This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
German to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Psychology / philosophy
German term or phrase: konstruieren (sich)
This is about stages of ego development:
Menschen, die Ebene E7 und E8 erreichen, beginnen immer mehr zu realisieren, wie sie die Welt interpretieren und inwiefern dies durch ihren persönlichen und kulturellen Hintergrund beeinflusst ist. Insofern nehmen sie die Subjektivität ihrer eigenen Sichtweise zunehmend in Betracht. Sie **konstruieren sich** und die Welt dabei als weitestgehend stabil, sind sich aber der Bedeutung dessen, wie sie diese Vorstellung **konstruieren,** zunehmend bewusst.
Can this word sometimes mean "construe" rather than "construct"? That would make more sense in this context, but I find no such definition in Duden. Linguee's own dictionary gives "construe" as a meaning, but the example they give is wrong in English: DE: "Weil er Angst hatte, die Wahrheit zu sagen, konstruierte er eine wilde Geschichte." EN: "Because he was afraid to tell the truth, he construed a wild story." One does not "construe" a story; at most, I guess one could construct one, but better would be "made up."
I'm beginning to think the usage to mean "construe" is a case of German native speakers using a false cognate, when the German word really means "construct." But then, in post-modern linguistic/philosophical lingo, anything is possible...
Of course, you’ll have to pick the words in English that fit the meanings in your text.
The text reads:
"Menschen, die Ebene E7 und E8 erreichen, beginnen immer mehr zu realisieren, wie sie die Welt interpretieren und inwiefern dies durch ihren persönlichen und kulturellen Hintergrund beeinflusst ist. Insofern nehmen sie die Subjektivität ihrer eigenen Sichtweise zunehmend in Betracht."
As I see it, this section of the text has to do with how they increasingly gain an understanding of the mechanisms that they use to interpret the world around them. Since construe can mean to understand (or interpret), I think "sich konstruiren" means (here) to "construe themselves" and the world around them, as Michael has translated it.
But the text goes on to talk about how they increasingly gain an awareness of how they "construct" the notion of a stable world, which would, in my opinion, be a more appropriate translation of "... der Bedeutung dessen, wie sie diese Vorstellung konstruieren, zunehmend bewusst." So perhaps you need to translate the text using both "construe" and "construct," (as Phil has suggested), i.e. something along the lines of: "Indeed, they construe themselves and the world around them as predominantly stable, but are increasingly aware of the significance of how they construct this notion."
It’s less a question of style (not repeating the word “construe” in the same sentence, for example) and more a question of reflecting the underlying meaning of the German.
Thanks everybody for the useful discussion. I had no idea that "construct" and "construe" shared a common root. I think dividing things up in the way Paul suggests is a good idea -- although I'm still somewhat in The Matrix with respect to what all of this really means. 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
Anytime. Regarding word roots, if you ever need some linguistic point of view, try this dictionary: http://etymonline.com/
Great resource (used it during my sociology studies).
Interestingly enough, the author specifically mentions "psychology" in his explanation of "construct" as a noun: "1871 in linguistics, 1890 in psychology, 1933 in the general sense of 'anything constructed;'" http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=construct&allowed_in_fr...
What you did not add as information is that the "ego development" discussed here is based on Cook-Greuters. Maybe that would have helped you in your quest.
All in English. The entire document uses "construe" once(!). What's been missing from the discussion is field-specific terminology; too much emphasis seems to have been placed on everyday language issues.
E.g.: "It is at this stage that infants first begin to construct a stable world of objects for themselves. In doing so, they separate themselves out as objects in the world as well. They can now refer to themselves as 'Bobby wants' or 'me'."
sounds a bit mechanical to me. Seems to imply that you will actually arrive at a complete theory. Construe, by contrast, seems more individualized, process-oriented, emphasizing interpretative effort rather than end result, and therefore is probably harder to measure or assess in objective terms. I think that's the term we need here..
@Phil: Yes, which means that we see the world around us and create an image of it in our heads. I think many people would agree with that, and I think the German text says that people can gain an awareness of these processes. But we can't freely switch the words around and say "to construct the world around you is to construe an image of it". That would be a different statement and, frankly, the more I think about that one the more my head spins. It’s the kind of mind-bender that reminds me of when we read Descartes and Locke when I was a university student. In other words, swapping the verbs around changes the meaning, taking us from the fairly concrete world of psychology to the somewhat enigmatic realm of philosophy. At any rate, the two words are close cousins (both come from the Latin construere), but they don't seem entirely interchangeable (unless we are actually living in The Matrix, in which case all bets are off).
I don't see construe and construct as synonyms. To construe the world around you is different than to construct the world around you. To construe is to understand, to interpret (passive, to perceive). To construct is to make, to fabricate (active, to build).
They both mean roughly the same thing when you think about it, and they come from the same root. But in your first example, you can't say "construe" twice in one sentence - you could say "construct", or a synonym, for the second.
I think they may actually mean "construct," weird though it may seem. One of the sources referenced in this article writes: "The ego is the executive of the personality, which is able, through its integrative powers, to construct the me, that is, to construct identity." https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=cmGCate__tsC&oi=...
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
25 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
construe themselves
Explanation: I think that would work in English, too...