"Language can also be compared with a sheet of paper: thought is the front and the sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; likewise, in language, one can neither divide sound from thought nor thought from sound; the division could be accomplished only abstractly, and the result would be either pure psychology or pure phonology (pg. 6)."
I was very that we were able to discuss this quote in class because I found it to be one of the most memorable quotes from the reading. We often forget that just because we do not always verbalize our thoughts, we still often think in words/language, ergo, we think in sounds. As we mature and accept sounds as words and words as language, we ultimately use those understood sounds as a means of processing the world around us. When thinking about this concept, it is essential to keep in mind that words and language are nothing more than sounds with agreed upon meanings.
To help reinforce this idea, try and think about/process your environment without using language to assign meaning to things; it isn't exactly possible. When we process the world around us, we use experience and understood meaning to process and explain what we are experiencing.
I have always been interested to know how someone like Helen Keller, suffering form lack of sight and hearing, was able to grasp certain concepts such as language. Furthermore, I would be very curious as to how she processed and thought about the world in the years before she learned how to really communicate. The world would be such a scary, overwhelming place if you had no means of communication or to assigning meaning to the world around you.
Bellow I have attached a short clip of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, explaining how Keller was able to learn how to communicate using language:
http://www.wimp.com/helenkeller/
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