Saussure stated that there is a difference between language and speech. He said that speech is what we do with language, which is filled with variations and mistakes. "Speech is a mess," he stated. On the other hand, "pure, clean, a steel skyscraper arising from the chaos in the streets." He says that it is people who mess up langauge, but would that be the case if the language was really perfect? It seems that he blames people for the problems with communication, but if our language was actually perfect then wouldn't those problems cease to exist? Shouldn't the language itself be seen as the root of the problem of miscommunication instead of as the victim?
Comments (3)
I still wasn't quite satisfied about this after our discussion in class...I'm not sure that language can or will ever be perfect. Because it's arbitrary at its very root, there can't be any inherant logic. I don't know if what all this effectively means is that there is a "perfect language" in the head of the speaker, but in our rush to communicate (or maybe to even be able to communicate) we fumble along.
I know that I speak haltingly and apologetically when I speak in class, because I'm trying to naviagate constructing a concept, finding examples, letting my audience know why I'm choosing the concepts that I'm working with due to my background, while at the same time, not trying to voice offensive assumptions. That's a lot of stuff to juggle... Maybe in a formal (and written) discertation or if my speaking were a (written) scene in a movie, the "most perfect form" would emerge, but we don't have time to go write tomes instead of talking.
Oddly enough, function usually trumps aesthetic for me (kind of...I like the aesthetic of function without regard for aesthetic, if that makes any sense....), so in light of speaking, language is a quaint hypothetical that I don't have much use for.
Posted by Tamara Belden | March 27, 2008 11:26 AM
Posted on March 27, 2008 11:26
I also found our discussion of speech vs language somewhat frustrating. If there is this perfect language, then no one has probably ever used it. Furthermore, could we ever pinpoint the perfect language? How can we really know what is "perfect" if we are not always sure what is right or wrong in language? We talked about the fact that we can identify some things in our language that are considered "illegal", but other parts of language can be debatable. This may have something to do with the languaculture. In that the "perfectness" of your language may have to do with your individual culture? But couldn't the perfect language somewhat overrule some cultures?
Posted by Rachel Learned | March 28, 2008 2:16 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 14:16
I think I agree with Saussure. I think that there is a difference between language and speech; speech is a way for us to produce language. Our language may not be perfect, but I think it's better than the speech we produce. This goes back to something we discussed earlier in the semester- we may have a concept in our heads, but when we try to describe it, the words don't accurately portray what we want to say. While it might not be our fault, I think that the root of the problem is actually our speech, and that the problem occurs somewhere along the way while we're trying to produce language.
Posted by Wendy Paddock | March 28, 2008 3:44 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 15:44