We explain what interpretation is, the origin of the term and in what contexts it is used. Also, how different disciplines understand it.
Interpretation reveals aspects of what is interpreted and also of who interprets.What is interpretation?
The word interpretation can have multiple meanings, depending on the context in which we use it. However, most of them have to do with the idea of explaining, translating or clarifying something, in such a way that other people can understand it better or can get an idea of what it represents.
Etymologically, the word interpret It comes from the Latin I will interpret, a word derived in turn from perform, which was used for the mediator in a business or commercial transaction.
This word is made up of the prefix inter (“between”) and the noun premium (“price”), so that its meaning is more or less “between prices”, like someone negotiating or haggling until finally reaching an agreement. The latter is possibly what has survived to this day: for example, we say "interpreter" to someone who intercedes (or "negotiates") between two people who do not speak the same language, that is, a live translator.
So we use the verb interpret for situations in which there is a hidden, deep or secret meaning that needs to be clarified, established or shown, that is, it must be interpreted. For example, hieroglyphs Egyptians were interpreted by Egyptologists, who managed to establish the meaning of what was said, despite the fact that the ancient Egyptian language is lost. The same is done by those who interpret a poem or one artwork: They assign an obvious meaning to what may be mysterious to the general public.
However, interpretations generally say more about the interpreter than about what is interpreted, that is, they yield information about the interpretant's way of thinking.
That is what psychologists and psychoanalysts do with different tests such as the Rorschach: they expose the patient to a stimulus (an image, a sound or even a dream that he has had) and ask him to interpreter, that is, to assign a sense and a meaning to it according to its history and its perspectives. In doing so, the patient reveals information about his own mind, since the figures do not have a "true" meaning, but can reflect many things depending on the individual.
In fact, the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) published several works on the interpretation of dreams, in which he proposed a method for using nocturnal imaginations to enter the patient's psyche and obtain scientific information about his dreams. emotional or affective ailments.
Something similar occurs in the field of performing arts and the music: we usually speak of "performers" or "interpreters" to refer to those who play the instruments or the actors who stage a play. In the first case, the musician interprets in sounds what is written in his score, just as the actor interprets in actions what is written in the script.
Therefore, they are synonymous with interpreting: translate, analyze, read, understand, explain and clarify; and on the contrary, they are antonyms of this verb: obscure, confuse and hide.