Discussion of Roger Frie: Irreducible Cultural Contexts: German–Jewish Experience, Identity, and Trauma in a Bilingual Analysis

Abstract

In my discussion of Frie's article, I focus on the tension between, on one hand, his extensive focus on the influence of language and, on the other hand, the relational events so well described by him, including, in particular, the switching back and forth between English and German. These relational events play out around the choice of language and the many meanings of these choices. The dynamics of these events can be described from the perspective of the implicit-relational aspect of human relatedness which exists as an ever-present background that has its own texture and formative power that continuously inform and shape the process of explicit verbal meaning making. The article illustrates how the encounter and dialogue with the other, here Frie and his patient, reflect both the constitutive “power of language and culture” and the limits of this power.