Language Analysis Quotes

Ordinary language carries with it conditions of meaning which it is easy to recognize by classifying the contexts in which the expression is employed in a meaningful manner.

I know what the structure of the language is.

Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic.

For one thing, studying language is by itself a part of a study of human intelligence that is, perhaps, the central aspect of human nature. And second, I think, it is a good model for studying other human properties, which ought to be studied by psychologists in the same way.

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible.

I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences.

Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.

Teaching literature is teaching how to read. How to notice things in a text that a speed-reading culture is trained to disregard, overcome, edit out, or explain away; how to read what the language is doing, not guess what the author was thinking; how to take evidence from a page, not seek a reality to substitute for it.

In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation.

Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy profession, and a large number of its practitioners spend many nights drowning their sorrows in Ouisghian Zodahs.

We focus upon pairs of words very often which are the same in some areas and different in other areas.

Why don’t you purchase an Italian dictionary? I will assume the expense.” “I have one,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s very good. Half the words are missing.” “Half?” “Well, some,” she amended. “But truly, that’s not the problem.” He blinked, waiting for her to continue. She did. Of course. “I don’t think Italian is the author’s native tongue,” she said. “The author of the dictionary?” he queried. “Yes. It’s not terribly idiomatic.

What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender.

I'm an infant with Shakespeare; I'm kind of learning how to walk. I am trying to decipher the code, you know? I do my research. And I get a clear understanding of what the language is. It is a tremendous process I have to go through as I am sure all actors do, finding the gems hidden in his language.

I'm left-brained, so I'm all about a mathematical approach to language. I've always been interested in that.

I believe that a large part of the training in the regional theaters is in imitation of the British style of acting. The British orientation is textual; they start from the language and work toward the character.

Names and other proper nouns shouldn't distract from the language.

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.

The Biblical text does not have punctuation marks like periods and question marks. Where we end sentences is a matter of interpretation.

Understanding that these statements do not represent reality, we should not be threatened by the language that he has used.

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.

Failure to grasp centrifugal meaning is incomplete reading; failure to grasp centripetal meaning is incompetent reading.

Let us distinguish between acting intentionally and acting deliberately or on purpose, as far as this can be done by attending to what language can teach us.

Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first word: it should be examined before it is discarded.

The study of gender and language might seem at first to be a narrowly focused field, but it is actually as interdisciplinary as they come.