Post Class Thoughts-Abbey 9/24

        During class today, we discussed language. We explored the inner-workings of language and how it fits into our society. I really connected with and was intrigued by Ferdinand de Saussure’s idea that in order for language to have meaning it has to be shared. I want to connect this to a reading in my RFLA 200, Picturing Place. The article was about the meaning home in terms of the ideas of place and community. The author explains to find your place in the world, you must observe the history around the physical place you are in. The author then poses the question that if some piece of history does not have someone to pass it down is it forgotten? Has it lost its meaning? Is it not real? This begs the question that if something is not amplified someway in some form of language does it exist? I have no idea if this question can be answered or explained because it is so complex. I do believe that in order for something to have meaning it needs to be shared with a community, so it can become a fixed value. I also believe that somethings are personal only to be shared with oneself, so aren’t individual thoughts a language too? I think in a way I disagree with de Saussure because I don’t believe everything has to be shared in a language to have meaning. I believe that my feelings cannot always be expressed in an accepted language of society, but they still have meaning to me even if not a single other person on the earth can understand. I think as long as a person can understand oneself, one’s own language has meaning because it has meaning to oneself. I think it is kind of like not needing to rely on other’s validity to ensure one’s thoughts or feelings have meaning. I know this is a big concept, but I felt it was important to explore the counter-argument to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory that language must be shared to have meaning. Wouldn’t it be sad to think our lives no longer had meaning when there was no none to remember us?