Language

I've been thinking a lot about language lately. Most of this has been fueled by an independent study with a group of fellow seminarians studying the emerging church conversation. As we talk more about what the church looks like in a postmodern context, much of the conclusions we come to are centered around language.

Add to all this the fact that my other independent study is further work in Greek by translating Romans as well as leading tutorials for the Hebrew 1 students. What you get is a seminary student who is thinking (perhaps way too much) about language.

But today I had another thought stimulus. I was reading Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers and he has a whole chapter about language in the book. In the chapter, he discusses how we are a noun-centered culture but are currently shifting to a verb-centered culture. In a noun-centric culture, the noun or the subject is what the entire sentence focuses on and the rest of the sentence supports the noun. However, Myers argues that we are starting to shift to a focus on the verb, the action. This shift also places everything in relationship as motion or movement is always in some sort of relationship.

This is also key as much of those studying postmodernity are learning, language is finite and therefore it can be difficult to describe things that seemingly do not have only one meaning. I.e. when I think about a spoon and then talk about a spoon with another person, even though we'll both have a general idea of what a spoon is, we may have different images of the spoon in our head. I may be thinking of a plain silver spoon while my friend imagines one with a plastic handle. It's a simple example, but hopefully you understand what I'm talking about.

So it is with language and postmodernity. In today's context, we are reluctant to name something concretely with one term. Instead we opt for multiple nouns and focus on the verb.

So now to the thought stimulus. Taking all this reading about verb-centered versus noun-centered language into account, I began thinking about my translation of Romans. I have noticed that Paul used infinitive verbs over and over again where an indicative verb would have worked just as well (at least in my mind). Now, the understanding is that using an infinitive (often as an indicative) is a sign of more sophisticated Greek... but I began to wonder if my desire for a clear subject and a finite verb is a symptom of my modern mind (the part that is modern). Is it that even the Greeks (or perhaps more the Hebrews as Paul was also a Judean...) were a bit more verb-centric? Perhaps the use of the infinitive in Greek is a way of indicating the action and the relationship it sustains is what is most important. Thus, the verb stands on its own as opposed to describing the noun/subject and really the noun/subject helps describe the verb. Maybe this just isn't the case at all and I'm making it all up... =)

Does any of this make sense to anyone other than me? Is anybody as excited about this as I am? Or am I just being a dork (probably)? =)

Thoughts?