There are various skills one needs for writing. One of the most crucial skills for me is: In the act of writing, don't look for the words, look to the heart. I think -- with some serious thought behind this (see my paper Bridging Inferences) -- that the English language, since about Johnson, has come to be viewed increasingly as a logical structure, to be used to fit words together. In reality, it is surges of inferences, relational complexes emerging and receding, all on a vast scale and with great rapidity. Some would make English out to be a pile of bricks, where it is a tangled city. There may be some who can construct things with words -- which is good -- and one always needs to finish one's writing by looking over the construction -- yet what I describe here is, I think, what took my own public writing to a new level. Humboldt said that language is not ergon, but energeia.
No comments:
Post a Comment