JOH Saussure

Heavy things ...
The study of linguistics seems super fascinating, while dynamic and intimidating . I am not very experienced at such a study, however, I recognize the utility in being at least familiar with the concepts and the impetus for related exploration. Dipping in, I found some interesting aspects of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1916).

The discriminations made between name sets were a good warmer, opening me to thinking about words, terms, signs, and names as more than the labels I have been programmed to receive, digest, and regurgitate. Connected to Voloshinov's statement that 'Signs can only arise on inter-individual territory,' the notion that "the sign is not autonomous and self-sufficient but always determined within ideology and in relation to subjectivity" pointed my thoughts in the direction of reflection - on known words and labels, terms and their relationship to human interaction and correspondence, the origin of language and the state of human thought prior to language, and the impact of language on all things experienced (related specifically to the PM themes discussed in our first session last week). Great calisthenics for the Saussure excerpt...

The quote, "Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula" induced an aural hallucination of a Carl Sagen narration of "billions and billions of signs ..." Really, it's interesting to consider that the all powerful human mind could be, as Saussure asserts, a messy scoop of thought-pudding. Vanilla? I should hope not. The statement stirred me to question just what went on in the mind of early man when, a few million years ago, his brain grew to unprecedented size, causing him to be born into the world the least developed of all mammals. Growing into his head, did he lack the ability to organize his images, desires, fears, and what not? And what of his ego? Did it (his ego) play a similar role in the thought and action process that it does for me now? Wow, if he was dealing straight pudding, his ego must've really been irritated. How does one cry me, me, me! when the thoughts scatter about in Cosby's sugar-soup?

Moving on, I found myself drawing little diagrams in the margins of one "cloud form," labeled T, and another a space to its right labeled S, with -----> labeled L = Communication (to aid in my understanding of the SOUND/THOUGHT/LANGUAGE relationship.

WHAT?

On a final note, as to not miss the 5PM deadline, the statement that "by himself the individual is incapable of fixing a single value" lends so much to my understanding of humans as social creatures. Much like the reliance of sound upon thought, and visa versa, human verbal communication is reliant upon interaction. Now what of nonverbal communication and its relationship to reliance? Oh, so much ... I look forward to tomorrow's session.

We shall see.