Signs, Processes and Associations
sons, mais a s’agit de ce fait en quelque sort mystérieux, que la ‘pensée-son’ implique des divisions et que la langue élabore ses unités en se constituant entre deux masses amorphes. (de Saussure.)
The relations between the idea and the sign are as vital to language as the etheric impulses are to a system of radio-telegraphy. Either system is intelligible only through accepted standards; and each is effective only through its articulate impulses or continuity of relationship. Thus linguistic signs, conventionally standardized, are capable of giving definition to ideas and suggestive meanings to emotions, although no unification of signs is capable of giving substance to the things for which they stand. The concrete elements and the unity of language can not be defined because they are unknown. All linguistic signs are relative in value; and the law that governs their relativity is arbitrary or conventional. The individual must conform to the collective spirit of this law. He can not
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