Heidegger on the transformation of language

In order to think back to the essence of language, in order to reiterate what is its own, we need a transformation of language, a transformation we can neither compel nor concoct. The transformation does not result from the fabrication of neologisms and novel phrases. The transformation touches on our relation to language. That relation is determined in accordance with the sending that determines whether and in what way we are embraced in propriation by the essence of language, which is the original pronouncement of propriation. For propriation--owning, holding, keeping to itself--is the relation of all relations.
-"The Way to Language," in Basic Writings, 424-5

Um dem Sprachwesen nachzudenken, ihm das Seine nachzusagen, braucht es einen Wandel der Sprache, den wir weder erzwingen noch erfinden konnen. Der Wandel ergibt sich nicht durch die Beschaffung neu gebildeter Worter und Wortreihen. Der Wandel rührt an unser Verhaltnis zur Sprache. Dieses bestimmt sich nach dem Geschick, ob und wie wir vom Sprachwesen als der Ur-Kunde des Ereignisses in dieses einbehalten werden. Denn das Ereignis ist, eignend-haltend-ansichhaltend, das Verhaltnis aller Verhaltnisse.
-"Der Weg zur Sprache," in Unterwegs zur Sprache (Gesamtausgabe 12), 255-6

Look at the German, which is much clearer. For essential reasons, however, this lack of clarity isn't really the fault of David Farrell Krell--from whose version of "Der Weg zur Sprache" I quote. The 1959 lecture is too condensed, too compact, and at the same time too lacking in concision, in the controlled, step by step unfolding of thought that Heidegger elsewhere deploys. The lack of clarity, in other words, is there no matter what you really do to it. And this is for equally essential reasons: the essay is not so much an effort to be clear about what constitutes language as one of the most concentrated attempts to bring about the "transformation" (der Wandel) of language that Heidegger here talks about.

I say "most," only because this is the task behind many of Heidegger's other writings. The task in many of them is never really an exposition of what the thing under consideration (here, one would be tempted to say language) should act and function like, or, even more prevalent in most philosophical writings, how the thing poses a particular type of problem. Rather, Heidegger's aim (this is the most modest way of putting it, for it isn't simply an aim or goal) remains a transformation of our language--that is, if one understands language here properly. By this I mean that the transformation (der Wandel) of our language is not just some transposition (eine Verlagerung) or substitution of equally valid or even clearer language, a mere displacement--indeed it "does not result from the fabrication of neologisms and novel phrases," ergibt sich nicht durch die Beschaffung neu gebildeter Worter und Wortreihen. Transforming our language is not stating the problem in different and perhaps better ways, displacing it--which might suffice for most philosophers (and indeed rightly so: I'd consider that as my goal, certainly). Rather, transforming our language is... something that occurs in the light of what is brought to language in this lecture (and many other ventures of Heidegger) concerning language. In other words, transforming out language is something that this lecture itself takes as its theme, and in doing so (in fact, insofar as it takes this as its theme) also attempts to bring the transformation about.

So, what is brought to language concerning (another inadequate word) language? Speaking much too loosely, that language allows the proper in general (again, too loose, too generic) to be brought to light. This means, then, that the transformation in language is what allows us to hear (in language) that our language allows the proper in general into language. Or, to put it differently, to displace it (again, that's a task more than sufficient for me) the transformation in language is the process of understanding and responding to how, through language itself, the language that we have used and are using not only allows things to be designated (sign as reference), but also brings them and ourselves into relation to what, with respect to each, remains proper (sign as showing--and remains is a word I use carefully: it means that what remains proper is not simply proper).

I won't get into what all that means: I'm not trying to talk about how propriation works with repect to language, but merely am trying to hint at all that is involved in what Heidegger here brings to language. I want instead to focus on the following: if this sort of transformation what Heidegger does not only in most of his work--as I'm proposing--but also most concentratedly here, in "The Way to Language," how does he do it?

Here he allows you to hear a "formula" (eine Formel), a phrase, properly. That phrase outlines the task (Heidegger calls it the "risk") of the essay, or as I said the theme that it must also bring about--the results of which we have just outlined. This phrase, in other words, remains the "guideline" (der Leitfaden) on the way to language (398). And it is, quite simply, "To bring language to language as language," die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen.

One could then say that this phrase begins to be heard differently (that is, not yet properly), through the use of different ways of talking about language. Heidegger makes several journeys into other thinkers of language, including Humboldt and Aristotle, citing also medieval thought. What is talked about then becomes differentiated from what is not talked about, for example in the following, which constitutes a small but interesting point Heidegger makes about counting:

In the essence of language a multiplicity of elements and relations shows itself. We enumerated these, but did not put them in proper sequence. In running through them--which is to say, in original counting, which is not a reckoning in numbers--a certain coherence announced itself. Counting is a recounting. It previews the unifying power in cohesion, but cannot yet bring it to the fore.
-"The Way to Language," 407

Im Sprachwesen zeigt sich eine Mannigfaltigkeit von Elementen und Bezügen. Sie wurden aufgezählt und gleichwohl nieht aneinandergereiht. Im Durchgehen, d. h. im ursprünglichen Zählen, das noch nicht mit Zahlen rechnet, ergab sich die Bekundung eines Zusammengehörens. Das Zählen ist ein Erzählen, das auf das Einigende im Zusammengehören vorblickt und es gleichwohl nieht zum Vorschein bringen kann.
-"Der Weg zur Sprache," 240

"Reckoning in numbers," mit Zahlen rechnet, parrots a common conception of counting. The alternative, "recounting," Erzählen (also telling, relating), states this conception differently, to the extent that you cannot even say that it is an identical conception. And any reader of Heidegger will tell you that this second alternative, in all its simplicity ("counting is a recounting," das Zählen is ein Erzählen, compared to "a reckoning in numbers," mit Zählen rechnet), will be the one which is kept, which is pursued.

The possibility opens, however, of claiming that this is merely a sort of rhetorical operation, indeed with much attention to the work of metaphor. The complexity of the first conception, together with the simplicity of the second, does more than just specify a difference between thoughts: it also shows that one sentence has a certain attitude towards counting and, behind it, language in general--an attitude that needlessly complicates it. How? Metaphor comes in, in that Heidegger understands not only the thought underlying what the first sentence says, but also the vehicle (as we like to call it) from which reckoning is derived: recounting, recalling, which itself involves seeing (previewing, bringing to the fore). In other words, one might say that this is the key operation that allows Heidegger to make us hear something differently: people complain that Heidegger is too complex and gnomic, which means usually that he speaks too metaphorically about the issue, but what Heidegger is doing is actually showing you that, on the contrary, the rest of philosophy is only a set of different, less simple, metaphors.

So eventually in the course of thinking language, in the middle of the essay we begin to hear not only certain references to reckoning differently, but also hear our phrase differently. Indeed, we hear it not as "bring language to language as language," but as "bring the essence of language as the saying to the resounding word" (as this is translated).

So at a certain point Heidegger says the following:

Such way-making brings language (the essence of language) as language (the saying) to language (to the resounding word). Our talk concerning the way to language no longer means exclusively or even preeminently the course of our thought on the trail of language. While under way, the way to language has transformed itself. It has transposed itself from being some deed of ours to the propriated essence of language.
-"The Way to Language," 418-9

Die Be-wegung bringt die Sprache (das Sprachwesen) als die Sprache (die Sage) zur Sprache (zum verlautenden Wort). Die Rede vom Weg zur Sprache meint jetzt nicht mehr nur und nicht mehr im Vorrang den Gang unseres Denkens, das der Sprache nachsinnt. Der Weg zur Sprache hat sich unterwegs gewandelt. Er hat sich aus unserem Tun in das ereignete Sprachwesen verlagert.
-"Der Weg zur Sprache," 250

The formula that acted as a guideline now is different. In fact, it is not only different--Heidegger also says that it is proper. In this respect, it is not merely a metaphorical operation, as we said someone could claim. But how can Heidegger say this? How is the new way of hearing this phrase not only different but also more proper? The last sentence offers a hint, if we recall the distinction between transformation and transposition: rhetoric would be a mere transposition, a different ordering of the words. A transformation, which does not just differentiate, but allows access to the proper, is accomplished when this transposition occurs by the language itself: indeed, as Heidegger says, "it has transposed itself," er hat sich verlagert.

So the issue is not whether Heidegger actually used any rhetoric or not, or indeed differentiated anything or not, since these operations are in fact not opposed to allowing the sentence to be heard properly, not opposed to transformation. The issue, instead, is how can we be sure that the phrase "has transposed itself," thereby transforming itself: how the rhetoric, in other words, is also derived from transformation. This is what Heidegger then pursues--and I will let him speak for himself: I have only been trying to get us to this general point. The formula has transposed itself, he says,

except that the transformation of the way to language looks likes a transposition that has just now been effected only for us, only with respect to us. In truth, the way to language has its sole place always already in the essence of language itself. However, this suggests at the same time that the way to language as we first intended it is not superfluous; it is simply that it becomes possible and necessary only by virtue of the way proper, the way-making movement of propriation and usage. Because the essence of language, as the saying that shows, rests on the propriation that delivers us human beings over to releasement towards unconstrained hearing, the saying's way-making movement toward speech first opens up the path on which we can follow the trail of the proper way to language.

Allein, die Wandlung des Weges zur Sprache sieht nur für uns in der Rücksicht auf uns wie eine jetzt erst erfolgte Verlagerung aus. In Wahrheit hat der Weg zur Sprache schon immer seine einzige Ortschaft im Sprachwesen selbst. Dies heiBt jedoch zugleich: Der zunachst gemeinte Weg zur Sprache wird nicht hinfallig, sondern erst durch den eigentlichen Weg, die er-eignend-brauchende Be-wegung, moglich und notig. Weil namlich das Sprachwesen als die zeigende Sage im Ereignis beruht, das uns Menschen der Gelassenheit zum freien Horen iibereignet, offnet die Be-wegung der Sage zum Sprechen uns erst die pfade, auf denen wir dem eigentlichen Weg zur Sprache nachsinnen.

[He then doubles back to explain this.]

Our path's formula--to bring language as language to language--no longer merely encapsulates a directive for us who ponder over language. Rather, it betells the forma, the configuration of the well-enjoined structure within which the essence of language, which rests on propriation, makes its way.

If we do not think about it, but merely string along with the string of words, then the formula expresses a weft of relations in which language simply entangles itself. It seems as though every attempt to represent language needs the learned knack of dialectic in order to master the tangle. However, such a procedure, which the formula formidably provokes, bypasses the possibility that by remaining on the trail--that is to say, by letting ourselves be guided expressly into the way-making movement--we may yet catch a glimpse of the essence of language in all its simplicity, instead of wanting to represent language.

What looks more like a tangle than a weft loosens when viewed in terms of the way-making movement. It resolves into the liberating motion that the way-making movement exhibits when propriated in the saying. It unbinds the saying for speech.
-"The Way to Language," 418-9.

Die Wegformel: die Sprache als die Sprache zur Sprache bringen, enthalt nicht mehr nur eine Anweisung für uns, die wir die Sprache bedenken, sondern sie sagt die forma, die Gestalt des Gefüges, worin das im Ereignis beruhende Sprachwesen sich be-wegt.

Unbedacht, nur nach dem bloßen Wortlaut angehort, spricht die Formel ein Geflecht von Beziehungen aus, in das sich die Sprache verwickelt. Es scheint, als bedürfe jeder Versuch; die Sprache vorzustellen, der dialektischen Kunstgriffe, um diese Verwickelung zu meistern. Ein solches Verfahren, zu dem die Formel formlich reizt, versaumt jedoch die Moglichkeit, sinnend, d. h. in die Be-wegung sich eigens einlassend, das Einfache des Sprachwesens zu erblicken, statt die Sprache vorsteIlen zu wollen.

Was wie ein wirres Geflecht aussieht, lost sich, aus der Be-wegung erblickt, in das Befreiende, das die in der Sage ereignete Be-wegung erbringt. Sie entbindet die Sage zum Sprechen.
-"Der Weg zur Sprache," 250-1