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Spoken Language Quotes

Browse 26 quotes about Spoken Language.

Spoken Language Quotes

“The spoken language is a symbolization of something that happened, could have happened, or is in the process of happening, while the written language is a symbolization of the spoken language. James Joyce, for example, dedicated his life to trying to close the gap between the two systems. In Finnegans Wake, Joyce portrays in writing the workings of the verbal parts of the brain.”

Written LanguageSpoken LanguageJames JoyceSymbolization
Book:Beyond Culture
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“The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.”

PeopleIdeasLanguageCommunicateAcceptedSillyMannersCodeBehaveArtificialEtiquetteSpoken Language
Book:Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson
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“We are like dogs, cats, cows, rats ... What separates us from them and from the remaining matches against mammals is negligible. To have the same diseases. Rats spread plague like us, but we are just as contagious as them. And the dogs get diabetes, like we do, and get cancer, like us. And age, like us. And die, like us. Why then the biblical claim that man is the king of creation? Perhaps because only man has developed spoken language, the words, wherein lies its prodigious ability to lie.”

MenAgeLyingDiesLanguageAbilityDogCreationKingsDiseaseCatClaimsCancerSpreadCowsBiblicalRatsPlagueContagiousDiabetesMammalsProdigiousSpoken Language
Author:Fernando Vallejo
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“The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver," "taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.”

FactsUseFeelingsLanguageFitMarkBlueFakeDullTypicalTaxiTemptingProfaneCoarseHunchesSlangSpoken LanguageFeeling BlueGrouches
Book:Etiquette: In Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home
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“In conducting interviews, my fascination is not only with the content of the conversation, but also the overall delivery of spoken language - so much of one's personality and story is embedded within their speech, their rhythms, the structure of their thoughts, their use of particular diction or dialect.”

StoriesUseLanguageParticularPersonalityConversationSpeechStructureRhythmInterviewsFascinationDeliveryEmbeddedConductingDialectDictionSpoken Language
Author:Steve Cosson
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“Everyone is used to speaking a slightly different "language" with their parents than with their peers, because spoken language changes every generation - like they say, the past is a foreign country - but I think this is intensified for children whose parents also grew up in a geographically foreign country.”

ThinkingChildrenDifferentCountryPastUsedLanguageParentGenerationsGrewGrew UpPeersForeign CountriesDifferent LanguagesSpoken Language
Author:Elif Batuman
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“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages”

PeopleYearsFirstsHas BeensMadeStillsLastsSpeakLanguageLearningProgressInspirational LifeTravelFirst TimeTongueDespiteShockedForeign LanguageLanguage LearningTravel AbroadMother TongueLearning LanguageCulture And LanguageLanguage CultureSpoken LanguageAmerican Language
Book:Dave Barry's Greatest Hits
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