Postscript : Saussure and His Interpreters

In everyday parole words have to be used in accordance with the dictates of the particular circumstances in which they are used, whatever the theorist of langue may say. One of the constant demands in parole requires reference to objects, persons, events, relations and classes in that external world, and reference to these as actually existing realia present here and now. Language is thus called upon the level of generality that may easily satisfy the lexicographer or the grammarian. It must focus on the specifics of particular situations. In those situations, speakers ‘know what they are talking about’ because what they are talking about can be see, or touched, or pointed out, or picked up, or tasted and subjected to all kinds of practical examination which go far beyond the limits of verbal description. When the stall-holder in the market shouts his wares, he may well use such common words as grapes, carrots, and so on. And in so doing he is doubtless relying to some extent on potential buyers’ general concept of what a grape is and what a carrot is. Nevertheless, he is not talking about grapes and carrots in general, nor even the grapes and carrots on the next stall, but the grapes and carrots he is selling on his stall: and these you have to inspect for yourself. In short, it is the anchorage of words to the evidence of the senses that makes them mean what they do in such cases. –(Harris 2007: 247-248)