A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
Whitney wanted to eradicate the idea that in the case of a language we are dealing with a natural faculty; in fact, social institutions stand opposed to natural institutions.
Interpretation
Language is shaped by social institutions rather than being a natural instinct.
Ferdinand De Saussure emphasizes that language should not be viewed as a mere natural faculty inherent to humans. Instead, it is significantly influenced and constructed by societal norms and institutions, suggesting a complex interaction between social forces and linguistic development.
In practice
In a lecture on linguistics, this quote highlights the importance of understanding language as a social construct.
A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another.
Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.
Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.
Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he 'lives' his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.
People who think about time travel stories sometimes think that going back in time would be fun because you would have all the information you needed to be much more astute than the people there, when the truth is of course you wouldn't.
Smack in the centre of contradiction is the place to be.
Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Spirituality is recognizing the divine light that is within us all. It doesn't belong to any particular religion; it belongs to everyone
It is not that the child lives in a world of imagination, but that the child within us survives and starts into life only at rare moments of recollection, which makes us believe, and it is not true, that, as children, we were imaginative?
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