Between Ethnolinguistics and Phenomenology, or the Mutual Translatability of Linguistically Constructed Experienced Worlds

Abstract

The goal of the article is to identify the conditions of cultural translation, without which neither ethnolinguistics nor ethnography could exist. Attention is focused on the phenomenological inspirations of qualitative research. The first of these is the need to analyse the specific situational context relative to the question of the extent to which language governs human experience. On the basis of Edmund Husserl’s proposals, it can be assumed that the power of language over the human being differs in scope depending on whether a spontaneous (pre-theoretical) attitude toward phenomena prevails over a reflective (theoretical) attitude, or vice versa. Both ethnolinguistics and ethnography start from the assumption that various social creations of reality can differ fundamentally due to different linguistic and cultural systems. Nonetheless, it can be assumed that human corporeality, subjected to conscious reflection, is the common denominator of such systems, so that ethnolinguists and ethnographers can understand any text relatively well “from the inside” (i.e., from the emic perspective of native speakers).