There is a very helpful book written by Steven Covey called The Third Alternative. That is a great way to describe the alternative that I am suggesting for communication basics. Most of what is written about listening, speaking, reading and writing is based either on the classic view of grammar or on a contemporary advance in some part of the field of linguistics (the scientific study of language). Very rarely is a third alternative proposed, where the strengths of each is equally combined together. The path I am proposing combines the best of classical grammar with the recent insights from linguistics.
My experience is primarily, yet not exlusively, in the field of biblical study and interpretation. What I say can be applied anywhere, but my examples come mainly from the context of a Christian college and later three different Christian seminaries. An example of how I was given only two alternatives is that a semiary professor in the historical-grammatical tradition of biblical scholarship refused to show interest in the linguistic developments used by Wycliffe Bible Translators. In a very recent class experirence, I noticed that the professor was still not aware of some valuable insights from linguistics that could have been very helpful. He had no idea about the basic semantic classes of meaning: Whole, Amount, Relationship, Action, and Thing (Whole is my own addition based on classical grammar). These two streams for the most part flow apart from one another seldom combining their strengths into one stream. As an avid trout fisherman, I have seen how the power of two streams coming together can vastly increase their force, when they combine. I believe that is what is missing in the broad field of communications!
To have a break through, you must break from the currient views that are held. This does not mean that you are breaking from the classic past or the promising future. It only means you are breaking from the present. I believe we need a break through in the current field of communication basics.
On the classical grammatical side it is important to realize that within its banks is not just the Greek tradition, but also the traditions of Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Arabic. On the side of present day advances, there are many specialities including the advances in the field of semantics (a meaning focused approach within lingusitcs). Both provide insights into communication. Neither has the corner on the market, despite what advocates of either stream may say.
I was fortunate enough to study under professors at my college and seminary levels of education, who placed each of these two alternatives in their best light. I found the insights of inductive bible study to be very valuable for reading and interpreting, even while contemporary linguistic insights were overlooked. My primary professors following a classical alternative were Dr. John S. Piper and Tom Stellar. Later at the seminary level, I followed up on their teaching with studying under their mentor, Dr. Daniel P. Fuller. Most recently I was able to study this tradition under Dr. Garwood Anderson, Dr. Walter C. Kaiser and Dr. Allen P. Ross. This teaching and experience are invaluable to me, because they represented this tradtion in its best light and provided me with a number of new tools for reading and interpretation that I did not previously possess. The other alternative that provided me a great deal of value was that of courses in the field of linguistics. I was extremely fortunate to study the ideas and insights of many great linguists and to even meet some of the more famous and some of the more humble. I studied primarily under Dr. William A. Smalley and did a project on behalf of Dr. Donald A. Larson. I also was taught by Lois Malcolm, who is now is a seminary professor. Later I was fortunate to study linguistics for a short time at UW-Madison and got to talk to Dr. Noam Chomsky. Besides meeting him I was earlier introduced to Dr. Kenneth Pike, a one-time President of Wycliffe. But also I cannot leave out Dr. R. Daniel Shaw.
Each of these names I have tried to list with some detail like their middle initials in case that some people like yourself may wish to examine the credential of each of them. I owe each of them a great deal, because at one time I was by all my scores in the classroom very poor in reading and writing. Through them I have become much stronger, though I still have a good distance to go. The greatest witness I can give to their legacy is that they have each made school much easier for me by giving me superior tools to work with rather than leaving me with inferior tools to work with in trying to reach lofty goals. I used to just work hard to compensate for poor tools. Now I work hard with great tools.
What I could not say as clearly before, as I can now because of Covey, is that I have synergized these two traditions into one higher powered tool for understanding basic communication. Each alternative has allowed me to make improvements to what I was taught by the other. For example, historical-grammatical exegesis provides sentence diagramming as one of their tools. Quite honestly, I really struggled with this tool in the beginning. It overwhelmed me and a number of my classmates. It also can be very time consuming. I think that is why too many of my fellow classmates likely no longer use this tool. The only reason I am still using it is that I learned the tool of a semantic structure analysis (S.S.A.) from the alternative of linguistics and it helped me greatly simplify the tool of sentence diagramming.
This combined tool also saves me a great deal of time. I can now prepare my structure analysis in a short enough period of time that I can do a complete one from scratch for every sermon I preach. The first key opening the door to ease was to focus on action words, as I analyzed a text into its parts. The second key opening the door to ease was understanding the primary meaning classes of words, so that I could quickly identify any of them in the original text or in a translation. The structure analysis is also more technology friendly, because of its straight line layout versus the arcing method of sentence diagramming which uses curved lines . It is easy to do in Excel without any fancy extra enhancements or technical training!
So fundamentally I want you to know that I am synergizing two alternatives that are greater than using either of the other two alternatives all by themselves. I am offering the two alternatives together that form a much stronger third alternative to either of them alone. It is like the streams of water in your state, county or country. As they merge together like the tributaries of the Mississippi, they form together the mighty Misssissippi.
Sincerely,
Jon
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
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