This study employs Cognitive Linguistics to determine the foundational elements of the ancient Israelitesâ concept of teaching as reflected in the text of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and Ben Sira, a significant post-biblical Hebrew book interested in teaching and wisdom. It analyses four prominent lexemes that comprise a lexical set referring to the act of teaching: ××¨× -H (yrh in the Hiphil stem), ××× -D (lmd in the Piel stem), ×××¢ -H (yd` in the Hiphil stem), and ×סר -D (ysr in the Piel stem). The thesis concludes that, in its most basic form, the concept of teaching in ancient Israel was that a teacher creates the conditions in which learning can occur.
The methodology employed in this project is built on a premise of cognitive studies, namely, that because teaching is a universal human activity, there is a universal concept of teaching: one person A recognises that another person B lacks knowledge, belief, skills, and the like (or has incomplete or distorted knowledge, etc.), and person A attempts to bring about a changed state of knowledge, belief, or skill in person B. This universal concept provides the starting place for understanding the concept of teaching that Biblical Hebrew reflects, and it also forms the conceptual base against which the individual lexemes are profiled.
The study incorporates a micro-level analysis and a macro-level analysis. At the micro-level, each lexeme is examined with respect to its linguistic forms (the linguistic analysis) and the contexts in which the lexeme occurs (the conceptual analysis). The linguistic analysis considers the clausal constructions of each instantiation and determines what transitivity, ditransitivity, or intransitivity contributes to the meaning. Collocations of the lexeme, including prepositional phrases, adverbial adjuncts, and parallel verbs, are evaluated for their contribution to meaning. The conceptual analysis of each lexeme identifies the meaning potential of each word, as well as what aspect of the meaning potential each instantiation activates. The study then determines the lexemeâs prototypical meaning, which is profiled on the base of the universal concept of teaching. This step of profiling represents an important adaptation of the Cognitive Linguistics tool of profiling to meet the special requirements of working with ancient texts in that it profiles prototype meanings, not instantiations.
In the macro-analysis, the data of all four lexemes in the lexical set are synthesised. The relationships among the lexemes are assessed in order to identify the basic level lexeme and consider whether the lexemes form a folk taxonomy. Finally, the profiles of the four prototype meanings are collated and compared in order to describe the ancient Israelite concept of teaching.
The study finds that the basic level item of the lexical set is ××× -D (lmd-D) based on frequency of use and distribution. In its prototypical definition, ××× -D (lmd-D) means to intentionally put another person in a state in which s/he can acquire a skill or expertise through experience and practice. In contrast to this sustained kind of teaching, the prototypical meaning of ××¨× -H (yrd-H) is situational in nature: a person of authority or expertise gives specific, situational instruction to someone who lacks knowledge about what to do. The lexemes ×סר -D (ysr-D) and ×××¢ -H (yd`-H) represent the most restricted and the most expansive lexemes, respectively: the prototypical meaning of ×סר -D (ysr-D) is to attempt to bring about changed behavior in another person through verbal or physical means, often to the point of causing pain; the prototypical meaning of ×××¢ -H (yd`-H) is that a person of authority causes another person to be in a state of knowing something from the divine realm or related to experiences with the divine realm. The study determines that while the four lexemes of the Biblical Hebrew lexical set âto teachâ have significant semantic overlap, they cannot be construed in a folk taxonomy because the words are not related in a hierarchical way.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08072014-154849 |
| Date | 07 August 2014 |
| Creators | Widder, Wendy Lynn |
| Contributors | Dr L Bergh, Prof CL Miller-Naudé |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08072014-154849/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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