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Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
Ferdinand De Saussure
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Written language can distort our understanding of spoken language.

Ferdinand De Saussure highlights the idea that written forms of language act as a veil that can obscure the true essence and intricacies of communication. He suggests that instead of simply dressing up spoken language, writing can disguise its genuine meaning, leading to potential misinterpretations and a lack of clarity in understanding language as a whole.

Themes

LanguageWritingCommunicationMeaningUnderstanding

In practice

Example use cases

In a lecture on linguistics, one might say, 'As Ferdinand De Saussure pointed out, written forms obscure our view of language.'

More from Ferdinand De Saussure

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
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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.
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Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.
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Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.
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Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.
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