메를로-퐁티의 전기 언어 이론의 교육적 의미와 가능성

Education on the basis of Merleau-Ponty s Early Language Theory

This study aims to find out Merleau-Pontian educational ideas that Merleau-Ponty’s early thought implies in the chapter “the Body as Expression and Speech”, the pivotal chapter in the Phenomenology of Perception. For Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology, the subject is the body to be the unity of perception and behavior. As a being-in-the-world, a human subject’s existence participates in the world with the bodily scheme. Merleau-Ponty’s early theory on language, which emphasizes gestural importance, insists on the existence of ‘thought in speech’. Its educational implications are as follows: education founded on the ‘speeches as gestures’ can be realized by the expression, the activity, and the communication of the embodied subjects, who are not the thinking subjects, education based on ‘thought in speech’ can be implemented by the practice of ‘thought in speech’ in the classroom, and moral education grounded on ‘speeches as gestures’ enables the students to express themselves, to accept and support the others’ opinions, and, consequently, to construct the community of speech morally. Finally, the writer finds a possibility of education on the ‘speeches as gestures’ and the ‘thought in speech’ of Merleau-Ponty in the Freinet Method(la Technique Freinet). For example, the free writing, the free expression, the Printing Press in the classroom, the class meeting are the educational expressions based on the ‘speeches as gestures’ and the ‘thought in speech’. In the same context, children are encouraged to participate in the class meeting, which deals with all issues affecting them. The student-centered class discussion with the mutual respect, makes them to develop the ‘thought in speech’. Thus, the moral atmosphere in the classroom can be made by the ‘thought in speech’.