Abstract

Hermeneutics is the art/science of interpretation. In the act of communication there are two stages: the production of the discourse and the interpretation of the discourse. Is hermeneutics involved in any act of communication? Are there any differences between the interpretation of a written discourse (text) and the interpretation of an oral discourse? The purpose of this paper is to explore and comment upon two main approaches to hermeneutics: 1) hermeneutics aims at discovering the speaker’s/author’s communicative intention (investigatio intentio auctoris) – the discourse is interpreted in relation to its context of production; 2) hermeneutics aims at understanding the meaning (world) of the discourse (text) – the text is isolated from its author and context of production (investigatio intentio operis).