Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language.
quote by Roman Jakobson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I am calling attention just to the main points of these tremendously important matters, which can be understood better by pious meditation than explained by human language.
quote by Martin Chemnitz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Earth's got a firelit navel
hidden in darkness revealed in the light
spreading wings over the Tower of Babel
torn down in ashes that it may grow
bespoken by silence that it may know
the joys of speech when all sounds reach
the highest point in all the wordles
the joys of speech when all sounds reach
the joints of crosswords over the hurdles
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning.
quote by Roman Jakobson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What is not understood [explained] by what is less understood. [To make confusion still more confounded.]
Elliot's Oak
Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud
With sounds of unintelligible speech,
Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach,
Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd;
With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed,
Thou speakest a different dialect to each;
To me a language that no man can teach,
Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud.
For underneath thy shade, in days remote,
Seated like Abraham at eventide
Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown
Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote
His Bible in a language that hath died
And is forgotten, save by thee alone.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Love can be understood only ""from the inside,"" as a language can be understood only by someone who speaks it, as a world can be understood only by someone who lives in it.
quote by Robert C. Solomon
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My idea here is that, inasmuch as certain cognitive tasks and principles are tied to nature's laws, these tasks and principles are indifferent to language, culture, gender, or the particular mode of information that is provided.
quote by Edward Tufte
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Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
quote by Roland Barthes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Speech Behind Speech
Speech behind speech
That teaches itself under the touch and sight
In the night-bound city
Uncovers spaces where no spaces were before
Language of light
Uncovers spaces where no spaces were
Between the image of it and your face
Language of silence
Surface and see and touch
My name was left [?, maybe "expected"]
Speech behind speech
That teaches itself under the touch and sight
In the night-bound city
Language of light
Uncovers spaces where no spaces were
Between the image of it and your face
Language of silence
Surface and see and touch
My name was left [?, maybe "expected
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't ""sail"" anyway. Send it back for further thought.
quote by Donald Rumsfeld
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
quote by William Godwin
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The Rest
The rest of us watch from beyond the fence
as the woman moves with her jagged stride
into her pain as if into a slow race.
We see her body in motion
but hear no sounds, or we hear
sounds but no language; or we know
it is not a language we know
yet. We can see her clearly
but for her it is running in black smoke.
The cluster of cells in her swelling
like porridge boiling, and bursting,
like grapes, we think. Or we think of
explosions in mud; but we know nothing.
All around us the trees
and the grasses light up with forgiveness,
so green and at this time
of the year healthy.
We would like to call something
out to her. Some form of cheering.
There is pain but no arrival at anything.
poem by Margaret Atwood
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The radiant and well-understood speech of one person is better than the speech of a thousand people that is not.
In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.
I believe that one can indeed work on two or more tasks at once, but in ways yet to be understood.
quote by Marilyn vos Savant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When you're standing in front of an audience like this that is so enthusiastic and so much behind you, it is very hard to give a bad speech. Even a bad speech sounds good in a convention hall like this.
quote by Susan Estrich
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Language from Womb to Tomb
It is heard from mother's womb,
taught and learned through the days
and years; repeated, remembered,
quoted, mimicked, twisted,
spoken to bless and to curse.
It is to make one
come across the border lines
It is to feel a part of the whole
It is to understand and be understood.
It is seed that grows through the years
It is a pen that records the scars and stars
It is present in the years of our life
the years lost and gone
and the years to come.
It is language
from mother's womb
to our own tomb
It is language of jubilation,
of judgment and adoration
It is law and order
It is history-
document and monument.
It is victory and defeat.
It is the language of love
It is the language of hate.
It is the language of life
and the language of death.
_____________
May 7,2010
poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen
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Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and on my arrival I was fully convinced that he understood it.
quote by Chaim Weizmann
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Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.
quote by John McGahern
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Even while we busily attend meetings, contribute money and perform our assigned tasks, we suspect that we may be helping to create a force that is inimical to many values we hold dear.
quote by Robert Shea
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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