Saussure- I am a better person for having read this…

My goal, this semester, is to be so well versed in a text that all I’ll have to do is smell it and I’ll be able to recite everything off the page. That said I have not achieved my goal as creepy as it sounds.

I left class eager to dive into Saussure’s piece knowing that it was supposed to be straight forward. Was it supposed to be interesting (I asked myself)? Maybe it was…maybe it was really interesting and I missed something…I better read it again…wait…wait…still sucks…what’s going on here?

I guess I could break down what I got from the text, but that seems pointless since we’ll probably do that collectively tomorrow. Instead, I’ll tell you what I asked of the piece to clarify for me. First, what are the linguistic organisms of language?– Phonemes, lexicals, dialects? How is language a social institution?- Because as a community we create it? Why is language a human phenomena?- no ans. What is the value of a word? His sheep and money examples helped a bit with this last question, but I had a hard time applying the concept to other words outside of a biblical reference (cup, grail, holy cup).

Language was/is conceived somewhat arbitrarily. For the creation of language to be truly arbitrary seems a bit farce. If the creation of language is a social institution how can it be arbitrary?

The question I found myself asking the most was SO WHAT?!? This led me to two conclusions; 1) I have a bad attitude which has blinded me in realizing the greatness of this piece, or 2) It needs salt.