More Quotes by Ferdinand de Saussure
A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.
A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.
Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.
The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics.
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.
In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.
Language furnishes the best proof that a law accepted by a community is a thing that is tolerated and not a rule to which all freely consent.
Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.
It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent.
