Sinngehalt im argumentativen Dialog: „Das ewige Leben“ im Evangelium nach Lukas (Lk 10, 25-37)

This article explores the word meaning of some keywords reached through the development of an argumentative dialogue inside the New Testament, namely the one between Jesus and the lawyer in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 10, 25-37). The work aims at pointing out the twofold functional level of the dialogue: the “informative” (embodied in the encoded meaning) and the “performative” one (embodied in the “complete” word meaning). Focus is on inference dynamics within the selected dialogue. Such dynamic is triggered by the encoded meaning of the main keyword (“eternal life”). The full interpretation, however, can happen only at the end of the whole dialogue, when all argumentations – centred around the parable of the good Samaritan – are made explicit and the word meaning can be understood in its entire significance. The analysis highlights the parallel course of the twofold functional level, the one referred to the keywords’ meaning and the one referred to the argumentations. According to, e.g., Peirce’s linguistic theory (1935-1966), communication makes sense when it produces a habit change in both interlocutors. On the one hand, each communicative act must influence the interlocutor’s habitus not only on the superficial level of his mood (diáthesis), but also on the profound level of his permanent attitude towards life (héxis). On the other hand, and according to Speech Acts Theory, each communicative act is to be considered “complete” when it does not remain simply “informative”, but when it becomes also “performative”, hence changing the interlocutor’s way of life. The full meaning of words can hence be understood within this double development. All Jesus’ dialogues are characterized by this same dynamic. Results of this analysis may contribute to the didactic experience. Following the course of different argumentations in dialogues, the type of analysis performed in this study may introduce students to the interpretive dynamic of word meaning. Further studies may perform the same type of analysis within different communicative contexts, where different nuances of the described inferential mechanism may emerge.