Linguistic Quotes

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.

Every linguistic sign is located on two axes: the axis of simultaneity and that of succession.

Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

Logical positivists have never taken psychology into account in their epistemology, but they affirm that logical beings and mathematical beings are nothing but linguistic structures.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

In general, the philological movement opened up countless sources relevant to linguistic issues, treating them in quite a different spirit from traditional grammar; for instance, the study of inscriptions and their language. But not yet in the spirit of linguistics.

A new era in the physiological investigation of linguistic sounds was opened up by X-ray photography.

Intended to serve as an introduction to both the linguistic and also the practical study of spoken English.

If only Queen Elizabeth II had the intellectual, political and linguistic skills of Queen Elizabeth I, many people would support giving her some of the powers of an elected president.

Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

Why does everyone cling to the masculine imagery and pronouns even though they are a mere linguistic device that has never meant that God is male?

Logic and mathematics are nothing but specialised linguistic structures.

If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition.

No important national language, at least in the Occidental world, has complete regularity of grammatical structure, nor is there a single logical category which is adequately and consistently handled in terms of linguistic symbolism.

Literature that keeps employing new linguistic and formal modes of expression to draft a panorama of society as a whole while at the same time exposing it, tearing the masks from its face - for me that would be deserving of an award.