183 Quotes About Linguistics

Two of the biggest problems with language is that you can say what you do not mean to say, and that you can say what you do not mean.

English, like any other natural language, has two major communicative functions. The first is an ideational function: to get an idea across, as when I say, It’s raining, or I love you. It also has an interactive-interpersonal function: to influence the attitudes and behaviours of others, and, in a myriad ways, change an aspect of the world’s states of affairs in the process

Just keep communication going.

Teach me to speak the language of men.

Words give all things meaning.

Don't you find it odd that two of the foremost symptoms of insanity are the hearing voices and talking to oneself? Is it any wonder that language is an area of such interest in psychology?(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

The name of a thing gets in the way of us seeing more of it.

The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.

A fist is not a thing but a particular state of a particular thing.