Language Games

I have decided to focus on this single concept for discussing Lyotard’s The Post-Modern Condition.  I find this concept incredibly important (obviously) and want to think about it and its relationship to Lyotard’s discussion of Narrative and Scientific Knowledge.  (For those who don’t already know, my Masters Thesis is focusing on the creation of narrative within the space of role-playings games like Dungeons & Dragons.)

Ok, so early on Lyotard discusses what he means when he talks about language games.  Actually he provides us with a few examples of language games and then gives us the source from which he draws this concept, Habermas: “he calls the various types of utterances he identifies along the way (a few of which I have listed) language games” (10).  Language games are the statements we make in our language that perform certain functions. 

The easiest example in which to see what this means is in the “performative” statement.  Whatever the sender says is true because the sender said it.  The sender has the authority to make whatever is said true.  To use an example that Lyotard does not, if I, as the instructor for my sections of EN 1000, state that class is cancelled on a given day, then class is cancelled on that day because I have the authority to make that decision.  One of my students could not have done the same thing.

This becomes interesting to me (language games in general) as Lyotard then discusses the concept and legitimation of narrative and scientific knowledge.  These two concepts for Lyotard are separate entities.  One cannot gain scientific knowledge from the rules of narrative knowledge (though many try) and you cannot gain narrative knowledge from the rules of scientific knowledge.

Narrative knowledge in particular interests me in the way it works.  While variations exist between different cultures, some specific qualities set it apart (especially in terms of legitimation).  The sender in this case has the power to not only transmit a message imbued with statements that define cultural boundaries, but also as the sender actually perpetuates and creates these boundaries even as he/she passes on the ability to do so to the receiver.  This knowledge is legitimate because it is being passed on in the manner it is.

This leads me to wonder how much of a role-playing situation works in the same manner, in terms of the creation of a group and the rules/customs/boundaries that are set up for each individual group.  They do in a way create a culture unique to that group by virtue of the stories they tell and the epic history created.  At least this is what it seems to me.  Perhaps this is a little beyond the scope of my thesis, but then again, perhaps this may be an interesting way to refocus my thesis.  It’s still early.

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