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"Crystal-clear darkness" [2019] ELECD 1384; in Broekman, M. Jan (ed), "Rethinking Law and Language" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 207

Book Title: Rethinking Law and Language

Editor(s): Broekman, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: INTERMEZZO 5

Section Title: Crystal-clear darkness

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

INTERMEZZO 5



Crystal-clear darkness


A Western language that solves the problem of uttering alter's presence
by means of uttering Groundwords would no longer place the conjunctive
between "I" and "You" and thus formulate: "IYou will phone you
tonight" or "IYou hope YouI answer MeHim/MeHer soon." Language as
communication is important again: its expressivity makes clear that in the
case of the Groundword there is always a copresence at stake, such as
between You and Me or You and Her, Them and Us, and so on. Grammar
needs to be reshaped, we (re)think, and will provide a language in which
power positions are no longer in effect. Is that possible, is that enough?
Indeed: it comes near, yes, very near to what the #MeToo movement
expresses on our smartphone, but those forms of expression do not relate
to analog languages. Here is an important component of Buber's answer
to the question regarding alter's presence: the problem is wider than any
analog language expression can envisage!
A Groundword has conditional meaning levels, which must be given
second thought. The concentration on "word" excludes the specific place
and function of the word in language in its totality. That is one of the
reasons of Searle's misstep when he interprets the "speech act"--he by
no means treats the word metaphorically while proposing the term
"speech act." We should ask him: what type of language is at stake when
the word is isolated as a basic element ...