interpretation are the explanatory and the predictive. Explanatory Interpretation: Explanatory analysis is concerned with the past by focusing on events that have already occurred. In one form of explanation, the researcher's purpose is to detect the influence of earlier events (the antecedent or independent variable) on subsequent events (the outcome or dependent variable). The connection the analyst is seeking to establish can be expressed as a question. | | In what ways did changes in the sexual-harassment legislation alter male/female relationships in the workplace? | | | In a sample of 1,000 New York City adolescents, what difference did being raised in a one-parent home rather than in a two-parent home make in students' mental health and academic success? | | | What influence did the amount of financial and technical aid provided by the Allied nations to defeated nations in World War II exert on the speed and strength of defeated nations' economic recovery? | | | Why did Richard Nixon lose to John Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election? | | | What has caused the rise in the divorce rate in recent decades? | | | What lasting influence did Sigmund Freud's writings exert on European and American psychology and psychiatry? | | | Why was Effraim Schultz able to rise from a family background of poverty and crime to become a wealthy entrepreneur and highly regarded social-welfare philanthropist? |
In contrast to the people who analyze events and documents to explain causal influences, there are critics who play the role of debunkers, disputing the validity of such analyses. Debunkers operate either by doubting that the investigator of documents truly understood their import or by disputing the line of logic with which the investigator has connected the contents of documents to events. An example is Walford's quarreling with the argument put forward in a book focusing on connections between education and poverty.
The authors claim that the first of [their] chapters uses data from up to 40 countries to investigate the effect of education on reducing poverty. . . . What the chapter actually does is provide some interesting correlations between various factors for the countries selected. . . . But it is positively misleading for the authors to infer causation from correlation . . . [in that] they do not overcome the simple problem of untangling whether, for example, more equitable income distributions are caused by improvements in education or vice versa. The reality is probably a lot more complex than either possibility. ( Walford, 1993, p. 84) Typical questions that lead to debunkers' contributions include: | | What was wrong with the line of logic that led the author to such conclusions? | | | What data were either ignored or misrepresented in the author's analysis? | | | What ill-founded, unstated assumptions underlay the analyst's reasoning about causes of crime? |
| | How has a postmodern deconstruction of the concepts of race and gender invalidated the influence of traditional marriage laws on the quality of individuals' lives and of society? |
Predictive Interpretation: Predictive analysis addresses the future. Its aim is to estimate the influence that presently existing or expected new events will exert on conditions that will appear in the days or years ahead. A predictive interpretation is thus an inference about a likely causal connection between present times and a specified future time. | | Would the proposed flat tax provide more revenue for the federal government than is obtained from the present form of income tax? | | | What changes can be expected in the contents of science textbooks if religious groups' criticisms of humanistic secularism replace prevailing publishing guidelines? | | | Will the recently published statistics on immigration trends affect regulations governing the conditions that aliens must fulfill in order to earn U.S. citizenship? |
Revealing trends Trends are patterns of change over time. Interpreting a sequence of events in terms of trends involves identifying the nature of those patterns, thereby making patterns of change the meaning of trend analysis. As demonstrated in the following examples, a trend interpretation is frequently directed by a guide question that is accompanied by a further query regarding the cause of the trend. | | In what ways have women's styles of dressing changed over the 20th century? What have been the principal reasons behind those changes? | | | What pattern did the cycles of economic prosperity and depression assume between 1920 and 1990? What factors determined that pattern? | | | In traditional Zuñi culture, what stages have been identified in the development of obedience during children's and youths' growing years? Why did those stages appear in such a sequence? |
Confirming beliefs and practices
Interpretation performs a confirmative function whenever information is seen as corroborating a belief the analyst wishes to advance. One sort of confirmative inquiry is the manifold-support type, guided by the question: How much documentary evidence can I compile in support of my position? Another is the conflicting-version variety, derived from answering the question: Which of several contradictory accounts of an event do I believe is the most convincing? In the manifold-support type, multiple documents are interpreted as all substantiating the hypothesis, viewpoint, policy, or practice the analyst is advocating. In other words, the analyst seeks to convince others of the soundness of his or her stance by offering not just one, but a multitude of materials in support of that position. In way of illustration, Cremin ( 1970, p. 657) cites 12 "recent works" that represent the "serious and systematic study of characteristic family life" on which he based his own rendition of family influences on education in colonial America. Other studies that also involve manifold support include ones designed to answer the following questions. | | What evidence from present-day Cuban society supports the contention that the adoption of Marxist political-economic principles promotes the greatest good for the majority of citizens? | | | What fallacies in the logic presented by supporters of the death penalty weaken those supporters' assertions about the death penalty's usefulness for reducing violent crime? | | | In what ways do the results of empirical research studies demonstrate the superiority of conflict theory over social-exchange theory for explaining the treatment of prisoners of war in World War II and in the Vietnam conflict? |
Challenging conventional wisdom
Sometimes investigators conduct research intended to test popular beliefs that have derived from cultural traditions or from an accumulation of previous studies. When the results of the research are at odds with conventional wisdom, it means that conventional wisdom has ostensibly been wrong, at least for the circumstances under which the present study was conducted. The researcher's task of interpretation is one of accounting for the apparent discrepancy between what tradition would have predicted and what the study produced. This can involve the author comparing the contradictory accounts, then adducing an argument showing that the rationale supporting his or her position is the more logical of the pair and the one better buttressed by empirical evidence. | | How do recent studies of cross-cultural relations in the United States cast doubt on the traditional belief that American society represents a unified nationwide cultural "melting pot"? | | | What's wrong with schools' promotion policies which require that a child be "at grade level in academic achievement" before the child is permitted to advance to the next grade? |
Proposing alternative meanings
Frequently a critical researcher will accept at face value a document's descriptive content but will question the author's interpretation of the material and then will suggest a different meaning for the data. The guide question for conducting such a reappraisal can be: What is the political, moral, social-class, ethnic, or gender vantage point from which the original author viewed the events depicted in this document, and how might the account have been different if the author had assumed another vantage point? This type has been most prominent in recent decades in formerly colonized nations whose people have sought to revise, from their own viewpoint rather than of the colonialists, the region's history during colonial times. But such revisionism is not limited to cases of newly independent peoples. It can occur as readily whenever the political control of a state falls into new hands, and the leaders of the new regime choose to recast historical accounts by reinterpreting the previously presented evidence. The resulting revised interpretation typically attributes ignoble motives to the people involved in the original account or else suggests that the policies and practices of those earlier times produced different consequences than the ones described in the original document.The researcher's methods for determining the accuracy of a work's interpretation can involve: | 1. | Estimating the way political, economic, and social motives of various groups in the society would likely have influenced their explanation of the events depicted in the original document, then | | 2. | Comparing the analysis found in a communication with the explanation that might derive from each group's motives in order to determine whether the communication's interpretation was biased or else was a balanced representation of different groups' viewpoints. |
What often stimulates a scholar to initiate an alternative interpretation is the philosophical or theoretical persuasion to which the scholar subscribes, a persuasion different from that of the original author of the documents under question. For example, Marxist theory may be used for reinterpreting an account of 19thcentury schooling in the Pacific Islands that had been written by a Christian missionary who founded schools there. Or conflict theory may be used to reassess changes in Eastern Germany's social-class structure as described by a Russian historian after the Soviet Union took political control of Eastern Germany following World War II. When researchers thus intentionally bring a different theoretical perspective to interpreting a communication, they add further items to their list of guide questions: What were the philosophical assumptions and investigative methods of the original author, and how do those compare with the ones I bring to the reinterpretation of the work? What additional kinds of information do I require for my reappraisal, and why are these new kinds needed? | | Why can a postpositivist perspective furnish a better explanation of ethnic groups' worldviews than can logical positivism? | | | How does adopting a radical/libertarian feminist theory alter the expectations women hold for what constitutes "equitable opportunities and treatment"? |
Attempting to alter beliefs and behavior
Sometimes the intent behind a communication is to promote particular policies, practices, individuals, organizations, or ideologies. Such communications represent efforts to persuade an audience to adopt convictions the author favors. In effect, the meaning of such a hortatory effort is found in the author's motives and the type of change the author intends in the chosen audience. The interpreter's task is therefore to discern what it is the author is trying to sell, to whom, how, and why.
In the Islamic Qur'an, what sorts of arguments are offered to convince readers that they should subscribe to the doctrines and abide by the dictates espoused in the book? | | What was the motive behind Senator Sturdlee's criticism of the leaders of his own party? | |
Evaluating events, people, policies, or practices Evaluative analysis is concerned with judging whether a communication is desirable in terms of specified characteristics, such as cost, social equity, clarity, user convenience, functional efficiency, aesthetic appeal, or the like. Oftentimes the comparison is not based on a single document that is intended to represent a given practice but, rather, is founded on a series of related documents.
Events: Did the Woodstock rock concerts exert a positive or negative influence in American society?
People: Which U.S. president was more effective in getting important legislation enacted, John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson? Policies: How have regulations that govern the protection of Native Americans' sacred grounds affected projects of real estate developers? Who profits from the proposed changes in Medicare legislation and who suffers damage? Practices: What are the advantages and disadvantages of medical treatments offered by Navajo shamans? Hermeneutics The word hermeneutics has been around for centuries, particularly in reference to interpreting the meaning of biblical writings. However, the present-day heightened popularity of hermeneutics in the humanities and social sciences is of rather recent origin, dating principally from the early 1960s. The popularity ranges far beyond the realm of biblical exegesis to include the interpretation of any sort of communication--legal documents, speeches, letters, newspaper articles, books, movies, radio and television broadcasts, and more. Along with this heightened interest has come a fair amount of puzzlement arising from a lack of consensus among writers about precisely what the aims and methods of hermeneutics are. This lack of agreement even extends to the pronunciation of the term itself. (Is it best as her-me-NOO-tics, her-me-NYOO-tics, or her-meNOY-tics?) One result of the confusion is that potential users of hermeneutics fail to understand when or how to apply its methods. Hermeneutics, in its most general sense, has been broadly defined as the art or science of interpretation. Under such an all-encompassing definition, any assignment of meaning to data could be considered an application of hermeneutics, including all of the types in this chapter. And, indeed, there are people who use the term in that way, as a synonym for interpretation. However, other users place greater restrictions on the concept. The problem, then, becomes that of discovering how to distinguish hermeneutic analysis from other forms of interpretation. A search of the literature to learn how hermeneutics has been defined yields a harvest of mixed worth. Wilhelm Dilthey ( 1833- 1911), the German philosopher most often credited with stimulating the modern-day movement, defined hermeneutics as "understanding social phenomena in terms of the motives of the participants and the meanings [that such motives] give to institutions and events" ( Macsporran, 1982, p. 47). Less clear than Dilthey's statement is Bubner's assertion that "For hermeneutics, understanding means a fundamental apprehension of truth which takes place in intersubjective processes of communication and in the mediation through history" ( Bubner in Mannien & Tuomela, 1976, p. 69). Equally elusive seems the meaning Giddens intended when writing that hermeneutics involves "grasping frames of meaning contextually as elements of the practice of particular forms of life--and not only consistencies with frames, but also inconsistencies and disputed or contested meanings" ( Macsporran, 1982, p. 48). In view of this murky condition of much of the discourse about hermeneutics, our problem of explaining the technique's exact aims and methods became one of determining more precisely what part hermeneutics might play in doing theses and dissertations. We approached the problem by reviewing key writings bearing on document interpretation in various disciplines, then extracting from those writings six functions that might adequately qualify as hermeneutic activities applicable to research in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences ( Bozarth-Campbell, 1979; Gadamar, 1975; Garfinkel, 1981; Habermas, 1972; Held, 1980; Macsporran, 1982; Mazzeo, 1978; Odman, 1985; Palmer, 1969; Ricoeur , 1976; Thomas, 1987; von Wright, 1971). The six functions are those of (a) extracting the essence of a body of data, (b) locating a communication in its original context, (c) verifying the authenticity of an account, (d) judging the accuracy of information, (e) clarifying the meaning of a communication, and (f) translating symbols. Hence, for us the task of hermeneutic analysis consists of seeking to determine the original meaning intended by the author of a communication. Extracting the essence of a body of data An important act of interpretation performed by any researcher is that of condensing a large quantity of information into a concise account that accurately reflects the most fundamental meanings of that body of information. The following are two forms of that act. Synoptic interpretation: In synoptic interpretation, the analyst endeavors to provide a concise version of a longer communication. The analysis is guided by the question: How can I best prepare a brief version that is true to the spirit and content of the original large body of information?A synopsis may be brief, identifying no more than key themes that run through the work or works that are being summarized, or it may be more extensive, providing considerable detail, and in some cases attempting to maintain a sense of the original authors' writing styles. In the comparative form of synoptic interpretation, summaries of two or more communications are placed side by side, with the analyst usually pointing out what could be regarded as significant similarities and differences. | | What were the common features shared by the Parnack and Stackhouse election campaigns in the race for the post of county commissioner? | | | What was the main lesson implied in the Algonquin myth of Glooskap's death and his subsequent revival? | | | In brief, what method did Hanafia and Sumantri use for studying social stratification in Sundanese villages, and what were the chief results of their study? | | | What was self-contradictory in French philosopher Michel Foucault's contending that valid generalizations could be drawn only from very specific events and that those generalizations would be applicable only within the context of those events? |
Personal qualities interpretation: Often an analyst, when abstracting from documents, seeks to summarize prominent features of an individual's or a group's personality. The documents that frequently serve this purpose are biographies, letters, speeches, and regulations that the individual or group has produced. Or the personal qualities may be drawn from interviews with people who have known the individual or group. The question guiding such inquiry is this: What characteristics typify this individual's or group's beliefs and actions? | | What were Benjamin Franklin's most admirable qualities, and which of his qualities were subject to censure? | | | How well did Eleanor Roosevelt's abilities and temperament suit her for the role of wife to the president of the United States? | | | What skills and personality characteristics are needed in a woman if she is to function as a successful chief administrative officer of a large entertainment conglomerate, such as the Disney Corporation or Turner Broadcasting? | | | Are there really such things as "national character traits"? If so, what traits distinguish the French, the Germans, the Chinese, and the Japanese? |
Locating a communication in its original context Contextual interpretation refers to how an account of an event has been affected by the historical or sociocultural context within which the account was composed. This form of interpretations is frequently applied in historical and anthropological investigations in which a researcher is seeking to determine the meaning intended by someone who wrote or spoke from a perspective distant in time, space, or culture from that of the researcher. The investigator endeavors to fathom the intent of the original author by comprehending the social-class system, political pressures, religious beliefs, etiquette, knowledge structures, and other circumstances from which that author operated. Such an understanding is pursued by such means as learning the language of the author, reading extensively about the author's life and times, and interviewing people who knew the author or who have authoritative knowledge of the society in which the author lived. | | What was the intent of the creators of the U.S. Constitution when they included in the Bill of Rights the provision for citizens to bear arms? How did social conditions in those days influence the addition of such a provision to the Bill of Rights? From the viewpoint of the public welfare, how appropriate is that provision under present-day social conditions in the United States? | | | What characteristics of the worldview of typical Christian Science practitioners affect their either rejecting or accepting various sorts of medical treatment? |
Verifying the authenticity of an account Verification analysis is aimed at determining the authenticity of a communication. The purpose is to help the analyst decide whether an account is actually what it is purported to be. Verification interpretation, in its comparative version, involves ascertaining which of two or more communications is the most authentic. This mode of analysis can result in such appraisals as Cremin's conclusion that "The literature on Horatio Alger, Jr., is replete with legend and even some fraudulent biography based on a nonexistent diary. Edwin P. Hoyt, Horatio's Boys: The Life and Works of Horatio Alger, Jr. appears to be authoritative" ( Cremin, 1980, p. 565).One common sort of verification analysis is reflected in the question: When there are two somewhat contradictory accounts of an event, which account is the more accurate? In attempting to answer this question, the experienced investigator will typically depend on both internal and external sources of evidence. Internal refers to characteristics of the documents themselves, such things as factual consistency, completeness of presentation, chronological accuracy, and writing style. External refers to evidence from outside the document that either corroborates the account or casts doubt on it. External evidence usually consists of information about the same event as provided by other documents or witnesses. | | To what extent were reports of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, as published in newspapers of the day, accurate, verbatim accounts of the men's speeches? And if the published speeches were edited versions, how might the mode of editing have affected readers' understanding of Lincoln's and Douglas's political beliefs and styles of oratory? | | | In certain respects, the Book of Job in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible reads somewhat differently in the King James Authorized Version than in the New American Version. Which of these versions is truer to the original Hebrew on which the two English-language translations were based? | | | | In the O. J. Simpson murder case, what means could have been used to resolve the conflicts between the accounts of the affair offered by different witnesses who spoke at the trial? | | | | |
Judging the accuracy of information Whereas the aim of verification interpretation is to determine whether a communication is what it claims to be, data accuracy analysis is intended to discover whether the information in a document or in someone's testimony faithfully depicts what happened.In assessing the validity of historical accounts, the researcher's guide questions become these: To what extent are the episodes or information in the document complete, or at least representative of conditions at the time? What other information should have been included in the document to ensure that the data were accurate? Techniques for answering such queries include Reviewing the apparent sources of the original author's data to estimate whether the author had extracted from them a balanced description of conditions at the time. | | Searching for new sources of information so as to check the contents of the new sources against the contents of the original author's work to learn whether adding the new information warrants changing the conclusions drawn in the original work. | Estimating reasons for any data inaccuracies that have been discovered in the communication. |
In judging the accuracy of the accounts offered by witnesses or informants, an investigator can consider the likely motives of the witnesses, the skills of observation and description that the witnesses commanded (acuity of sight and hearing, verbal proficiency), and the context in which the witnessed events occurred (political convention hall, emotionally charged confrontation between husband and wife, high school football game). | In the confrontation between FBI agents and the Davidian religious cult near Waco, Texas, whose depiction of the episode represents what really occurred? | | How likely is it that the girl who testified in the robbery case could have identified the suspect at dusk when the girl was still half a block from the gas station? | What was the author's motive for taking credit for the success of the research project when he himself had not conducted the study? |
Clarifying the meaning of a communication The aim of this type is to render the meaning of a communication more easily understood than it was in its original form. In attempting to create a more lucid version of a work, the analyst is essentially saying, "What the author really meant was this." The rationale behind producing a clarifying interpretation is that the original version would be inordinately abstruse for potential readers. In other words, phrasings and concepts in the original work would be unduly archaic, foreign, technical, or ambiguous for the audience that the analyst hopes to reach. | When postmodern authors' writings are explained with the use of examples from everyday life events, what do we discover those authors mean by such expressions as foundationalism, epistemological essentialism, postmodern negations, politics of voice, grand narratives of legitimation, counternarratives, language games, structuralism, and metalanguage? | | How can D'queljoe's description of Basque social structure be rewritten so it is readily understood by people who know little of anthropologists' technical jargon? |
Translating symbols Much of language is symbolic, in the sense of words being used to convey meanings that differ from the literal meanings originally attached to those words. For example, an aggressively ambitious young woman may be referred to as "a social climber." A politician who wildly launches irrational accusations at his opponents may be deemed "a loose cannon." A self-styled reformer who launches campaigns about issues that others consider ridiculous may be referred to as "the Don Quixote of Sixth Avenue." Not only do authors use individual words and phrases symbolically, but they sometimes speak in parables, describing an event or telling a tale whose meaning is not to be accepted literally but, rather, viewed symbolically as a representation of similar conditions at a different time or place. One of the best known parables bearing on politics and social organization is George Orwell Animal Farm (1946), which ostensibly describes the social relations among domesticated animals but is actually a commentary on human societies. Jonathan Swift 18th century Gulliver's Travels ( 1980) is one of the best known parables from the past that holds implications for understanding people's attitudes about the acceptability of individuals from unfamiliar cultures. Jean Jacques Rousseau Emile (1773), although cast as a novel, is a broad ranging treatise on child rearing and education. We can thus suggest that researchers who seek to interpret a communication's symbols can be led by such questions as these: Is the entire document symbolic--a fable, parable, or analog--so its literal meaning is not the one intended by the writer? Or does the document offer two meanings, one literal and the other symbolic? Is most of the meaning of the document intended to be direct and literal, but within the work are there symbolic meanings found in proverbs, aphorisms, or allusions? How can a researcher recognize symbolic contents? The investigator can seek answers for these queries through the use of such tools as dictionaries that trace word etymology, collections of proverbs, and literary works from the time the document was written. In societies that have depended more on oral rather than written history and literature, clues to symbolic meanings may be sought through interviewing elderly members of the society. Essays, letters, or diaries that the original author produced may address themselves to matters of writing style, including how symbols are employed. If the document under consideration is a translation of a work originally produced in another language, then bilingual dictionaries can prove useful. | | In Samoan culture, what figurative meanings are assigned to these proverbs? "Pepe made a strange catch." "Tufugaluli's ears go wandering about." "Heaven was spat on." | | | In what way does the function of an electronic computer serve as an analogue of the human information-processing system? Or, stated differently, why can the performance of a computer qualify as "artificial intelligence"? | | | What personality characteristics have been attributed to the following creatures by North American Indian tribes? | the owl by the Creeks | the rattlesnake by the Shawnees | | the eagle by the Cherokees | the dove by the Hurons |
| | | What are the following expressions interpreted to mean in American business and political circles? (business) Wall Street, bull market, bear market, whistle blower, negative cash flow, blue chip (politics) lame duck, red herring |
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