"The object of study"
As I was reading through the assigned reading for this week a particular quote caught my attention. It reads "the faculty of articulating words is put to use only by means of the linguistic instrument created and provided by society". After reading this it appeared to me that the author was trying to convey the message that language would not exist without society, in a quick and dirty sense none the less. So I sat back and thought how true is this? It appears to be along the same line as the famous saying "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it still make a sound"? Does it make sense that if there was no sort of organized society language would cease to exist, like the sound of the tree? Or possibly we as human beings would have come up with an alternate method of communication. This is just a though and what my understanding of what the blog is for, any response would be appreciated.
posted by Anonymous @ 5:56 p.m.
2 Comments:
Thanks for your post!
First of all, can you imagine a world without "society"?
Second, what is the difference between a sound (tree falling) and a sound+sense (linguistic sign)?
What about the inverse idea that if there was no language SOCIETY would cease to exist?
It would certainly be unfathomably different, I think.
That post really makes me think! A world without society.. makes me wonder if that would be any kind of 'world' at all? I think there's a huge difference between a tree falling and a linguistic sign. A tree falling is just a sound made by something, but a linguistic sign, that's a whole other story. Really makes me realize how different sounds can be from one another. I think society could survive without a language, just in a very different way. Sign language, hand movements, body language.. those can all contribute to communication. That post really made me think!
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