QuoteProject
Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.
Ferdinand De Saussure
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Speech is inherently both personal and social; one influences the other.

Ferdinand De Saussure highlights the dual nature of speech, emphasizing that it cannot be fully understood in isolation from its social context. This interplay suggests that our individual expressions are shaped by societal norms, and conversely, the social fabric is woven through individual contributions to language and communication.

Themes

SpeechCommunicationSocialIndividualLanguage

In practice

Example use cases

In a seminar on linguistics, to illustrate the interconnectedness of personal expression and societal influence.

More from Ferdinand De Saussure

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
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.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
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.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead

Similar quotes

You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.
Yevgeny ZamyatinRead
Heroes rarely look the way we draw them in our minds: attractive, imposing figures with rippling muscles and strong chins. More times than not they are humble beings, small and flawed. It is only their spirits that are beautiful and strong.
Richard Paul EvansRead
Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it.
Alfred AdlerRead
We're all worth the same_x000D_ When we turn off the light.
Shel SilversteinRead
It is, finally, a word is untimely in three different senses, and bearing it as one's treasure will not win one anyone's favours; one rather risks finding oneself outside everyone's camp... Beauty is the word that shall be our first.
Hans Urs Von BalthasarRead
I feel very strongly that I’m surrounded by other realities.
Ingmar BergmanRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Ferdinand De Saussure | QuoteProject