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A western scholar must de-europeanize himself, and, in view of the most universal use of English, an Englishman must de-Anglicize himself as well.

— John Rupert Firth J. R. Firth (1956)

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More quotes by John Rupert Firth

The complete meaning of a word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from context can be taken seriously.

The phonetic animal par excellence is man. All men are born with an infinite capacity for making noises and using them.

Research into the detailed contextual distribution of sociologically important words, what one might call focal or pivotal words, is only just beginning.

You shall know a word by the company it keeps.

Meaning... is to be regarded as a complex of contextual relations, and phonetics, grammar, lexicography, and semantics each handles its own components of the complex in its appropriate context.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Rupert Firth (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.