Contradiction in L2 instruction

As far as language development is concerned, second or foreign language development is viewed as a metalinguistic process, not unlike the development of scientific concepts—which is sustained on the development of everyday concepts—, since the semantic system of the native language mediates the acquisition of concepts in the second language. What needs to be internalised is the psychological structure of the target language, that is, as Gal’perin (1992d) asserts, the ‘circumstances of speech’ (pp. 82-83). Thus, second or foreign language instruction presents a fundamental contradiction. On the one hand, it relies on the acquirer’s native language (and presumably on highly coded methods of instruction) but, on the other hand, in order to bring the psychological structure of the utterance in the foreign language as close as possible to that which operates in the native language, acquirers are required to create links between linguistic functions in the mother and target language within recognisable communicative contexts. Those contexts, for the most part, are socio-communicative and rely, for their transmission, upon naturalistic instructional methods. Instruction in those context demands the communication readiness observed in operationalised functions. In consequence, instruction has to provide for pedagogical moves that go from meaning to sense within a contextual naturalistic platform set from sense to meaning. The weak and strong versions in communicative language teaching (CLT) reflect this dialectical contradiction.

Faith and reason again, hermeneutics and faith

The hermeneutic of the Holy Scriptures, because of its polysemous nature, constitutes a labyrinth, an ocean or flow of divine discourse. The only way out, the only north in this ocean is faith. Faith is ultimately what gives final sense to any interpretation. But faith is a sense, an spontaneous feeling that does not emerge from the act of knowing something empirically opposed to the theoretical. Faith is experience, but an experience that emerges spontaneously, not subject to the taming of abstract concepts that can only be understood as part of a network of theoretical concepts. In fact, a sure way to eventually kill a feeling is by rationalising it through words (psychoanalysis is used to kill a phobia).

As Eco points out:

"...the moral sense can be understood only through the mediation of the allegorical one, and is attainable only by the faithful ones...which can be summarized through the line of Nicholas of Lyra: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralia quid agas, quo tendas anagogia". (Eco, 1984, p. 149)

In a similar way, in the Zen tradition, it is only the experience through practical means what gives the correct interpretation of the scriptures. The understanding of the scriptures is done through practical action. The scriptures serve to inform the formal aspects of the practice but they are not "principles" from which practice can be deduced, as it is the case with western law and western ethics. In other words, it is not possible to understand the koan from a pure rational stance. As master Dogen said, "awakening awakens awakening" or, akawening is only awakened by the force of awakening" or "Buddha alone knows Buddha".