The phonetic animal par excellence is man. All men are born with an infinite capacity for making noises and using them.
— John Rupert Firth
Share this quote
Another quote →
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.
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.
J. R. Firth (1956)
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.
All John Rupert Firth quotes →