Gadamer and ALL: A hermeneutic understanding of Academic Language and Learning

Abstract

In the English-speaking world, Hans-Georg Gadamer is known principally as a theorist of qualitative research. However, this was a role that was thrust on him by others, more especially by his English-language readership. On the Continent, by contrast, he is viewed as a leading philosophical student of Heidegger and renowned for developing philosophical hermeneutics, a highly innovative generalisation of the theory and practice of textual interpretation to encompass the whole of human experience. In educational endeavours generally, but particularly in language-oriented fields such as Academic Language and Learning, Gadamer, it seems to me, offers many insightful concepts that can enrich both our practice and our understanding of our practice.