Post class blog 9/5 Mary Stufano

After class it was much easier to really understand what Barthes and de Saussure were saying. Their ideas still however make somewhat confused just because certain concepts are hard to grasp. The quote that stuck out to me in class was, “In the beginning was the word. And the word was God.” I never thought about the idea that language came before thought, or if it was the other way around. It is so hard to have something like that make sense in my head. It almost feels impossible to come up with the word before we have thoughts, but then again thoughts before words doesn’t make much sense either. When we speak or think it all just happens so naturally and we don’t have to worry about making ourselves do either of those. It is such a simple concept that is complex at the same time, that I am sure many people haven’t really gotten the chance to think about either. I also like the quote by de Saussure that says, “Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the values of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of others.” By the creation of words, the ability for more words to come about is possible. All words and language are somehow all linked together. I still find it crazy to think about how language started, especially since it is a major part of our daily life that we never really think twice about. This also makes me think about language barriers between people. Concepts are so hard to get across sometimes because of different meanings of words, or certain slang used by areas. This reminds me of the game telephone because sometimes the message gets distorted between people as the message passes from person to person. I feel like the same thing can happen in real life with language