The word in language is half someone else’s… it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.
Interpretation
Language is shaped by others' perspectives and intentions, and we must personalize it to give it our unique meaning.
This quote by Mikhail Bakhtin emphasizes the idea that language is inherently social and constructed through interactions with others. The words we use are not just personal expressions but are influenced by the words of others, their contexts, and their purposes. To truly own our language, we must adapt and internalize these words, transforming them to reflect our own identities and intentions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a linguistic seminar to illustrate the social nature of language.
The catharsis that finalizes Dostoevsky's novels might be - of course inadequately and somewhat rationalistically - expressed in this way: nothing conclusive has yet taken place in the world, the ultimate word of the world and about the world has not yet been spoken, the world is open and free, everything is still in the future and will always be in the future
In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding—in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space, and because they are others.
Words belong to nobody, and in themselves they evaluate nothing. But they can serve any speaker and be used for the most varied and directly contradictory evaluations on the part of the speakers.
From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.
PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous.
People call you this or that. But I can't respond because then it seems like I'm defensive, you know, what does it matter, really?
I think most people are interested in our origins; once we understand, it might be easier to become the people we'd like to be. Or, better, become the people we think we already are.
Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.
Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?
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