Each of us is daily confronted with the need to interpret a certain amount of information. Whether it is basic communication, professional duty, or something else, we are all forced to "translate" common words and expressions into a language that we understand.
general information
The phrase "interpretation of the text" causes a rather controversial association. For someone it is connected with something very complex, boring, certainly scientific, all the fault, most likely, the first part of the term. The word "interpretation" is interpreted as the work of thinking, which consists in deciphering the meaning of a phenomenon for its understanding and subsequent work with it, and if you interpret this long and complex sentence in an understandable language, then we can say that interpretation is an adaptation of the text for your own perception and understanding. In principle, everything is not so difficult, it is enough to understand the principle of working with text, not only written but also oral, and also to recognize the importance of individuality and subjectivity in the perception of information.
Why is this needed?
To begin with, we will determine what the laborious process of text interpretation is necessary for. Most often, it is associated with the analysis necessary for the subsequent creation of your own text, such as in the tasks of the State Academic Examination and the Unified State Examination, where you need to write a summary. In this case, interpretation, understanding of texts is the key to success. But at the same time, the ability to work correctly with written information is important not only in exams, but also in everyday life. So, the ability to basic communication - the basic ability of any member of society - depends on our ability to understand the written text: incorrect interpretation of the text can lead to misunderstanding, and if in the case of literary works this does not pose any danger, then the incorrect perception of the text in the framework of communication can lead to conflict, which is definitely a serious problem.
And now scientifically
The interpretation of literary texts as a separate science took shape only in the twentieth century. She became known as hermeneutics. Some researchers say that the main task of this field of knowledge is “to get used to the text so that it is better understood than the author himself”. Usually this science is considered in the framework of philosophy, but to reject its independence is meaningless.
The origins
We encounter interpretation in early childhood. Of course, there are some general concepts and ideas that are universal for all children, but as soon as the child begins to show individuality, the first features of the perception of various phenomena appear. It all starts with pictures and drawings, and later with reading skills, the peculiarity of interpretations is transferred to the works.
Some researchers say that unusual reactions are signs of pathology in the development of children, but at the same time, everything can be explained by the non-standard thinking of children manifested at such a young age. It is likely that this is how geniuses are born who see the world in a completely different way. In no case should children be punished for their unusualness; on the contrary, it should be encouraged and developed in every way.
A bit about school methods
In the framework of the school curriculum, such methods of text interpretation as presentation and composition are considered. If in the first case everything is clear: you need to delve into the source text, understand the author’s intention and reflect it in his own work, then with the composition everything is much more interesting. It uses the basic interpretation of the text. Examples of such an activity are an essay-continuation, where the student’s task is to develop the storyline begun by the author, or an essay-response, in which you want to express your attitude to the author’s position, of course, substantiating it.
The most difficult type of essay is considered reasoning, in the framework of which a detailed analysis and interpretation of the text is necessary. They will become the basis for a completely independent work related to the original only with basic thoughts and provisions about which the student will speak out.
Let's turn to poetry
It is difficult to say which is more difficult: interpretation of a poetic text or work with prose. A feature of the literary language is the ambiguity of words, which makes it difficult to understand: one and the same concept can be interpreted in completely different ways, especially if this word, which has changed its lexical meaning over time, for example, “triad” in the modern sense is a student, receiving not the best marks, while in the texts of the nineteenth-early twentieth century, we will talk about the coachman, who rules three horses.
Another problem in interpreting a poetic text is trails. Allegories, metaphors and epithets, which are not always understood by a simple layman, become a real catastrophe, especially for a modern school student who is alien to many concepts of classical literature. In addition, people perceive phenomena in different ways, so it is impossible to say with absolute certainty that the interpretation of a poetic text will be correct if an individual interpretation of concepts is possible.
Prose of life
Interpretation of a prose text is fraught with the same difficulties as a poetic one. Again, a different, individual interpretation of individual concepts, again an incomplete understanding of words - it is only easier that in prose there are usually fewer means of artistic expression, and, as a rule, they do not complicate the understanding of the text.
In principle, for a successful interpretation, you can engage in accurate "translation", if you can call this a phenomenon, clearly check the lexical meaning of each word of the proposed fragment, select the combinations that are optimal for expressing your thoughts, rewrite the text almost completely relying on synonymous constructions. And you can use the trick, which linguists call a linguistic guess: in this case it is not necessary to know the exact meaning of each word, it becomes clear from the situation.
The second method demonstrates a rather high level of language proficiency, but at the same time it does not provide one hundred percent accuracy of interpretation. The pluses of this method include the fact that one and the same word can have a number of lexical meanings that differ in their tone (for example, “ambitiousness” can be either positive or negative quality depending on the context), and a language guess makes it possible to avoid monotonous searches for the correct meaning, simply demonstrating the necessary semantic connotation in the text.
Maybe not?
Interpretation of the text, and any one, is possible without a clear definition of the lexical meaning of each individual word. It all depends on how deep understanding of the text is needed. For example, the well-known phrase of the linguist Shcherba “ Cuddled curl shteko kudlanula bokra and kudlachit bokrenka”. None of the words in the sentence presented has any meaning, but at the same time, interpretation of the text is possible: someone has shown aggression towards an adult, and now continues not quite correct actions aimed at the cub. In this situation, specification is not necessary.
Such tasks for children are very interesting: exercises of this kind will allow them to realize their creative abilities as much as possible, making it possible to form a unique system of images based on individual perception of the text: everyone will see the same “curly-haired Kurd” in their own way, like a boquer with a curfew.
Foreign languages
A separate case for consideration is the interpretation of a literary text in a foreign language. Here, national traditions, and ethnic characteristics, even some regional aspects of the language, peculiar only to a particular locality, can play a role.
Working with such a text is more like your own composition: the main idea is preserved, and everything else is simply rewritten from scratch, completely adapted from scratch, already adapted to the reader’s understanding, far from the peculiarities of the original language.
This is real art - the correct interpretation of the text. Examples are Shakespeare's sonnets in translations of Marshak or Pasternak. Firstly, the same sonnet in each of these poets sounds differently - this is the clearest example of an individual interpretation of a literary text, and secondly, some researchers note that Russian translations are much more figurative than English-language originals due to the lexical features of the language, which again allows us to note the role of interpretation in the perception of the text.
Conclusion
The interpretation of the text, as has already become clear, is far from being such a simple thing as it seems at first glance. There are a huge number of different nuances, each of which can play a huge role in understanding the text. Another good example of interpretation can be adaptation of the text for readers of different levels: for example, some literary works deliberately simplify, making them accessible for children, for example, younger children, for whom the abundance of means of artistic expression can become a serious barrier to understanding.
Underestimating the importance of interpreting a text is a real crime. Each person should be aware that only the correct "translation" will allow him to enter into successful relations with society, cope with academic and professional difficulties, and in principle, solve a number of problems that arise in our everyday life. It should be noted that the concept of interpretation given at the beginning of this article can be extended not only to written texts, literary works, for example, but also to daily communication between people. Nothing changes from this: the interpretation of words, a full understanding of their meanings gives a person the opportunity to comprehensively develop, showing maximum of his creative abilities, on which the interpretation of a phenomenon depends.